General Part Discussion

[Void_S]

I believe that this part is just cheaper than 2L with axle hole because of less material consumption. I remember that was said somewhere across this forum (2018 set, I suppose) that since TLG got possibility to mix their own colors (white ABS + dye), there is no efforts to make some recolors using the existing molds and colors. Plus it was a discussion that Constraction theme isn't very cost-effective (ton of new molds for every new set), so I think that they also tried to reduce the costs using all possible ways.

[zux]

15 hours ago, Error404 said:

Ok, thanks for the explanation.

I do wonder why Bricklink and other sites use different names though, makes it all confusing to me.

It is because in early days LEGO didn't share the colour names, thus community came up with their own names. To be honest, I prefer names created by community as they are far easier to remember as relate to actual colour.

[N-4K0]

Ok. Yeah, I agree, I too prefer the community names.

[Ivan_M]

The #4 LBG connector is already at B&P, around 0,42€ per piece, more important is black 5x7 frame, available at 1€ per piece.

\\edit: 92907 in blue is also there for 0,5€

Edited April 25, 2018 by Ivan_M

[1gor]

Just now, Ivan_M said:

The #4 LBG connector is already at B&P, around 0,42€ per piece, more important is black 5x7 frame, available at 1€ per piece.

I hope that this will lower bricklink prices for black frames because they are way to expensive 

[TechnicRCRacer]

LBG #4 connectors are on B&P now and are in stock!

[Countdown]

Anybody got a description/link for lego string equivalent?

[Omikron]

Hi all!

I recently ran into an old problem which haunted me since my childhood. Most of my parts that contain "bush" part in them are cracking like crazy.I can take literally 100 parts and about 80 % of them will crack upon inserting an axle in them. It is literally a plague for my lego collection. And it is so frustrating!

I must admit that these parts are not under stress or heat or humidity extremes. Kept at plain simple room temperature and being stored in the original cardboard box or a zip packet.

Any part that has this section           be it either a connector, a bush or a joint. I noticed that tactile feeling from these parts is kind of different from which I had when I unpacked them or used at the first time. New part have some tactile flexibility or elasticity of some kind and the ones that cracked fell more dried out and brittle. The plastic feels almost "thinner" than it was. I try not to use them a lot but the whole experience is becoming alarming and frustrating.

If anybody has the same problem - can you suggest a solution?

Edited May 6, 2018 by Omikron

[brunojj1]

I can´t confirm the issue regarding the new generation bushes in LBG (shown on the picture) which have been reinforced quite a while ago. The old ones were all cracking. 

When it comes to this part, 

it appears to me that the cracking appears especially on black parts. Not so much on LBG parts, who knows maybe they have a different mixture of stabilizing components e.g. titanium dioxide in its recipe. Or it also depends on damage caused by simple UV light which can harden chemical components in plastics and make them brittle.

The easy solution I can think of: replace bushes by 2x half bushes or 1L beams, whatever is better in the particular situation. Friction snaps to be replaced from other colors.

[TechnicRCRacer]

I definitely have problems with this. I have so many cracked U-joints that most of them are unusable. It is probably caused by being shaken around on the axle. Maybe there are small air bubbles in the plastic?

[Erik Leppen]

4 hours ago, Omikron said:

I can take literally 100 parts and about 80 % of them will crack upon inserting an axle in them.

After how many uses?

I mean, I have a few cracked "bush" ends of parts (especially 1x2, 1x3 and 2x2 crossblocks, but normal bushes too), but not 80%. On actual bush parts, I have the idea that red ones are slightly better, but this may just be an idea. They can also just be newer on average than the gray ones in my collection. The difference is not so noticable for me that I consider actual differences in the parts.

If it's on a common $0.02 part, like a gray bush, or one I have too many of anyway, such as a black 1x2 crossblock, I just throw it away. I do not want to get annoyed by something so cheap. But I do also have a few of those 3L bush pins in yellow that are cracked (from 8421, I think, so ~12 years old), which are rarer so I keep them for as long as they are usable, but most of them have cracked and sit really loose on axles. The axles don't have the freedom to rotate, but if it's not locked it just slides out.

