Question about part 4211644

snowhitie

Okay, i am pretty new to the forum. I have loved - loved - loved building Lego and technic as a kid but since uni and moving out of my parents house (where I left all my bricks and they gave them to my siblings :( ) I stopped for a while. I now have a five year old and after years of duplo-fun we have graduated to lego. I am not sure I am buying the things for him or just for me ;) We build together (some bits he just looks on cause we've got some sets that are to advanced for him), we play together, take apart, build again, it is so much fun! My husband is even buying me a milennium falcon, that i've wanted forever.
I've been bricksetting for a while and reading the forum and getting more and more into the lingo and ideas, this is all so exciting!

But, there is a part I have a problem with, part 4211644 and wanted to see if other people had the same problem/any solutions might be offered.

I own it in 70816: Benny's Spaceship, Spaceship, SPACESHIP!, 75017: Duel on Geonosis and
2824: City Advent Calendar. I have not opened the Geonosis one yet because it is going to be my sons Xmas present for me (yes he is five, but he likes to buy nice things for his mummy ;) ) so can't
comment on this one.

But in the spacehsip and the advent calendar this part seems to not work for me. In the advent calendar I ended up using a different construction altogether (see pic) for Santa's shower seeing as the see-through sfere just falls out of it. In Benny's spaceship (for the rest, a truly AMAZING set) you use 4 of these parts to make the arms for the two little robots. Again, the arms just fall off and do not stay on. Do you have any tips on this? I really do not want to take out the KRAGLE ;)

thanks in advance!

binaryeye

I believe this part is pretty well-known to have weak clutch. I know people have had problems with it in the #21109 Exo-Suit. I had problems with it in #10243 Parisian Restaurant, where it's used to build hanging potted plants; the clutch wasn't strong enough when attached to the plant piece, so I ended up just putting the "pots" on top of the holder.

Normally with something like this, I'd contact LEGO for replacement parts, but I don't know that replacement parts would be any better in this case.

GallardoLU

the standard fix is to use a variant of #4129988 (light saber blade) any part with a similar diameter also works (the 3L version is used to fix the exo-suit) and put it through the hole in the hollow stud end.

binaryeye

^ This would work for the OPs problem, but not for my example in PR (the plant stems have a closed stud).

snowhitie

Hi, thanks for feedback. I did email CS, figure they should definitely be told about it. Using the lightsaber piece might work sometimes and is a good tip. But for the flying robots it won't do. I attached a pic of one with and without arms.

snowhitie

Can't seem to upload pic for the moment, will try again later

snowhitie

And the pic..

GallardoLU

hmm, that one looks like it will be tricky, (those studs from the plate really get in the way here) do you have a microphone on hand #6018819, I'm not certain but it might just be long enough to reach and only leave a silver ball on the outside of the shoulder.

plasmodium

Is the issue that the 'arms' are falling off? Why not just shove a lightsaber blade (or a 3L) through the middle? It works for the robot in #5002812.

GallardoLU

@plasmodium‌ I thought about that too, but if you look close the stud tops from the 1x2 plate on the back side will get in the way of the 3l saber blade. if Snowhitie want to keep that on the back then another trick needs to be thought up :/

plasmodium

Oh, I see. Looking at the thumbnail I thought it was a studless 1x2 the other way up, but I see now that is not the case.

snowhitie

Yes, if I remove the backplate it would work but then the robots don't click into place in the spaceship. But it is better than robots without arms ;-)

A tad annoying...

Thanks for the suggestions, can't try the microphone since I don't own any friends sets (or an alien spaceship)

Strange that this part gives so many problems and lego does not get it fixed, they must be able to adapt the mould or something?

1974

Mold is worn out, has been mentioned elswhere

binaryeye

1974 said:

Mold is worn out, has been mentioned elswhere

I've read this, but it doesn't make sense to me. If the mold is worn, wouldn't the anti-stud be smaller and have better (or too much) clutch?

plasmodium

If the mould is worn out, it just means the plastic is going to be thinner, meaning that grip in every part is reduced. The 'clip' at the end will be looser, the 'arm' willl be thinner, the stud at the bottom will have a wider inner diameter (which is what matters here) and the stud at the top will have a narrower outer diameter.

It won't be by much, but it takes surprisingly little to affect clutch power.

binaryeye

plasmodium said:

If the mould is worn out, it just means the plastic is going to be thinner, meaning that grip in every part is reduced.

Wouldn't it be the opposite, though? The mold is a negative of the part, so if it's been worn down over time, wouldn't the resulting plastic piece be larger than intended? For example, if I hold my fingers parallel to each other and move them apart to simulate wear, the space between them gets larger. To make the space more narrow (i.e. less clutch), I need to move them closer together. Does a mold accumulate build-up (e.g. excess ABS) over time?

plasmodium

Oh yeah, I see what you mean. Interesting.

Oldfan

Re: mold wearout: Depends on where the mold is wearing out, I guess...

SirBen

Would a piece of flex-tubing fit through the arms and brick, and bend enough inside to allow the plate to still attach to the back?

snowhitie

That might work, but I don't have any ;) My parents won't let me get my old lego out of their house (very annoyed seeing as a teenager I had really lots of lovely technic models) but they want to keep it for the grandkids... pff

But after Xmas I am planning on picking some bricks so will get a flex tube bit. for the moment the robots just stay in their holding place and dont fly around ;)

CCC

A slightly better solution than using glue is to cut a bar so that it just sits in the hole, and doesn't push through to the studs poking in.

At least that way you only damage one cheap part, and you can still take it apart again.

Galactus

I had the same problem with some recent sets. It seems to be common nowadays :(
If I recall correctly this wasn't an issue, say, ten years ago.

snowhitie said:

But for the flying robots it won't do. I attached a pic of one with and without arms.

I don't know if it will fit, but maybe you can replace the blue plate with a jumper and then use the bar 3L?

snowhitie

So that's it, with a 3l bar through and a jumper on the back it works! Now it still clicks into the ship and the arms don't cone off... They stick out a tiny bit but that is nit really a problem. I rather keep the bars whole. Thanks so much for all your suggestions!

snowhitie

A happy thank you wave from robo-emmet with the two robots in the spaceship!