5mm Post vs Hole

[Philip Ayres]

For a while now I've wanted to use certain of my Minicons as hand held weapons. I've been looking to find some 5mm tubing to act as an adaptor to turn the Minicon socket on the Minicon into a 5mm post, a bit like on the Hellflame Team( Quasar, Graviton & Bulge) and
Calibre Team (Mugen(Abutilon), Hyukarai(Hundred Thunder) & Ichibi(Infinity))

I've found the soloution: Lego Technic connectors. You want the round one for connecting the holes in the side of two bricks together. Even as we speak WFC Optimus Prime is wielding Roots(Safeguared) as a hand held gun.

Now to turn Fort Max's 1cm fist holes into 5mm ones....

[Deleted]

I used to have dozens of those Lego Technic connecting pegs when I was younger just lying around the house but most of them fell victim to the vacuum cleaner. The only ones I currently have are in use as part of the LT models I collected as a child.

[Shockprowl]

Really good idea, Big Phil! One could give birth to an army of Targetmasters!

[Philip Ayres]

That's the intention. Some Minicons are made to be weapons, all they need is a handle. And now they can have one!

[Shockprowl]

HUZZAGH!

[Bogatan]

I just opened Leadfoot last night and was uber impressed with the minicon as a targetmaster except for the lack of handle, shall have to try this.

Andy

[Philip Ayres]

Leadfoot doesn't have 5mm peg hole hands but others should be able to use him.

[Bogatan]

Oh yeah I meant for other figures. Leadfoot is part of my G2 display and doesn't need a targetmaster.

Andy

[Philip Ayres]

*FINALLY* sat down with my Minicons today and using WFC Prime as an acomplice tried some out. Any of the Military, Destruction, Emergency or Air Military team make great hand guns or weapons with the aid of a lego connector as do Leader-1 (Armada Megatron) Drillbit (Cybertron Metroplex) and Safeguard (Cybertron Vector Prime).

To my mind Safeguard is an evolved Over Run so I enjoyed posing Armada Supercon Op holding both of them :-)

WFC ended the day holding Safeguard in one hand and C Drill Bit in the other.

A large bag of lego technic connectors has been ordered.....

[kayevcee]

I've got a million of those fellas. The technic connectors, that is. Also Minicons. I went a bit mental during Armada.

If anybody wants some... tough! I won't be back in Britain for another 27 days! BUT you can get them in varying quantities from eBay or UK stores on Bricklink.

-Nick

[Bogatan]

Sort of related (because at this rate I'll have to use one or more of these to create pegs to combine them) I'm creating a minicon combiner from the PCC 2 pack minicons. I'm already using all 6 and am still one leg short and one minicon with 2 pegs in the right places.

Andy

[Philip Ayres]

Ooooh ! We need pictures.

Phil won a lot of 100 of the lego connectors yesterday....

Must try the PCC Minicons and see how the fare....

[Bogatan]

The upper body works quite well and Pinpoint has a decent face shape going on.


What I want to do with the legs, but can't attach to the torso.

[The Doctor]

I get the same feeling looking at that as I do when I look at Sausagefist. I can't explain why.

-Ralph

[Philip Ayres]

Andy, Buy the Searchlight repaint with the Huffer Minicon repaint. Tha might solve your problems

[Philip Ayres]

Hmmm.

On a related "adapting your Transformers" note why did Philip order a number of individual Lego bricks last night ? ...........

[Philip Ayres]

Dec 25, 2010 8:22:30 GMT Philip Ayres said:

Hmmm.

On a related "adapting your Transformers" note why did Philip order a number of individual Lego bricks last night ? ...........

For the answer see here

[Philip Ayres]

I love Shoulder Cannons on my toys, the kind that rotate up & down on the sides of the shoulder. Powermaster Prime has them and so has Metroplex.

I was thinking of trying PM Op with some of the new Arms Microns (especially Megatron) to see how he looked.

Which got me thinking.....

Which TFs can take 5mm pegs on the sides of their shoulders to do this? PM Prime and Metroplex, obviously. And if Metroplex can then all seven special team leaders and their repaints.

But who else can?

And which Minicon enabled toys have the minicon plugs on the sides of their shoulders to plug Minicons onto?

[glaug]

Hmm. All the G1 Strike Planes, Ultra Magnus, Quickswitch if you stick his shoulder flaps out, Road Caeser's combined form as well as Blacker/Gripper, Action Master Over-Run, Roadfire, it's been years but Thunderclash might have 5mm screw holes in his shoulders if I remember right, Archforce/Hero Megs can on one side.

Special team connectors don't take 5mm pegs too well, as I recall. They grip, but it's a bit loose. Metroplex has thicker parts of the post for that connector to grip.

Later toys I'm not so hot on, but I think a lot of Armada guys have pegs on top of their shoulders, rather than at the side, (as well as Fire Convoy in his non-super mode). Pegs on the side would include;
Armada Demolishor, Hot Shot, Hoist, Scavenger... . 'sall I can come up with offhand.

