QQriQ

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Posts posted by QQriQ

  2. Posted

    4 hours ago, That_LEGO_Guy said:

    I made a tool out of a rubber and a cut in half staple. I only have a picture of the magnet after I remove most of the loose material, and it was all the same colour as the magnet.

    It is brilliant! 
    Our assembly tool was "same" :-) 
    There was a holder which hold the motor in good position. and one pneomatic which turn a little bit right when the tool upper side (where the gearhead with rotor was put) push them together. on the upper side there was a magnet which hold the gearhead in position.

     

     

  3. Posted · Edited by QQriQ

    2 hours ago, That_LEGO_Guy said:

    Ever tried to fix them and succeeded? I found one in some bulk that worked for a short time. Opened it up to your pics to see if I could fix it. The coil side of the magnet surface had deteriorated a little, thin flakes of magnet where blocking the rotor, I lightly scraped the loose magnetic flakes off the top until the rotor spun freely and it has worked fine since.I love this little motor 

    Yes the magnet powder is closing the gap in the wrong micromotors. But I am very curiosity how could you close back the motor that the metal connectors (brushes) did not damaged. For this we had a specia tool. two tiny needle was put to the holes in the buttom of the motor which pushed away the brushes from the rotor's segments. while the motorhouse was push togetherwith  the gearhouse.

    Is The motor what you repair was Mini-motor or micromotor.? Because there were a same problem with the mini-motor's magnets. but Mini-motors magnets got a nickel layer and here much more easier to open and reclose the motor. And in the mini-motor there are nickel "flakes" but in the micromotors there are magnet dush. 

  4. Posted · Edited by QQriQ

    22 hours ago, 9v system said:

    are you thinking of selling it? would love to add it to my collection of 9v stuff

    Yes, i would like to sell them. I have just working on it, I started to "collect" the offers.

    But only 6 of the transparent micrromotors turning well.(i tested them some days ago)

    and my  1 pc transparent 9v Mini-motor with "goldened iron parts" . It is odd parts too, because only hundred pcs were produced (every workers got one pc as last gift, when LEGO sold and closed the company in Budapest.

    https://www.flickr.com/gp/189156800@N06/5dLz9h

  5. Posted

    On 7/2/2020 at 5:05 PM, Evans said:

    Thank you for your answer!

    Do these motors also have a production date engraved? Train motors (9v and 12V) have two numbers for the week and a last number for the year of production, but I've noticed micro-motors and mini-motors have a letter and a number engraved under them, (B4, Z4, Z4, U4, S3 on my five micro-motors for example), so how should we read the letter, considering the number seems to be the year?

    And do you have an idea when they changed the magnets supplier?

    Sorry for my late answer.

    Yes, on the bottom of the motors there is a date "stamping" but i don't remember exactly to the rule how was it change. We had a time tabel which showed when we had to change the "hot stampper" tool and to what
    and unfortunately I don't remember when was the magnet supplier changing. I was "only" a blue collar" workers in this time but i think only the first some thousend pcs were made from VC magnets.

  6. Posted

    1 hour ago, Conchas said:

    :laugh: :thumbup:

    It was working until recently (tested it only a few times).
    Unfortunately now it seems not working anymore. Still whistles when applying the 9V, but does not move. It might be be the crumbled magnet problem as you described (the unfortunate fate of all these motors). Don't know if it will ever turn again... :tongue:

    "the unfortunate fate of all these motors"
    Not the all micromotor got cheap chinese magnet. In the first xy hundred thousand pieces got vacuumschmelze's magnets. So the older motor's magnets much more better, They do not "crumbling"

  7. Posted

    7 minutes ago, Conchas said:

    :laugh: :thumbup:

    It was working until recently (tested it only a few times).
    Unfortunately now it seems not working anymore. Still whistles when applying the 9V, but does not move. It might be be the crumbled magnet problem as you described (the unfortunate fate of all these motors). Don't know if it will ever turn again... :tongue:

    you can easy to see if you have "the crumbled magnet" problem on transparent motors. Turn the motor in the direction of strong light and look over its side.  the magnet is the upper side above the rotor (under the rotor there is a simple iron in plastic holder) You should see a little gap between the magnet and rotor and same gap between the rotor and the Iron. It is clearly seeing  in my cutted motor picture.

    But if the motor is whistles is means the rotor is turning so it is not magnet problem.

  8. Posted

    19 hours ago, Conchas said:

    Interestingly I just realized your transparent micromotors are different from mine.


