this post was submitted on 07 Jul 2024
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My ISS is crumbling, is this common? (self.lego)
submitted 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) by CaptDust to c/[email protected]
23 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

I have a problem with my International Space Station 21321 set, all the blue clips that hold the panels to the main beams are crumbling, and weakened enough that I wake up to panels on the floor. I have no idea why this is happening, but hoping someone can help? Ideas I can do different to prevent it after I replace these parts? It seems to effect all the blue clips not just the big ones, even the little pod lost one of its solar panels :(

Some details, it's probably 4 years old now. I keep it on display but not under glass, in a 72f room. I have difficulty keeping it totally dust free as it's very fragile to begin with, but it's never really been touched otherwise.

Thanks for any ideas

Edit: not the technic connectors, the blue solar panel pattern tiles are the problem

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[–] [email protected] 50 points 4 months ago (1 children)

So there's lots of good advice here for actually solving the problem, but I'm going to propose the alternative:

This is unironically the current state of the ISS, and maybe it's worth it to let art imitate real life in this case, at least until it deorbits next(?) year.

[–] [email protected] 26 points 4 months ago (1 children)

The real life one still has a few years in it. I believe the deorbit is planned for 2030

[–] [email protected] 8 points 4 months ago

And even that date is probably a TBD soon™

[–] [email protected] 27 points 4 months ago (1 children)

honestly I'd just say get replacement pieces from Lego super easy to do if you say that they broke or whatever. I got a buch (25 or so) bricks for free because all the brown bricks kept cracking when disassembling

[–] CaptDust 11 points 4 months ago

Definitely I'll replace the parts, just sucks if I'm going to have to fix it up every couple years

[–] [email protected] 15 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

There are what? About a dozen different plastic types Lego uses? There might be a batch of plastic that was used that is slowly shrinking over time from off-gassing. (Typical bricks are ABS which don't have that particular problem.)

There might be a defect that someone else is aware of, but you might need to replace the connectors or glue them. Heck, you just need to fix the friction fit so creative use of PTFE thread tape might work.

(Not a Lego expert, but I do my research into plastics and such for other reasons. I want to guess that it might be the POM (Delrin) that is causing the issue which is absolutely not approved for use in spacecraft.)

Edit: Clarification on the PTFE thread tape use. For those who are unfamiliar with it, it's not sticky and does not have any glue on it. If anything, it's going to be a bit more slippery than other plastics. If you had two bricks and put a layer of PTFE tape between them, it's would be thin enough to act as a wedge between the bricks to fix a friction fit but you should still be able to pull the bricks apart easily. You would need to experiment though.

[–] CaptDust 9 points 4 months ago (1 children)

This is an informative answer, unfortunately it's not a matter of being loose or resizing. The clips are kind of disintegrating under the weight of supporting the piece to the crossbeam.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

Ok, I misinterpreted "disintegrating" in your original post. It's unusual for parts to just crumble, so I took that to mean that parts were just falling off the build. My mistake.

Yeah, it would likely be a factory defect in the plastic. (Too much plasticizer, too little or even an incompatible dye, maybe.) Lego would probably be receptive to sending you replacements in that case as they are probably fully aware of any bad batches of plastic they had by now.

Most home windows filter out a majority of UV light from sunlight but not enough to completely prevent plastics from degrading slightly faster. Even if it got just a couple of hours of direct, filtered sunlight per day, that may have caused an issue over 4 years. (I have had plastics sag and crumble because of this over a similar time span, actually.) Just something to be aware of.

(Ozone loves to munch on plastic as well. If you have an ozone generator next to your model, that would be an issue. Some home air purifiers generate ozone, btw.)

[–] CaptDust 3 points 4 months ago (1 children)

It does get a few hours of sunlight in the morning, and I do have a portable air conditioner in the room to keep the temps stable. I suspect that could have the same effect? Hmm.. thank you for the leads I very much appreciate it

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

The air conditioner wouldn't be an issue unless it happens to have a built-in ozone air purifier and pointed directly at the model. Ozone will dissipate and react fairly quick, so it's generally not an issue. (There is a huge difference between an ozone generator and an AC unit that might happen to generate a bit of ozone.)

The sunlight would have to be as direct as UV doesn't reflect very well off of walls and such. (~75%-90% loss) If you model wasn't directly in a sunbeam, it likely wasn't the problem.

Thanks for tolerating my troubleshooting for a bit. It would just suck if you had something you wanted to display disintegrate again. While we can't fix a factory problem, we can possibly eliminate other problems, is my thinking.

With plastics, it's UV exposure, specific chemical fumes or gasses that cause fast degradation so its easy to troubleshoot. ( ... unless it was an underlying plastic formula problem or the nature of the type of plastic.)

[–] [email protected] 10 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I've had mine wall mounted for years now and haven't noticed any issues with it. Maybe your pieces were from a bad batch? LEGO has had issues in the past with certain colors becoming brittle and crumbling but AFAIK this is mainly on brown pieces.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 months ago

Same, mines ok too

[–] [email protected] 9 points 4 months ago

I feel like you need to @ Nasa on this

[–] [email protected] 9 points 4 months ago (2 children)

Is it stored in direct sunlight? Blue absorbs more UV than other colors so it might be damaged more quickly by the sun than the other blocks.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 4 months ago

Ironic that the solar panels can handle sun.

[–] CaptDust 5 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Interesting. It does get some sun in the mornings from the window across the room but I didn't think much about it. Perhaps I'll try to relocate it too.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago

I second this sunlight hypothesis. Plastic and sunlight rarely play well together.

[–] Scubus 7 points 4 months ago

Seems like the panels are getting damaged due to cosmic rays. Needs more shielding.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

You could always contact Lego. That seems like a problem with the production run or color.

And while somewhat blasmephous, if it's a display piece, you could consider glueing the things.

[–] CaptDust 4 points 4 months ago

Yeah I think I'll do that. The specific part failing is "Modified 2 x 3 with 2 Clips with Solar Panels Pattern"

https://www.bricklink.com/v2/catalog/catalogitem.page?P=30350bpb105&idColor=63#T=S&C=63&O={%22color%22:63,%22iconly%22:0}

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 months ago

Contact LEGO support and tell them of your problems. They will usually send free replacement parts.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 months ago

I've heard rumours about blue pieces being brittle. Maybe you can switch to grey pieces without spoiling the look

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago

In my experience, the pieces that use the clip connection can sometimes become weak over time. I had one particular shelf with clips of various sets and ages that for some reason was heavily affected by the clip elements weakening in grip strength or just splitting in two; there was a bathroom with a shower on the other side of the wall, so I speculate that the humidity could have been the cause but I really don’t know. This shelf also didn’t get much sunlight, especially compared to other shelves without as much of a problem. Is there any possible source of humidity by where these clips have been weakening/breaking the most?