Okay, I had a quick idea that has not been completely thought out. So excuse the brevity and the stupidity if present.

 

The dreaded CV joint. The haunted U joint. I had an off kilter idea I have yet to try out and didn't want to forget. I'm a loooooong time lurker here and almost forgot I had an account. Here's my solution.

Has anyone here tried heat-shrinking the joints? If using a malleable type of shrink, it should still allow movement, no? And if this is not practical in theory, what about heat shrinking to the wheel hub? Maybe this is too quick of a thought but maybe would be valuable to others or possible spark investigation.

U joint is not that bad.  Not at all.  Wrap the ends with one of the white silicone bands multiple times if you are breaking them.  Problem solved.  Keep things simple...

40 minutes ago, Btotherad said:

Okay, I had a quick idea that has not been completely thought out. So excuse the brevity and the stupidity if present.

 

The dreaded CV joint. The haunted U joint. I had an off kilter idea I have yet to try out and didn't want to forget. I'm a loooooong time lurker here and almost forgot I had an account. Here's my solution.

Has anyone here tried heat-shrinking the joints? If using a malleable type of shrink, it should still allow movement, no? And if this is not practical in theory, what about heat shrinking to the wheel hub? Maybe this is too quick of a thought but maybe would be valuable to others or possible spark investigation.

Weird!! I bought some heat shrink tubing a week ago for this exact reason. I’ll give it a go tomorrow. For me I’m hoping it takes some play out of the joints.

Well, I am generally annoyed by a lot of pieces being fragile just to allow older gears being next to them - that's IMO why there's less material on universal joint axle connectors, bushings and those 2L and 3L axle-pin connectors. Everywhere where we have that cut on the side, the less amount of material is there so you can fit a gear next to it. But I have no idea why are there those cutouts - maybe those pieces were breaking apart even more without them?

I'd really appreciate if Lego started making quality pieces that don't break so easily and maybe reduce the use of those pieces that allow space for gearing only to where they are necessary. But it's probably just a planned obsolescence for second hand sales of such parts.

To stop the uni coupling bushes from cracking I use small “0” rings, works a treat.

1 minute ago, Doug72 said:

To stop the uni coupling bushes from cracking I use small “0” rings, works a treat.

This is fine until you start really pushing your luck, e.g. ludicrous mode, XL motors straight into uni joints, etc.

Here's your solution.

 

 

My solution was to buy up 40 fake ones for a mere $4 after all but one of my Lego ones cracked. At that price, I don't really care if they're expendable.

35 minutes ago, 2GodBDGlory said:

My solution was to buy up 40 fake ones for a mere $4 after all but one of my Lego ones cracked. At that price, I don't really care if they're expendable.

Still, some models are guaranteed to snap one the moment you try to drive them up a curb and steer at the same time, or everytime you hit reverse at full speed, etc.

That gets boring, and IME leads to giving up on that model.

1 hour ago, amorti said:

This is fine until you start really pushing your luck, e.g. ludicrous mode, XL motors straight into uni joints, etc.

Here's your solution.

I have used the "O" ring solution for years and never had a problem.  Even with XL motors

I've done that trick too, but you just push the failure point along, and they will split in the middle.

This will of course happen more frequently with MouldKing black furious or CaDA pro motors, which bring more torque than Lego motors.

19 hours ago, SaperPL said:

Well, I am generally annoyed by a lot of pieces being fragile just to allow older gears being next to them - that's IMO why there's less material on universal joint axle connectors, bushings and those 2L and 3L axle-pin connectors. Everywhere where we have that cut on the side, the less amount of material is there so you can fit a gear next to it. But I have no idea why are there those cutouts - maybe those pieces were breaking apart even more without them?

I'd really appreciate if Lego started making quality pieces that don't break so easily and maybe reduce the use of those pieces that allow space for gearing only to where they are necessary. But it's probably just a planned obsolescence for second hand sales of such parts.

I've never had these slotted parts break around the axlehole (except maybe couple of crushed bushings), but one U-joint broke from the center long ago. But many people have reported problems with these while others (like me) seem to be mostly unaffected so there must be some consistent quality variance somewhere in production, which affects some people but not others. Of course the U-joints are relatively weak anyway, probably the weakest parts you can put into a drivetrain so no wonder they break the most.And of course Buwizz etc. which can exceed the torque of official motor/powersupply combinations go easily over the designed limits of the parts, so if you break parts using those, it's not TLG whose to blame. I don't think there's any planned obsolescence involved though, just quality control issues and overstressed builds.