    - One with black shaft and transparent ring
      50065194396_f401814cfd_c.jpg

    - One with black shaft and red ring (cut version)
      50065452567_fb9d525f08_w.jpg


    Mine has red shaft and transparent ring.

    20200626_000241.jpg

    Yes, I have motor with transparent shaft and red ring; transparent shaft and transparent ring; transparent shaft with black shaft and you have transparent ring and RED shaft.
    The reason of this is simple. We produced colorful output shafts and rings  too, for the colorful (not red) motors. (only a few pcs from each parts)
    BUT when we started to assemble them, we recognised  the planetary gear tightens with the color gears. That's why we could not use them for the color motors. We produced only a few color parts  and we did not try them immediately. We got problem when we tried assembly. 
    The issue (tightens) was caused by the original "output shaft" (black) was moulded from Hostaform not from ABS. And the Hostaform's moulding parameter is totaly different as ABS. So we had to trow out almost the all color shaft, but some of them worked in the transparent motors. (only in the transparent)

    The all assembly proces was not easy with the "special" parts and we have limited pcs.  We had to pairing the parts and try them together lot of times. If the motor did not worked we try with it with other parts  until they started to work. This parts is very precis and little different could cause a problem.
    So it was a luck that the your motor run with red shaft :-)
    Your motor is the RAREST rare motor.

  9. Posted

    11 hours ago, Evans said:

    Is there a non-destructive way to open these motors? And do you think there is a way to repair broken micro-motors nowadays?

    I was also wondering, no Dark Gray micro-motors were made?

    "Is there a non-destructive way to open these motors?" Yes, there is. BUT You need a "simple tool" to open the motor house. and one other  to open the Gearbox.

    For the motor opening: You can see 4 hole in the top of the motor. if you  push in 4 pins at same time to here,  motor will open.

    For the Gearbox opening: You need a special pinchers with the profil of drive wheel. If you pull  the drive whell up with this pincher the locking ring will pop up and you can take out the planetary gear and the planetary cog wheel and the parrel.

    I am absulutely sure that the raison of wrong motors is the magnet.
    and if you could open the motor , very complicate would be clean the magnet. 
    but even if it succeeds you sholud snaps together the motor again. and for this you need a special tool too. If you see the bottom of the motor you see two little kidney shaped hole. here should push in two very thin needles, and "move" the brushs to the rotor's collector that they do not demage while you pushing the gerbox and the motorhous together again. It is not easy. and the magnet which started to crumbling will not stop the pulverization. And change the magnet is not possible.

    No we did not make dark gray micromotors.  (I do not why. We have lot of grey ABS because we produced the all plastic parts for Mini Motor  (injection molding) :-) )

    I hope you understand my wrong english :-)

  11. Posted

    On 6/25/2020 at 4:43 PM, Coolusername said:

    Awesome story! Would love to do this myself.

    So you made those 10 of each colored ones, so you got some and 9 other of your collegues have some as well?

    I and my "old" college have some pcs from these motors, if he have not sold or thrown out them. (I do not know this because i did not meet or talk with him in the last 20 years :-( )

    Yesterday I went to my garage and I made inventory about my rare parts. I took more photose but i can not upload here because only 100 Kb upload allowed me here. (????? in 2020 ?????)
    I have 4-4 pcs yellow and purple and 5-5 pcs blue and green and 9 pcs transparent motors. 
    Yesterday I tested them again (last time lot of years ago all of them was good) 
    BUT NOW only 1/3 of them working :-( :-( 

    I dismantled one transparent motor and i saw the typical problem which we had with micromotors and Mini-motors too.
    The magnet was crumbled. and the magnet dust clogged the little gap between rotor and magnet :-(
    We used powder metallurgy magnets what we order from China. 
    Lot of magnet started to crumble after some months the magnetizing. Unfortunately It was known problem. 

  12. Posted · Edited by QQriQ

    It is one more very rare motor from my "collection"
    Now I would like to sell it, but I do not know how much can it cost.
    How much can I ask for it? 

    Story: These transparent motors were made in Hungary  (where the all Mini-motor were produced). When the LEGO sold the company, the all workers got one pcs from this transparent and gold-colored motors as memories.  Only about 50-150 pcs were produced.

    The motor is in good condition, well working and never used

    Transparens GEAR.jpg

  13. Posted · Edited by QQriQ

    On 6/27/2020 at 2:29 PM, paul_delahaye said:

    I think it would be a lovely end to the story if Lego were to buy these back from you and put them on display in the Lego house for all to see with other prototype parts ;-)

    So much "non work" happens in factories during overtime.......

