Yamato VF-0A/S Replacement Parts

[Sumdumgai]

Graham escaped the ninjas! Huzzah!

[Dante74]

*Comes home from AA meeting, checks thread, sees Graham's post...

*grabs beer...

[Scream Man]

i have stood by for awhile now....

Screw it. ordered my shin 0A today

[Sumdumgai]

Good luck and remember to un-tighten the screws as a just-in-case, to relieve stress on the shoulder.

[Graham]

Sorry, got tied up at work. I promise I'll write the whole story tomorrow.

Graham

[Sumdumgai]

WOO! Thanks for letting us know, Graham!

[eugimon]

Nice, can't wait.

[Scream Man]

it's tomorrow in Australia...

[Valk-1S]

it's tomorrow in Australia...

Graham in Hong Kong which means same timezone as us

[Scream Man]

its even tmorrower now...

[kensei]

Ah well. It's still morning here and in HK. Still in the middle of the week, and work is work, gotta do what you can to survive. I know it'll be here when I get back home from work tonight.

[Graham]

VF-0 REPLACEMENT ARMS ANNOUNCEMENT

Regarding the VF-0A and VF-0S replacement arms which Yamato has recently made available as spare parts, it seems there has been some misunderstanding and miscommunication between Yamato and myself regarding the exact nature of the improvement to the arms.

Based on earlier discussions with Yamato, I was under the impression that the shoulder and elbow parts (the grey ABS plastic parts that have been widely reported on Macrossworld as getting stress marks and/or cracking), would be changed from ABS plastic to POM plastic. However, it turns out that this is not the case and any such statements to the effect are my mistake.

Yamato spent a long while studying this phenomonen and determined that the stress marks and cracking of the ABS shoulder and elbow parts was caused by the ABS plastic having an adverse chemical reaction with the PVC parts located inside the arm (this is actually what they suspected from the beginning). Apparently, it is a well known phenomenon that PVC can react negatively with and weaken ABS.

What Yamato have done on the replacement arms is two improvements, as follows: -

1) They have removed the PVC cup and O-ring from inside the arm and replaced them with SBS Rubber parts, so there will be no chemical weakening of the ABS.

2) Secondly, the ABS parts marked with a red & green circle in the attached picture were previously just regular ABS. After Yamato found the problem, they had the factory increase the hardness of the ABS material.

Whether, these two changes will be enough, only time will tell. Personally, I would have liked them to increase the thickness of the oplastic as well, but that is not possible without complete retooling of the affected parts.

Graham

[PsYcHoDyNaMiX]

Thanks for the update Graham.

[Sumdumgai]

Oooooh. Groovy, we know the story now. Thanks Graham!

I guess I'll just glue the shoulder back together later and wait to hear progress reports on everyone else's replacement arms to see if it's worth spending the money.

edit: dur where are my manners!

Edited August 9, 2007 by Sumdumgai

[eugimon]

ah, thanks for the clarification. can't say I'm thrilled with their solution.

[PsYcHoDyNaMiX]

Hmm one thing that occured to me Graham. So what kind of arms are being sent out for the replacements atm... the increased hardness ABS ones or the regular arms?

***EDIT***

BAHHHH... forget what I wrote. It's getting late for me and I'm getting tired. Programming for my CS class isn't fun. XD

Edited August 9, 2007 by PsYcHoDyNaMiX

[sidearmsalpha]

Today, I received 4 sets of the replacement arms (2 VF-0A sets and 2 VF-0S sets) from HLJ. I had ordered them about a month ago. I noticed that inside the socket of some of the arms is a small black round cap. On a pair of the arms, this cap is loose inside the baggies that the arms are in. I'm assuming this cap is to increase the friction in the socket. Should I use this cap and tighten the screws until the shoulders start to tighten up or just not use the caps?

One thing that has me a little concerned is that while inspecting the arms, I noticed that one of the VF-0A arms had a very slight surface stress mark on it (about 2 millimeters long) on one of the shoulder halves. I'll see if I can post a pic soon.

This question is for Graham. Were the improvements you mentioned already implemented when they started issueing replacement arms?

Edited August 9, 2007 by sidearmsalpha

[PsYcHoDyNaMiX]

@SAA... It's funny that you should state that. I order Four sets of arms for my two VF-0S that I have. One of them is still in the box (first gen) and the other is out on display with panel lines done (ordered recently).

I can agree with the similarities of the stress marks on the arms. Mine are in the inside of the joint of the upper arms at least three of the four sets. In fact from my observation the stress lines seem like they root from the connecting peg of the female side to the male side of the arm. The stress marks tend to spider-web out from the connecting parts.

Now the problem doesn't seem to be a chemical reaction, but just poor engineering or extremely poor assembly. I would lean more towards the latter seeing that the parts when assembled were scrapped and gauged out with some sharp object to make the surfaces even. They were even scrapped with the same sharp object to remove some excessive glue or paint.

