Well, as you can see in the pictures above:
'VX3 repair/ maintenance - helpful info - #6 by lishine
There is a lot of void in the remote, also around the antenna. And according to my test, when the water enters inside the remote, it disconnects.
So the idea is to fill it with a closed cells PU foam.
In the meantime I surrounded the anntena with as much silicon as I could. I do not have picture right now, but the connection now improved and it seems that I don’t experience the disconnects on splash.
I see some fog/water being now in the display, it’s coverage changes. I hope it will not cause damage. Maybe PU foam + silicon with prevent this in the future.
Fog/water is the beginning of the end for the VX3 display in my experience. They all eventually fail once this starts. The display is potted but water still somehow gets in and slowly degrades. I’ve had four of them fail and have given up on them.
I have several VX3’s now going into my second season and have not experienced the issue. During my first year I was in the water a lot as I was learning, I don’t fall off as often now but the remote gets fully immersed at least two times each session when I launch and retrieve
Immersed all the time, I’m using small boards and catching waves. The early ones seemed slightly better, have just bought the Pro version to see if it’s any better but will end up using Bremote only I suspect. Response from Flipsky has been pretty good to be fair. Had to send the last one back to China but previously they simply replaced. Very frustrating, the display completely disappears in the end but you can still use the remote ‘blind’ however the whole thing dies eventually. Such a waste
I just received a new “non-pro” model so I have a spare.
Screen brightness is a LOT better. Not sure on if it’s a different screen or they changed the firmware to make it brighter.
The circled corners show small cracks in the corners of the clear case - I had the same cracks with my failed displays. I’m pretty certain () Andrii has come up with a good solution. I’m going to experiment with one of my faulty ones to see how difficult it is to remove the display.
To remove the screen I used the exacto knife and inserted the blade between the clear case and the black epoxy. The clear case is made of some chemically resistant plastic and does not bond with epoxy well, so it is easy to split them. Also, try lifting the screen evenly.
Following on from Andrii’s inspiration I decided to fill the clear case surrounding the display with epoxy.
I tried removing the display from the case with an old kaput handset and found it quite difficult, even after freeing up all the way around with a blade.
So for these two brand new Pro handsets I simply drilled two 2mm holes in the corners of the cases and injected epoxy with a syringe.
Pretty good result, on one I managed to wet out the front of the display - allow a complete film of epoxy between the display and the inside of the clear cover. The second one didn’t fully wet out but it’s far more noticeable when the display is off and perfectly acceptable when it’s on.
Ideally I should have had a vacuum chamber to suck out air bubbles after injecting the epoxy - I’ll try that next. But all in all both displays are working fine and I’m certain that this will help with the water ingress that seems to affect all the VX3’s eventually.
I ended up with an air bubble cavity in the epoxy around the hole where I injected but I’ll mix more epoxy and fill that.
I have another display that had salt water seep into the display and end up sitting between the display and the inside of the clear case. I’ve drilled that one and left it overnight in a fruit/food drying machine, hopefully I will be able to remove most of the moisture trapped in there before doing the epoxy treatment. Also use this dryer for my 3D printing filament (and occasionally for drying fruit ).
It is quite a meticulous procedure to take that screen out.
Have you tried blowing the warm air through one of the two holes you have drilled to remove the moisture?
I noticed some changes between my 6 month old VX3 and new VX3 Pro. Suspect they are trying to improve the sealing technique. I’ve epoxied the new ones but may not have needed to.
The one with the water in it that I drilled in three places totally dried out after being in the fruit drying oven at 45 degrees C for 15 hours. It’s now epoxied as well. So fingers crossed I have three sealed VX3’s to enjoy!
You can see the clean black edge in the new one compared to the earlier messy silicone/black epoxy muddle.
Even on the new ones it looks like some areas of black epoxy to polycarbonate casing show more effective wetting than others. Maybe there is release agent there, who knows. Certainly appears that Flipsky are trying to improve things though. One I sent back for warranty they are replacing as well to their credit.
) Andrii has come up with a good solution. I’m going to experiment with one of my faulty ones to see how difficult it is to remove the display.
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