    Thank you for the interesting back story, 

     

    Paul

    I think it would be much more interesting to display this motor in Billund.
    This is one Segmented micromotor.
    The motor's all parts were cut and after it  assembled. :-)

    As I know only this one exists. it is my other rare motor

     

    Segment Micromotor 3.jpg

  14. Posted

    55 minutes ago, JaBaCaDaBra said:

    Yes, a real crime.
    Death sentence, electric chair.

    Put an electric chair on Idea's and execute these people with genuine Lego cause they used a Lego mold to try out other colors.
    oh men what a crime.

    :-) 

    We did not think to sell the motors. it was just an idea of a few bored workers. :-) We made them for ourselves for fun :-)

    But I have just realised what a big sin we commited. I  am thinking about i will sent my all rare things to Billund with one apology letter or i will throw out them ;-)

  15. Posted

    1 hour ago, dr_spock said:

    Fun story.  Was it a small company you worked for?  Times were different 

    The motor was designed by BRG about 1989-90.  BRG was the biggest Radio Technic Company in Hungary. It mainly produced equipments to the Russia market (military) when the communist regime fails the company lost the all market and went bankrupt. This time the motor and the production technik was 95% ready, so the LEGO establish the LMM Kft-t (LMM Ltd) LMM short form of Lego Micro Motors. Until the produktion did not start we were about 10-20, but later the staff increased to 280-300 persons. We designed and started to produce the motor 43362 (we called GEAR motor) and lot of products were moved from Billund to LMM e.g. RCX, Train motors, Basic motor, Mybot, watches and lot of other thing The company was 100% LEGO property but to be honest I can counting in my left hand how many times we saw leaders or visitors from Billund. This times were different as you wrote !!

  16. Posted

    6 hours ago, MAB said:

    I've never seen one of the retail ones, do these have the LEGO logos on?

    I can understand LEGO wanting to bring production of everything under their own factory control, if external companies like this were allowing employees to make their own LEGO parts out of hours since it allows non-approved items to reach the market - especially if they have LEGO markings on them but are not approved by LEGO. 

    I forgot to write the company was in 100% LEGO property, but the CEO and the all leading team were Hungarian

  17. Posted

    9 minutes ago, MAB said:

    I was meaning that if you were allowed to work alone and unsupervised and also remove remove parts from the factory, then the company has allowed it due to lack of security. LEGO has gone to a model where they own the factories and do not subcontract parts making - presumably as they control both the quality and also the security of parts. These days they cannot have lone workers making their own coloured parts and taking them from the factory. Of course, lots of not-for-retail parts also used to escape LEGO's own factories, but their security seems to have increased these days.

     

     

    Yes I understand ;-) and I can agree with LEGO's decision ;-)

     

  19. Posted

    4 hours ago, Lasse D said:

    How come you didn't quote the price of the micromotor, you know, the only motor I was specifically referring to? My comment was not an attack on your national identity. It was insights into the problems that LEGO was faced with back in the days where they nearly went bankrupt. Notice also how I said it was one of the issues - not THE single issue. Big companies rarely fail due to a single problem. And if you want to point out the leading problem, then I would claim it was the juniorization of the product line which drove customers away. However. That can only be a claim on my side - I do not have any insights to back up that this is the leading issue, only that it appears to be the worst.

    Unfortunately I do not remember the price of the micromotor but I am sure it was not much more than the 43362's. The price was not in "other dimension".
    BUT YES, The material cost of micromotor 2986 was a little bit higher and we spent more time to produce 1 pcs 2986 than 43362. (but the personal costs was very low In Hungary so it is not big effect) so it could be more expensive than the 43362 but only a little bit. 
    I do not think if one (~4-5 USD) motor could makes setts (e.g Technic space shuttle) unprofitable.

    The reason of the loss-making years of LEGO had to be much deeper. (as you wrote too)

    Micromotor was one "technical diamond". This motor contained lot of technical miracall,- tecnical solution which was not "general" in the 90'  (planetary gear from plastic, miniatur collectors; flat rotor; ect) (and from very low budget) . Nevertheless, or exactly that's why it was not good idea to use in toy. I think this motor was not suitable for what LEGO wanted. Although I do not know what they wanted when launched design tender for the motor.  The main target was put motor to 2x2 LEGO cube but we do not know  (I think) what the motor will exactly drive.

    I seen only one time our micromotor in LEGO set. It was a ship and the motor drive the radar.  The assambled lego parts amplified the motor's nois. It was horrible. If my children played with this ship more than 5 minutes I would throw out the toy.