The problem for me is not so bad on U-joints. But I don't really use those very often, and I sold all my 4L U-joints so I only have the newer 3L version.

I have the same problem with thin beams by the way. 1x2x0.5 beams are particularly bad. In my case, especially black ones, but these are probably the oldest I have in my collection.

So yeah. I stil think it's a design fault. If the bush had half the clutch power, it would work just as well, but the deformation would also be halved, so it would last longer.

Edit: but oh well. Who uses a bush these days. Most axles have stops these days, and we have 1L "bush with round hole" parts to use as axle fillers now.

Edited May 6, 2018 by Erik Leppen

[Omikron]

10 minutes ago, Erik Leppen said:

After how many uses?

Edit: but oh well. Who uses a bush these days. Most axles have stops these days, and we have 1L "bush with round hole" parts to use as axle fillers now.

1 or 2 mocs at most, sometimes they crack right away sometimes they don't. I literally need to buy a bunch of NEW ones of each type of connector / u joints / crossblocks for each moc from a bricklink and they still will crack!!!

Light bluish gray stuff is most vulnerable, then comes red and black+white parts share the third place. And I'm not talking about old stuff from 2004 or so. These are the parts from from 2014 and on.

And boy those 3L U joints are as fragile as smartphone screens  against concrete. Some times A whole half part just falls of of them as soon as you insert an axle.

BTW I'm not applying excessive force or use 3rd party parts or modified stuff or anything, they just brake apart...

 

For the last 10 years I have only one of the yellow half bush cracked for example. The grey ones still crack now and then but I think I have less than 10 of them failing during the same 10 years.

It's just so sad

[Erik Leppen]

That's pretty strange. I strongly suspect that either the parts you get are actually different from the parts I get, or the climate conditions are different. Does the place you live have any particular climate characteristics? Like humidity, temperature etc.?

Also, maybe someone else can confirm or reject this, but do sets sold in different countries come from different factories?

That said though, I have bought only 3 or so Technic sets since 2014. But I didn't notice anything strange there.

[Omikron]

16 hours ago, Erik Leppen said:

That's pretty strange. I strongly suspect that either the parts you get are actually different from the parts I get, or the climate conditions are different. Does the place you live have any particular climate characteristics? Like humidity, temperature etc.?

Also, maybe someone else can confirm or reject this, but do sets sold in different countries come from different factories?

That said though, I have bought only 3 or so Technic sets since 2014. But I didn't notice anything strange there.

The overall climate is continental type but parts are stored in cardboard boxes from sets they originated from in a usual habitable room with air conditioning and heaters to keep 24 Celsius on average. And humidity drifts from 45-ish to 75% during the year. I usually import lego from USA and EU depending on price and shipping cost. It still beats local prices.

UPD - all of the parts that are listed below are affected by this + some additional variations of them. I believe they came from 8070 car and 8110 Unimog and from 8436.

Colors affected - Light bluish grey, Red, Black, White, Yellow, Dark bluish gray. And U joints - they always fail despite everything =(

Oddly enough I have never had a failed gear or a pin. Like NEVER EVER for the past 30 years. I had a defective shock absorber spring once in 9398. But TLG admitted there was a whole batch of defective ones.

Edited May 7, 2018 by Omikron

[JonathanM]

Of the above I've only ever had the 2L perpendicular connectors (either axle/axle or axle/pinhole) do it. None of the others. Yellow is worse for the axle+pinhole connector, though they're my oldest parts probably (from 8069, bought second hand) and the older ones feel a bit more brittle than similarly aged ones in other colours (black/LBG). The only other parts I've had crack are 5x3x0.5 triangles (old style) in yellow - again, older ones from 8069, bought second hand (so I suspect the set was left made up for long periods, and where they are in the set would have some stress on them). I don't think I've had a single bush crack, except for really old ones (30+ years old) and it's still rare.