I've yet to open my other VF-0S. Knowing that it is definitely an earlier generation since I preordered it with the first wave... the upper arms may have the traits of the faulty chemical composition, but as I've said I have yet to open it.

As for the black rubber caps. They are needed for the friction part of the arm when in battroid or gerwalk mode. Without the caps I would assume the arms wouldn't hold a pose.

Edited August 9, 2007 by PsYcHoDyNaMiX

[eugimon]

Graham,

Did Yamato confirm whether the shin VF-0 combo got the new arms?

[Vic Mancini]

Forgive me if this has been asked or answered already, but are the arms on the Shin variant VF-0 the new and improved replacement arms, or are they the same arms on the VF-0A?

Edit:

Nevermind.

Eugimon beat me to the question by one minute.

Edited August 9, 2007 by Vic Mancini

[Wicked Ace]

Yamato spent a long while studying this phenomonen and determined that the stress marks and cracking of the ABS shoulder and elbow parts was caused by the ABS plastic having an adverse chemical reaction with the PVC parts located inside the arm (this is actually what they suspected from the beginning). Apparently, it is a well known phenomenon that PVC can react negatively with and weaken ABS.

My question is whether the adverse chemical reaction between the PVC and ABS plastics can be prevented by coating the parts with some kind of sealer -- effectively isolating the PVC from the ABS. Of course, my question is only relevant to those who do not have stress marks or breakages already. Any plastics people or engineers please chime in.

[Graham]

For those asking if the replacement arms have the harder ABS plus SBS parts, my only answer is: RMFP carefully!

For those asking about the Shin arms, stay tuned for further information.

Graham

[Beware of Blast]

Graham, you did mentioned about the bad reaction between the abs and the pvc several months before. Why did it take Yamato this long to REPEAT what you just posted?

Also Yamato had the foresight to use metal ball joints for the hips of the 1/48s, 1/60s, all this time without ANY bad plastic reactions, why not do THAT for the arms?

When I looked at the way Yamato made my 1/60 VF0S and YF19 while reading your (and Yamato's) explanation, and to be honest, all I saw was Yamato had absolutely NO IDEA what they were doing. You can't still be fumbling around plastic problems all these years. After the last widespread 1/72 VF11B fragile hip bar problem haven't they learned anything?

[eugimon]

Thanks Graham,

Could you also confirm if the upcoming Vf-0s combo will have the new arms as well?

Thanks.

[Beware of Blast]

Also, what's the deal with HLJ charging for the replacement arms that Yamato didn't know anything about?

We were also told that those arms from HLJ are supposedly fixed (with SRS rubber?), then some collectors that got the replacements complained of similar breakages and stressmarks; meaning they weren't fixed... So which is which?

[Vic Mancini]

Graham, you did mentioned about the bad reaction between the abs and the pvc several months before. Why did it take Yamato this long to REPEAT what you just posted?

I probably shouldn't answer for Graham, but I think the earlier mention about the bad reaction between the abs and pvc was at the time only a possibility, not a conclusion. The following quote from Graham seems to suggest that Yamato needed time to confirm what they suspected the problem to be:

Yamato spent a long while studying this phenomonen and determined that the stress marks and cracking of the ABS shoulder and elbow parts was caused by the ABS plastic having an adverse chemical reaction with the PVC parts located inside the arm (this is actually what they suspected from the beginning).

...But I could be wrong.

[Scream Man]

thanx for the info Graham.

Whats the sotry on the replacement arms being charged for and not free?

[Kicker773]

so whats the final answer on this, are the new arms being produced with the new VFOS and VOA ghost combos??

[eugimon]

so whats the final answer on this, are the new arms being produced with the new VFOS and VOA ghost combos??

For those asking if the replacement arms have the harder ABS plus SBS parts, my only answer is: RMFP carefully!

For those asking about the Shin arms, stay tuned for further information.

Graham

[Kicker773]

for the illiterate ones like myself.. what is that abbreviation? RMFP - read manual fully p..??

[kensei]

Read my first post.

[eugimon]

ohhhhhh... first post... first... ah... that makes sense. And it's so much nicer than the word I was thinking of.

[Dante74]

Read my first post.

I did and I still don't get it...

[Kicker773]

so to be on the safe side, ordering replacement parts right now is not a good options since it *might be the old* type of plastic. So we are better off waiting for the re-released versions? VFOS bundle is the newer type of plastic?

[eugimon]

so to be on the safe side, ordering replacement parts right now is not a good options since it *might be the old* type of plastic. So we are better off waiting for the re-released versions? VFOS bundle is the newer type of plastic?

uhm, that's in reverse. apparantly the replacement arms have the re-formulated ABS and the non-ABS-disintergrating inserts and no word yet if these upgrades made their way to the new VF-0 releases.

On a side note, I was complaining about these arms to my wife, and jokingly asked her if she could have them milled for me in aluminum at her work and she said very seriously, that at her old job she could have but not at her new one. She changed jobs about two months ago.

Edited August 9, 2007 by eugimon