Ball Joints of 2008

[Diamond_Sun]

Ok... so I was wondering, why did Lego change the ball joints from a smooth bracket to a ridged one? Was it just used to make the new wave feel different from the rest? As the old joints were much more durable, why did the designers choose such a fragile design? Could someone inform me on the reasoning of this odd choice of design?

[Gatanui]

I THINK (and feel free to correct me) that the new design from 2008 was made in such a way that if the joint broke, it would still be somewhat useable due to its special shape. At least I've made the experience that pre-2008 ball sockets would be totally useless after breaking, while those with the new design would actually still stick on the ball cup with sufficient friction.

-Gata

[Bfahome]

My hypotheorysis is that the new joints were intended to be more "flexible" due to the thinner material. Unfortunately it seemed to have the opposite effect in practice.

[Aanchir]

My personal theory recently has been that the style introduced in 2008 might have been supposed to have stronger friction. I considered this possibility after noticing that many of my pre-2008 joints have become very loose even without cracks that reduce their structural integrity.

I don't think it would have been to make the joints less breakable, for two reasons: first of all, it didn't have that effect at all, and second, the previous ball cup design hadn't been extremely fragile up until 2007 when there was a bad batch of bright yellowish green joints. That wouldn't have allowed much time to come up with a redesign, and it's unclear what impact a redesign would have had anyway considering that the problems in 2007 were not geometry-related.

[ShadowWolfHount]

This may seem stupid but I think they did this because when Mocers like me have a broken one they have to go and buy a new set (this is with people who can't buy anything online). Plus with the old joints from 2001 to 2007 break with certain color of pieces, the ones I am talking about is the Light Grey and Lime Green upper arm/legs, then with the new joints from 2008, it mostly still the Lime Green upper arm/leg and the Dark Red plus it happened with the hands as well but it was not just the Lime Green and Dark Red it was all the colors so every time when a ball joint break you have to buy a new one every time if you can't buy anything online.

So I mainly think they did this just to get more money from set that have broken ball joints. and if someone said that that they contact Lego about this, well Lego haved have the new ball joint from 2008 to 2010 and they didn't change back to the old one in the summer of 2008 or in the start of 2009. So this is why I think they did that to get more money.

[Shine]

The newer designs feature an indentation on the top of the socket that keep them aligned with a ball even when pressure is applied. This makes joining the two easier than it was with the older style of socket. There's actually several versions, the latter of which were likely intended to strengthen the initial one.

Edited March 4, 2014 by Shine