I definitely haven't had anything more recent than 2014 crack, though I've noticed a few of the (mostly yellow, though I've had a couple black ones) axle/pinhole cross blocks have been very thin in cross section - i.e. you can almost see through part of the bush segment at the top.

I'm in NZ, but have a bunch of parts and some sets from EU/UK - haven't noticed any difference.

[Void_S]

@Omikron, I agree that it's a kind of a plague. It was a real pain in 90's years (light gray bushes and those "teethed" half-bushes crack so easily just by putting any axle inside), and now the bushes and bush-based parts like you mentioned already have some cracks. However I still hope that TLG will do something to get rid of this situation, like it happened with 3651 Technic, Axle and Pin Connector, that became 32013 Technic, Axle and Pin Connector Angled #1 by replacement of bush-based part with a half of 2L axle connector, that is much stronger (well, and now it's without side-studs): > .

----------- Update: finally it was revealed that a new coming 42082 Rough Terrain Crane contains at least four 24119 curved 7X3 panels in red color.

Edited May 11, 2018 by Void_S

[Carsten Svendsen]

Remember that the reason bushes still exist by them selves and as a section of other parts is becuase the 24z gear will between 3 studs then.

[Void_S]

3 hours ago, Carsten Svendsen said:

Remember that the reason bushes still exist by them selves and as a section of other parts is becuase the 24z gear will between 3 studs then.

Yes, for sure. I was meaning the parts that mostly used as structural connectors rather usual bushes (to fill the gap). For instance, I really don't like when these connectors appear as parts of the high-loaded axles. Maybe it's just my engineering paranoia 

[Ngoc Nguyen]

Does anyone one have a list of parts that are prone to crack, like 3L pin with 1L bush? I wanna stock them for regular maintenance.

[Ivan_M]

2 hours ago, Ngoc Nguyen said:

Does anyone one have a list of parts that are prone to crack, like 3L pin with 1L bush? I wanna stock them for regular maintenance.

Difficult to say, every part that has (through) axle hole is prone to crack. Mostly perpendicular connectors and thin liftarms (3x3 L thin liftarm is my worse). Some colors are more prone to cracking than others. I have ~350 pieces of the basic perpendicular connector and I would say 40% have signs of cracking. I still use them without problem and only throw it away when the friction on axle is too small or when it breaks into pieces. On the other hand I don't have a problem with bushes at all.

[zux]

5 hours ago, Ngoc Nguyen said:

Does anyone one have a list of parts that are prone to crack, like 3L pin with 1L bush? I wanna stock them for regular maintenance.

If you interested in Technic pieces only: bushes, half bushes, thin liftarms and all connectors with bush-like connection for axle. The else is sort of exception rather than a rule.

[sirslayer]

I believe color of bushings, lift arms and axles have different properties since the weight of the same part but different color does weight differently 

[1gor]

I have to ask for one big favor - is there a part like this

https://www.bricklink.com/v2/catalog/catalogitem.page?P=24121&idColor=3#T=C&C=3

bit 7 x 7 curved and  it does not have to be gear rack... or 7 x 14 curved brick ore something...

 

thanks

[Johnny1360]

All these cracking of parts worries me greatly. Makes me not want to assemble any of my sets, Ha not really. 

I personally have no cracked or broken parts yet, not looking forward to it happening either. I have only been out of my dark age for 2 years now though, which would explain that, my oldest sets are from 2015, Fire Plane and Crawler Crane. 

I do have a large number of sets now though. So have the more modern parts been updated to be less prone to breakage? Is there anything to do to preserve these pieces other than just being more careful with the most fragile of pieces, not using them is not an option? Should I stock up on certain pieces to prepare for the inevitable catastrophe? 

Honestly not to worried about it, it's just that some people seem to have their whole collection disintegrating by just looking at them. Seems kind of odd to me, there has to be a cause, which I would rather avoid if possible. 

[technic_addict]

2 hours ago, Johnny1360 said:

All these cracking of parts worries me greatly. Makes me not want to assemble any of my sets, Ha not really.  

I have hundreds of sets and don't have any of the issues being described by others.  I personally don't worry about it.