    "My comment was not an attack on your national identity." I know and I have never thougt this. Why did you think that i think this? :-)

    PS: I wll try to find the micromotor's transfer price.

    3 hours ago, MAB said:

    I've never seen one of the retail ones, do these have the LEGO logos on?

    I can understand LEGO wanting to bring production of everything under their own factory control, if external companies like this were allowing employees to make their own LEGO parts out of hours since it allows non-approved items to reach the market - especially if they have LEGO markings on them but are not approved by LEGO. 

    :-) Nobody allowed us to make these parts and the police does not allowe speeding too ;-)

    and they have never reach the market YET. 

  20. Posted

    17 hours ago, Lasse D said:

    Yeah. You probably have a small fortune on your hands there since these are made on official equipment and with LEGO logos.

    Fun fact about the micromotor. These were unbelievably expensive to produce. The micromotor did in some sets cost LEGO more to produce than what the set was sold for! Mismanagement of funds like this was one of the reasons for the financial troubles in the late '90s and early '00s. Even the Technic space shuttle was sold at a loss! LEGO has since then introduced strict control of production cost for all of their parts, and the price of some parts even vary based on color.

    I think the reason for the financial troubles was not the price of the motors which were produced in Hungary!!!!!!

    For example we sold Motor 43362 in 1999 to LEGO for 6.12 DM/pc it means 3,3 USD or 3,1 EUR in 1999 and this price included the value of the materials what we used, the personal costs and a little profit. 
     :-) :-) :-)  ONE MOTOR's (43362) PRICE  was 3,3 USD :-) :-) :-)
    The previous "modell" the "heavier" 71427 was a little bit more expensive, but we redisigned the 71427 that we get cheaper motor with same performance. 
    (Just in brackets: this cheaper type had much more better quality)

    Or one more example We sold the Train motors for 6,41 DM->3,4 USD->3,3 EUR to LEGO

    I think the reason for the financial troubles was the big change in the toy market. (computer games; tamagochi; price of the RC models, ect, ect) and the LEGO reacted to late to the changes.

  22. Posted

    13 minutes ago, JaBaCaDaBra said:

    These motors were used in 10 sets like the Discocery 8480 but were only produced in red.
    The 2 clips to hold this motor in place are more rare than the motor itself.

    Yes, These COLORS were never planned to use in sets, Just we produced them for fun. 
    Only the red version was put to sets .But i think working pcs from the red motors are rare too
    because over 25-28 years more of them could have became scrap. 
    By the way I have 40-50 pcs red motors too, which are workind because they were never used. The collektors of the rotor has not "worn" yet.

    46 minutes ago, Gray Gear said:

    So do I understand this correctly: These motors were never planned by TLG, but you and some other dudes just made them for fun in a empty LEGO supplier's factory? 

    Yes, These COLORS were never planned to use in sets, Just we produced them for fun. 
    Only the red version was put to sets 

  24. Posted · Edited by QQriQ

    I have some very-very rare :-) LEGO micromotors from the 90's which you could not seen before :
    -  they were never sold in the market.
    -  only about 10 pcs were produced from each colors (exception of transparent which were ~30 pcs )

    The motors are in good condition, They were never used. (they run only some minutes when they were end-tested)

    Now I would like to sell them, but I do not know how much can they cost.

    Rare micromotors.jpg

     

    Many of you asked the story how these motors were birth so I added it to the Topic:

    The story is very simple. I worked in the company in Hungary where these motors were DESIGNED and produced. In the begining we produced only this motors but later we DESIGNED and produced lot of other products.
    for example: Micro Motor 9V (71427 and 43362);  motor to LEGO 9748 Droid (R2D2). ect.
    and here were produced: RCX; sensors; Speedster; Mybot unit, LEGO watchs ect. ect which were move to Hungary from Billund.

    http://lifeofacsstudent.github.io/2015/5.html
    http://kockageneracio.blogspot.com/2013/01/magyar-feltalalo-kis-legomotorja.html

    One day I and My 2 colleagues worked in the Night shift. Nobody else, just we. We could use the moulding machines (only had 2 pcs) which produced the plastic parts, We set the machines; change the tools, change the ABS ect. So we produced some parts from the all colors which we had.
    Next days we assembled them in the production line. We could use the all equipments in the line because we were "alone" and we known the all production proceses and equipmens.

    I do not know this "Story" is good or not, the motors become cheaper or more expensive becase of this.   but it is the Truth :-)

    My LEGO parts: https://www.flickr.com/gp/189156800@N06/5dLz9h