As the title suggests, is putting a hold on our puncher(in its drawback position) a good idea? I’m wondering whether this is bad for the motor. This would be on an 100rpm 1:1 puncher with about 6 bands on each side. I’m worried it would break the motor.
A hold function provides power to the motor. There would always be the danger if it burning out. A ratchet is a safer bet.
But, I am sure other people have tried it. They will be better sources than me on this particular topic, as they have had real experience to combat my theoretical yields.
I have tried using a hold on my 1:5 200 rpm puncher with 6 bands per side and it kept overheating. I would advise adding a rachet instead (vex rachet works fine for a puncher or you can make a custom one).
as others have said, I’d stick on a ratchet to be on the safe side. It might work, but could overheat.
for a couple weeks i had accidentally set my 1:1 100rpm puncher with 6 bands on it to hold even though i had a ratchet on it. It never burned out and we took the ratchet off and tested it and it still didn’t burn out so you should be fine. But a ratchet is still a lot safer than using hold.
well if you had a ratchet on the whole time then the motor wasn’t the one doing the holding so it couldn’t burn out. it depend I think on how many bands you have.
Not related, but why do you have 6 bands on each side of your puncher?
gotta make those full venue shots am I right
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But that needed 6 total for me, why does it require 12 for you? You might want to check your friction levels.
idk probably something to do with the rubber bands and how they banded them
nah the motor hold was doing all of the holding the ratchet wasn’t doing anything until i set it to hold
huh alright them maybe it would work
bear in mind that was with 6 bands total, op has 6 bands per side.
I’m pretty sure it is due to our low teeth slipgears and low strength rubber bands. We should have switched these out but, hey it works. Regardless, we shoot over the net from the back so it’s been working pretty good.
If you are shooting over the net from the back then it will likely be way to much stress on the motor to hold.
Lol I use 4 on mine and it works full field and give more then enough power
My team will accept any and all mentoring on developing our new puncher before Worlds. 
Effective use of a ratchet.
Finding that perfect rubber band attachment point.
Figuring out how many teeth and what size gear and rotational value and all that.
It is fully functional, but it isn’t calibrated well at all. They are having difficulty getting balanced power and efficient recycling for shots after the first one.
Anyone with awesome ideas can message them my way. Appreciated as always!
This won’t be directly applicable, as we use a catapult, but holding has been perfectly fine for us all season. We had a single catapult on 2m 5:3 (cortex) at the beginning of the season and it held at ~10 power. We have had two 2bc’s since (both on V5), both used the inbuilt hold and have been perfectly fine. Our older one would last about 10 minutes before burning out. Our new one isn’t yet thoroughly tested, but it seems to be even better.
Again, this isn’t directly applicable to a puncher, but I thought I’d throw in my 2 cents anyway in case it helps.