[Philip Ayres]

I remembered doing it with Snaptrap but now I think about it isn't the handle of his gun built up at the top?

[glaug]

Yeah, for the same reason as Metroplex's guns. Though this means you can use Metroplex's guns on him and the other Scramble City types, presumably!

[Toph]

I personally feel that decorative kibble is a lost art that is only recently being rediscovered.
For a looooong stretch, if an alt mode part didn't make up the main body, then they just let it hang somewhere. And weapons that didn't do anything? Forget about it.

At least Universe started us back down the road to both. Although, we still won't get anything like decorative shoulder mounted weaponry if a G1 character didn't have it.
(It would be cool to see a new character with no visual attachment to any G1 guy have a shoulder-mounted weapon like U. Prowl, or RtS Tracks that serves no purpose other than to enhance the look. But then, who am I kidding? It would just be nice to see a new character.)

Anyway, on to topic, I didn't realize PM Optimus used 5MM pegs. I'd strat looking into energon weaponry, along with minicons.

[Philip Ayres]

May 2, 2012 19:46:35 GMT Toph said:

Anyway, on to topic, I didn't realize PM Optimus used 5MM pegs. I'd strat looking into energon weaponry, along with minicons.

Lots of earlier toys do: it's a standard inherited from Microman/Microchange (So Megatron, Soundwave, Browning & the tapes) and many of the larger Diaclone Toys (Prime/Magnus/Devastator) use it too.

[glaug]

TFWiki has a comprehensive list, unsurprisingly tfwiki.net/wiki/5mm_post

[Philip Ayres]

Phil needs some help

I've got my Generations Metroplex and love him. He's covered in 5mm posts and I'd like to tool him up.

Here's my problem: Minicons, which were my first choice look far too small in robot mode. Fine in base mode for Legends/Legions to use but in robot mode.... No.

So can anyone think of some really big weapons with 5mm pegs? About all I've come up with so far is the ripple effect missile launcher off of Apex Armour Breakdown and Optimus Maximus's Gun.

Suggestions please!

[Philip Ayres]

Thinking about using 5mm peg weapons in Metroplex's hands has brought me back to an idea I had some years ago about a 5mm peg/socket adaptor set. 5mm pegs and sockets are the standard throughout Transformers but there's some toys that can't hold them and some that have the pegs or sockets the wrong way round.

For peg we mean the original 5mm Minicon Peg with a hole down the middle.
For socket we mean a 5mm hole.

What got me onto this was Cybertron Optimus Prime and Wing Saber. Optimus can't hold 5mm weapons. But Wing Sabre's 5mm handle swords can be held by Optimus thanks to a pair of adaptors found with Wing Sabre. These have the added bonus of letting Cybertron Prime use other 5mm weapons including the Star Saber, Requiem Blaster and Sky Boom shield.

So I'd start by including a paid of these, but opposite to the socket on the adapter I'd have a peg, which would then let you mount Minicons as weapons on the top of Optimus' hand. Alternative Use: riser for either pegs or sockets to get weapons out the way of anything that might be in their way.

Next, as detailed in the link above, the same thing but with the blocks sticking out the side so Generations Metroplex could use it. Again they could be used as risers but they could also serve as towers for Metroplex's base mode.

I'd have a piece that would fit into the hole in Fortress Maximus' fists (9mm? 10mm?). It would have a lip round the top so it didn't sink completely into the fist and could always be removed. It would have a 5mm bore hole right the way down the centre so that Max could hold 5mm peg weapons. Alternative use: adapter to turn a 5mm peg into a 5mm socket.

A slightly over double length 5mm peg would perform the opposite job of turning a socket into a peg. A lip halfway along the length would stop it recessing into deep sockets. Add to the part above to allow Max to mount Minicons on the top of his hands.

Adaptors to turn 5mm Sockets into 3mm sockets so larger toys could hold Cyberverse weapons. Again, a lip round the middle to stop the peg recessing too far. There's a Zoids piece that kinda does this already

Adapters to turn 5mm sockets into 3mm bars. The clip and bar system looks redundant now sadly, but I still like the weapons and think they could be used with other toys.

Comments?

[The Doctor]

I've never understood your peg and mm posts. I am sorry. I go throw myself into a pit.

*hurl*

-Ralph

[legios]

Personally I think that this is a fantastic idea - anything that would allow greater interchangeability of weapons between Transformers toys sounds like a good idea to me. I'm not sure how well something like that would sell though, as interchangability of weapons has never really been part of the Transformers play-pattern in the same way that it has with Zoids and the like. It would sell to you, it would sell to me, but I'm not sure how well it would sell to other folks.

Karl

[Philip Ayres]

Sept 19, 2013 19:12:16 GMT The Doctor said:

I've never understood your peg and mm posts. I am sorry. I go throw myself into a pit.

*hurl*

-Ralph

I will demonstrate with different sized weapons when I next see you.

[kayevcee]

I see what you mean. As you say there would have to be a lot of parts for figures with different sized/shaped fists. It's a good idea for a third party set that would add greatly to the play/display value of Hasbro/Takara figures.

-Nick