Subject:
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Construction Tip for the Millennium Falcon Entrance Ramp
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.starwars
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Date:
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Tue, 27 Apr 2004 16:16:53 GMT
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Viewed:
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1238 times
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Not sure this has been mentioned elsewhere or if anyone else had an issue but I
thought I'd share this experience and building tip:
After I assembled my 4504 I was disappointed to find that the mechanism for
opening and closing the entrance ramp walkway worked horribly on my set.
Whenever I would pull on the docking bay the 1x2 technic brick at the end of the
mechanism would detach from the walkway while the ramp remained firmly in the up
position. I was ready to give up and write it off as a flawed design feature
when I read a few reviews on FBTB and saw everyone complimenting the walkway
mechanism as a nice feature. Determined to make mine work, I took apart that
part of the ship and investigated why it wasn't working.
Each end of the ramp's hinge is basically formed by a Technic Brick 1 x 2 with
Axlehole, a Technic Axle Pin with Friction, and a Plate 2x2 with Holes:
http://ldraw.org/library/official/images/0/32064.png
http://www.peeron.com/pics/inv/custpics/43093.1081399106.jpg
http://ldraw.org/library/official/images/14/2817.png
The problem was the friction on both Technic Axle Pins was way to strong to
allow the mechanism to work properly. It turns out that not all Technic pins
with friction are made equal. All I had to do was try all of the Technic Axle
Pins that came with the set (I counted at least 8) and use the two that had the
weakest friction for the hinges. Once I did that the mechanism worked great.
At first I thought LEGO made a mistake and should have used Technic Axle Pins
*without* Friction but once I got it working I realized how easily it opens and
closes and I bet if you didn't have the friction there the thing would open up
all the time on its own (especially while swooshing!). My experience has been
that the friction on those pins wears down after a while if you use them as
hinges so I wouldn't be surprised if down the road I'll have to reverse what I
did and switch to ones with stronger friction.
Oh well, hope someone finds this useful. I was pretty disappointed when I
thought the whole mechanism was flawed and was relieved to find I could fix it
without needing any different parts that didn't come with the set (or changing
the basic mechanism at all).
Regards,
Paul D.
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