Loctite Potting Material

[keebs]

I am having a great deal of trouble with the Loctite Encap potting material. I have been touble shooting for months and am getting little support from our area rep. I am wondering if anyone else is having trouble with inconsistent curing of the Encap material? I purchase the material in quart size cans and mix it by hand. I thouroghly mix the product and pot ten sensor housings. I will have six good, four bad, and the material in the cup is good. When I say good I mean the material has cured properly and is not slimy. Thanks

 

[bobbyv]

You may need to question your "mixing" technique. Sem kits can be purchased that allready have the proper ratio of materials. Mixing by hand can allow for errors in proper ratio, some of the compound may not be getting enough hardner or you may be getting to much air into the chemical compound which could evaporate some of the volitile chemicals needed to harden your potting material. If you are confident in your current proceedure then I would recomend that you look into getting some potting material from a different lot, if your area rep is not helpful in assisting you, time for a new company, there are plenty of reps out there that are helpful and will be greatful for the buisiness.

 

[CarlPugh]

There are a couple of other things that could cause this problem. One crummy place I worked, the scales were defective, so the person mixing the epoxy just poured some epoxy and hardner together. Of course this gave erratic results.
The other possibility is that something in the unit that is being potted is not compatiable with the epoxy. The literature for the epoxy (Endcap) should give a list of these materials.
You are probably not vacuuming this unit. Putting a good vacuum on epoxy before it hardens will pull the hardner out of the epoxy.