Sluban M38-B0555 Not Lego Tower Crane Set Review - Part Two

Welcome back to my  review of the Sluban M38-B0555 Tower Crane building set.  In my previous post I looked at the minifigures, the utility truck and the four storey house that come with this set. Those were the appetizers.  Now we look at the giant tower crane that is the main course.

I'll be building the tower crane as per the provided instruction manual and snapping pics about every five steps or so.  After step 5, you can see the large base of the tower has been constructed using a lot of technic style pieces.  Most of the parts are black, with a smattering of yellow and light gray.

Here's the first set of supports affixed to the base in step 10.  Note that the foundation of the base stays in this position all the time.  It would have been cool if Sluban designed the legs to fold upwards for easy transport and space considerations when not in use.  Or what if you had an uneven surface?  If each of the legs could adjust to accommodate the terrain, that would be bonus.

A lot of progress has been achieved between steps 10 and 15.  We now have three mast sections of the main tower in place.  The yellow girders are secured to a continuous central shaft via technic axles and pins.   For extra support, there are some flexible struts to keep the tower at right angles to the base.   It is a good design, because I find that the yellow framework has a tendency to lift a little, even with the center shaft and struts.  I looked at some pictures of real tower cranes and they don't have the struts on the bottom.

The main tower assembly is completed after step 20.    This thing is high!  So I had to google "parts of a tower crane" to make sure I called the next few things correctly.

The next part we are building is the operator's cabin.  It will sit atop the slewing unit or turntable. We are on step 25 now.

The operator's cabin has room for a seat and levers for the minifigure to operate the crane.  Here is the winch handle set into place.  It will be used to control the hoisting rope and hook once we get the cord attached.

This is a look at the completed cabin after step 29.

The back door of the cabin is supposed to swivel open, but I discovered you can't easily open it, the way it's designed.

I swapped out the original 1x3 yellow brick, and replaced it with a 1x2 brick, a 1x1 brick with side stud and a round button piece.  Now I have a door handle that will let me open the door to the cabin.

The next parts I'm assembling is the crane runway or jib.  On the jib, there are two arms, the working arm (that's the long one), and the machinery arm that holds up the ballast or counterweight (that's the shorter one).  The Sluban instruction guide resets the step numbers for the crane arm assembly, so this is a picture after step 5.

Here's a look at the jib that will hold our counterweights.  Step 6.

Ok, so we have added the tower head or peak to the unit.  That provides support to the front and rear jib suspension rods.  Step 9.

Time to thread the cord and connect it to the crank at one end and the hook at the other end.

Not having a good go of it here.  While trying to attach the cord to the crank, the platform to which the cabin is attached to keeps coming off

Arghh.

Not sure if you can see from the instruction manual, but it's the pieces in the center blue box that keep unclutching from the square plate piece.  I added my own 1x2 tile and 2x3 plate piece to secure the cabin platform to the square plate, and that seemed to fix the issue.

Here's pictures of the assembled hook block (center) and trolley (right).   So getting back to the cord, you tie one end to the rotating crank then you tie it off at the end of the jib.  You then insert the trolley on the jib arm.   At this point the cord is situated between the jib arm and the trolley.  You pull the cord out  and down from the trolley.   Carefully, take off one side of the hook block and place the cord under the two pulley wheels, now snap the side of the hook block you previously removed back into place.

Here's a minifigure view of the tower crane.

Here's a closer look at the trolley and hook block with load attached.  The crank which the cord is attached will lower and raise the hook block, but you have to manually slide the trolley along the jib yourself.

Here's the rear view of the tower crane with counterweights attached.  I made my counterweight a bit bigger than the one provided with the set.

These were all the extra parts leftover from the set.  

The Sluban tower crane can carry a whole pallet of bricks no problem!   A new structure now looms high above the skyline of Lepin modular town.   Thanks for looking.

Oh, if you missed part one of the Sluban Tower Crane review, you can find it here.

Brand: Sluban
Series: Construction
Model:  M38-B0555 Tower Crane
Number of Pieces:  1461

Lepin 15008 Not Lego Green Grocer Set Review - Part One

The Lepin Green Grocer 15008 is my sixth bootleg Lego modular building.  It is a knock-off of Lego's Green Grocer  modular set 10185.  I wish I could say that the building process was as smooth as the previous five buildings, which include the Cafe Corner, Fire Brigade, Town Hall, Parisian Cafe and the Detective's Office.

However, as soon as I opened my large package of brick parts, I knew something was wrong.  The Green Grocer base plate is supposed to consist of two pieces of 16x32 thin green tile, however I only received one tile with my building set.  I raised a dispute right away with the seller on Aliexpress.

Fortunately, I happened to have an extra 32x32 thick baseplate in my brick parts stash, so I was able to start building my Lepin Green Grocer without much delay.  Here's my visual record of building the Lepin Green Grocer modular.  As with my previous posts, I will take pictures of the progress after each 10 steps or so.  I will be using the Lepin instruction manual for reference.  

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Step 10

When you get a Lepin modular, you get a big package of brick parts.  The big package is made up of smaller bags containing similar sized parts.  Each parts bag may or may not contain a number.  Usually there are 40 or 50 bags of parts that make up a modular building.   Before opening any parts bag, I will typically sort my parts bags in numerical order to see if I'm missing anything.  In this particular instance, I noticed one of the bags containing sand green 1x8 bricks had been ripped opened.  Also I received a duplicate bag of 1x6 gray bricks.  So at this point, I'm unsure if my Green Grocer will have all the parts, but I figure I will address any deficiencies when I get to it.  For this Lepin Green Grocer set there is supposed to be 2462 pieces.

