Subject:
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Making use of Throwbot shooter arms (Controversial!)
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.build
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Date:
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Tue, 10 Aug 1999 22:40:43 GMT
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Viewed:
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806 times
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I haven't seen much discussion lately, but nevertheless I'm pressing on in my
effort to popularize these new ball-and-socket elements that come cheap and in
many colors.
After you get a bunch of Throwbot sets you'll have a lot of pieces that you
can't really use. The most useless of all (in my opinion) are the "shooter arm"
pieces. They have just one place to connect something, namely the ball joint
and then the arm just sits there.
I had all these shooter arms and was about to throw them into my "useless
pieces" bucket when suddenly I thought, "hey, I wonder if they bothered to make
the #1 cross axle segment fit a cross axle socket?"
Only one way to find out...
[purists should hit the 'n' key now! Don't say I didn't warn you]
So I got out my knife and carefully "liberated", that is, removed, the first 20
millimeters (consisting of a ball and #1 axle) from the rest of the arm. Then I
carefully trimmed the end of the axle bit so it fits cleanly in cross axle
sockets.
(I know people don't like to do this. I consider it a good
idea only if the piece being modified is one that would be
useless if unmodified, *and* if the modification can be
performed *easily* and with *precision*)
Sure enough, it fits and it fits well, with about the same amount of friction
as a normal cross axle. The result is a very useful connector piece that has a
ball and a cross axle, so you can add a ball joint to any other Technic piece
that has a cross axle socket. It keeps its shape well under transverse stress
and pulls out (as you would expect) under axial stress.
This ball, of course, fits in either of the Throwbot socket pieces, which
themselves are easy to attach to other elements without any modification (see
http://www.lugnet.com/build/?n=2011)
The only problem is that this newly-created ball and axle connector piece is
hard to remove from a ball socket. The solution is to make a seperator tool out
of a cross axle (#4 or longer should work) and a #6 angle brick (the one with a
90-degree angle). This can be used like a "crowbar" to pull the ball out of the
socket without applying axial stress to the cross-axle joint. If the ball is in
a 2x3 Throwbot socket (the smaller socket), you should also stick the affected
socket and another (empty) socket on another axle, seperated by a bushing.
Then, the "elbow" of the "crowbar" fits in this other ball socket and the
socket helps keep the elbow in place. Works like a charm and doesn't dent any
of the pieces.
- Robert Munafo
LEGO: TC+++(8480) SW++ #+ S-- LS++ Hsp M+ A@ LM++ YB64m IC13
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