Tuesday 16 March 2010

Something out of the blue.

Quite a while ago, a friend of mine sent me a prototype kit for a mobile heli-pad that he had produced from laser-cut plasticard. Here is a bit more information of the original ideas and the creator's assembly of the first kit:

http://brandlin.blogspot.com/2010/01/modular-vehicles-x.html

I finally managed to get my act together and build the kit whilst reviewing it as I went. Here is what I came up with:

The Review.

Just to make things clear, this kit is a PROTOTYPE. As a result, there are areas that have already been reworked...bear this in mind when reading the review.

The kit comes as a sheet of panels that need to be removed. They are cut through most of the way round each piece but there are little tabs that need to be cut to free each part. Removing the bits from the sheet was easy. Doing a quick job of cleaning the pieces was fairly simple (just using a bit of sand paper for the edges) and even though I didn't spend too much time on the clean up, the end result looked OK.

Included with the kit are four magnets, and enough components to make the two hinges that run along the side of the landing pad.

The first thing to notice was the lack of instructions. The reason for this was that the instructions were held on-line in the form of a video...found here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DkwgTWXDesM&feature=player_embedded#

Not having paper instructions was really awkward for me as my computer is away from my workspace so I had to keep going backwards and forwards. I could really have done with printed or printable instructions to make my life easier. That said, assembly was fairly straight forward (the video may have been annoying...but it works very well ) but assembling/gluing the hinge was fiddly...not insurmountably so, but it took a little bit of careful assembly to make sure that the outer flaps hinged correctly. The end result is great but you must leave everything to dry thoroughly before trying to operate the hinges. Fitting the magnets was very straight forward (just remember to get the polarity right), as was assembling the cab but some of the joins on the cab seemed a bit rustic and after talking to the creator, he has mentioned that the later version has already addressed the problem.

So, overall, the kit went together fairly well and for a first effort at kit making, it is a really well thought out product. I know that there are more kits planned and at some point, they will be available to buy so watch this space for further updates!

Now onto some pix. As you will see, the flaps on the side of the platform hinge up and down. The flier on the pad is the one that the kit was originally designed for...maybe someday, it will get released for sale:

Click the Pic!

Click the Pic!

Click the Pic!

Click the Pic!

See you through the clouds of smoke!

1 comment:

Brandlin said...

Thanks for the write up Inso much appreciated. There will be more in this line eventually)