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Animated toys self destructing?


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I bought Cybertron Mode Prime the other day. The plastic looks and feel high quality, but stuff keeps grinding down at an incredible rate, like the ball joints and the waist clip. Is there anyway to prevent this without NOT playing with the guy? I imagine making a protective coating on everything that grinds down in some way with super glue might work. The red plastic seems to be the problem, I think.

 

 

 

To illustrate how bad his joints were before I did the super glue trick on them: He was floppier than my 10 year old Cheetor who had seen a LOT of play. And he didn't come that way, either. He was tight as all getout the first couple of times playing with him.

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  • 2 months later...
I bought Cybertron Mode Prime the other day. The plastic looks and feel high quality, but stuff keeps grinding down at an incredible rate, like the ball joints and the waist clip. Is there anyway to prevent this without NOT playing with the guy? I imagine making a protective coating on everything that grinds down in some way with super glue might work. The red plastic seems to be the problem, I think.

 

 

 

To illustrate how bad his joints were before I did the super glue trick on them: He was floppier than my 10 year old Cheetor who had seen a LOT of play. And he didn't come that way, either. He was tight as all getout the first couple of times playing with him.

 

Dude, I wish I could help you out, but I'm in the same boat. I only have 6 Animated TFs. My Starscreams head likes to pop off, and if you look at the plastic that the ball joint snaps into, it looks like acetone was applied to it. It's dicolored. The head stays on pretty good, it just seems that it likes to pop off at times. My Animated Bumblebee's arms like to pop off, and the plastic that the ball joint sna;s into on one of the arms has turned white. You know, likw when plastic is about to break or has stretched. I absolutely love the Animated toys, but quality control is a big issue.

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It could be the amout of color they put into the plastic: in raw form, plastic has no bright color to speak of. It takes colorants ( ground up pigments) to color the plastic. Technically, the pigments are a contaminant, but normally they shouldn't affect the quality. But in this case, I think in trying to replicate the bright colors of animated, they went overboard and used too much. The result: the plastic has no integrity, and crumbles.

 

Unfortunately, I don't think there really isn't much of a solution. Even if you apply a coating over the affected parts, either the coating will eventually rub off, or the plastic underneath will crumble. I wish I had an answer, but sadly, I don't.

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  • 7 months later...

To minimize abrasion ball-joints need two different materials for ball and socket, one softer, one harder. Even two titanium parts wouldn't hold forever, while a softplastic-metal mix would survive way longer than the rest of the toy. A good example for those joints would be Movie Kickback's shoulderjoints ... the quality of the materials isn't good enough, but it illustrates how those joints should look.

 

I go with the super-/crazyglue method - to get a slightly longer lasting tightness you need to only apply it to one side (to my experience the ball is best). This way the untreated side is softer and gives in, usually without abrasion, while the glued one is way harder and quite unaffected by the in comparison soft socket.

 

Hope that helps, studied that stuff for some time, 'though it was more about metals and engine-parts :sneak

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I bought Cybertron Mode Prime the other day. The plastic looks and feel high quality, but stuff keeps grinding down at an incredible rate, like the ball joints and the waist clip. Is there anyway to prevent this without NOT playing with the guy? I imagine making a protective coating on everything that grinds down in some way with super glue might work. The red plastic seems to be the problem, I think.

 

 

 

To illustrate how bad his joints were before I did the super glue trick on them: He was floppier than my 10 year old Cheetor who had seen a LOT of play. And he didn't come that way, either. He was tight as all getout the first couple of times playing with him.

 

Dude, I wish I could help you out, but I'm in the same boat. I only have 6 Animated TFs. My Starscreams head likes to pop off, and if you look at the plastic that the ball joint snaps into, it looks like acetone was applied to it. It's dicolored. The head stays on pretty good, it just seems that it likes to pop off at times. My Animated Bumblebee's arms like to pop off, and the plastic that the ball joint sna;s into on one of the arms has turned white. You know, likw when plastic is about to break or has stretched. I absolutely love the Animated toys, but quality control is a big issue.

 

 

My first bumblebee had the same problem with his shoulder joint streesing to the point of going white, then it slightly split. I openeed it out ever so gently and super glued it back together and is fine now. But yeah, it's a crying shame that the QC on Hasbro figures as of late has been very sub-par.

 

I find myself fixing more figures than not these days, even if it's having to fix paint jobs for figures

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My poor Lugnut has quite a few issues. His arms and legs flop like crazy because of the weight they have to hold up. I had a hard enough time posing him with his hammer before, but now it's almost impossible. The arm ratchets are another issue, I'm really worried they might break since they make an unusual sound when you rotate his arm down versus up. It's a shame since I really like the guy a lot and he is fun to mess around with.

 

Soundwave I have two of and the only issues thankfully are loose joints which can be easily fixed. My second one did have an issue with the chest not transforming right for vehicle mode so the panels were all off, but that's more to do with the bolt? used to attach it.

 

Grimlock, as much as I like him also has issues. Putting aside all the oopsies made when he was being assembled (glueing the peg that holds the feet together into the other foot for instance) he is starting to show stress signs. The arms don't really lock all the way into place. I tried once but it split the arm slightly. Nothing that needed immediate fixing, but it's still a pain. He also doesn't transform as well as he used to. I can get him back into dino mold, but it just doesn't hold for as long. It's almost like the plastic is warped or something.

 

It really is a shame that the Animated line is plagued with so many QC issues. There were so many nice designs and fun transformations.

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  • 5 months later...

70% of the Animated toys I bought destroyed themselves right out of the box. 1 year later, the rest continuing to breakdown.

 

I blame poor materials, these figures will not stand the test of time like pretty much every other line has on my shelves.

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70% of the Animated toys I bought destroyed themselves right out of the box. 1 year later, the rest continuing to breakdown.

 

I blame poor materials, these figures will not stand the test of time like pretty much every other line has on my shelves.

perhaps we will have modern figures that will actually increase in value :P let's see how things are in a few years

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Honestly, outside of when I'm paying for a figure, I don't care about value.

 

I'm just saying, if I have a first release Transmetal Cheetor who's been through all types of hell and is still looking brand new, while these guys are falling apart out of the backage and grinding themselves to death, the line has a bigger problem then just looking stupid.

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