Having replaced the missing base plate with my own, here's the Green Grocer floor for the first level all tiled in at step 10.  I like the tan and light yellow floor tile.  I should point out that the Lepin modulars use a thicker base plate than Lego does.  Since I don't have any of the original Lego modulars to integrate with, I've been using the Lepin supplied thicker base plates instead of reverting to the thinner baseplates.  I was lucky that I bought the thicker green 32x32 baseplate about a month earlier with plans to replace the two base plates of the Lepin Cafe Corner with just one.  Now, I will just keep the Cafe Corner the way it is as use this new baseplate for the Green Grocer instead.

Step 20.

Moving along to step 20, I've put together the first four minifigures.  There's a lady who looks after the store, a young boy scout, another lady and a man with top hat.  Sorry guy, but the top hat has to go.

The first floor walls are in place and some of the merchandise for the store shelves has been put on display.  There's a large bank of mailboxes and the stair well to the second floor is starting to take shape.

A quick rotation of the base and we can see the rear of the Green Grocer's first floor.

Some pictures of the side view.

Step 30

I would say the first floor of the Green Grocer is at about 70% completion. I didn't put any of the fruits or vegetables into their bins yet, but at this early stage, I just end up losing them because the pieces are so small.   See those two holes in the archway? I make them disappear later in step 40.

I like the cooler at the back of the shop.  In fact I liked it so much, I made a copy of it for my Hsanhe Seven Eleven modular upgrade.

Here's the side view of how things look after step 30.  Still needs doors and windows to be installed.

Another view from overhead.  We got the door into the staircase put in.

Here's the back side of the first floor, step 30.  Some light fixtures have been added here.

And I couldn't find the little guys cap yet, hopefully it will show up soon.

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Step 40

Doors and windows have now been put into place on the first floor.

Here's a closer look.

 Here's how things look around back.  I moved my dumpster here from the Lepin Parisian Restaurant set.  It was taking up too much room at the back of that set.

When it came time to complete my staircase, I found that I was missing all of the 2x4 gray bricks.  Instead I think they gave me an extra bag of 1x6 bricks by mistake.  Luckily the 2x4 grays are a common brick for me, so I managed to continue the first floor without any further problems.

More storage bins that I need to fill up later.

Despite numerous tries, I could not get the stupid sextant part of the light fixture to stay in place with the holes in the archway.  They kept falling out so in my frustration, I decided to dispense with them altogether.  So what you see in the picture is how the light fixtures look like now.

Step 47

Here's the completed first floor staircase with finishing tiles.

The blue and white canopy has been installed above the front windows.  Street lamp and fire hydrant have been added too.

The lady minifigure gets a baby carriage, but sadly no baby minifigure. I really was hoping for one.  I still haven't found the red baseball cap for the young boy minifigure. Hopefully it will show up, when I build the second floor of the Lepin Green Grocer.

Here's a summary of my Lepin Green Grocer changes.  There will be more changes later as I continue the build.
- replaced missing 16x32 base plate with larger 32x32 thick baseplate
- replaced missing 2x4 gray blocks for staircase
- did not install light fixture details on either side of front archway
- added dumpster from Parisian Restaurant set

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That's it for now, hope you have enjoyed the pictures of the Lepin Green Grocer modular this far.  I will post the second floor build pictures soon.

Sluban M38-B0555 Not Lego Tower Crane Set Review - Part One

Earlier in the month, I blogged about some Sluban sets I found on sale on Aliexpress.  Well, I decided to see if the deal was real or not, so I went ahead and bought some of the construction vehicles and the additionally the giant Tower Crane set.   This post will focus on set M38-B0555 which has 1461 pieces and consists of a slew of minifigures, a delivery truck, a four storey building and a huge crane.

I got the package about 3 weeks after I ordered it. The seller listed it as a gift with a value of $2, lol.

My package didn't come with a box, just an instruction manual, a bunch of plates and 23 bags of parts.

The back of the instruction manual shows you a picture of all the Sluban construction series.  I've got the dump truck and cement mixer coming.

The minifigures.

For those not familiar with Sluban building sets, the minifigures are not Lego compatible.  They have skinnier legs and arms, and smaller hands, torso and heads.  Here's a comparison of a Lego minifigure on the left and a Sluban minifigure on the right.

In this Tower Crane set, you get a total of eleven minifigures, five of them look to be construction workers.

We also get a few pedestrian minifigures.  It should be noted that every Sluban minifigure has a unique face, no two are alike.

Here's a bonus minifigure on a keychain.  The included brick tool is neat in that it looks like a crocodile.

Sluban's quality assurance is not so good, as I found a brick piece with a chunk missing from it.

The Delivery Truck.

Hey, let's see if we can get everyone into the truck that comes with the set.

Yup, I think that's everyone.

Ok, no more pictures please!

The people at Sluban are such masochists because all of the truck bricks were spread amongst the twenty three bags.  There didn't seem to be any order in how the  parts were packaged. In another case I had to look for the same part (1x2 tan plates) in several different bags.  As a result, I had to rip open and empty all of the bags and spend a few hours just sorting the parts.

Here's that defective plate that makes up a corner part of the truck.  I found the Sluban bricks to be slightly softer than Lego or Lepin bricks.  They feel lighter too.

There's just enough room for the driver inside the truck cab.

The orange truck has an opening tailgate and opening doors.

The Four Storey Building.

Here's the first floor of the four storey building.  There's a large baseplate and the building sits on a raised foundation.  In the front, there's a covered porch that leads out onto a small tiled area.  Other features include a street light and a mailbox.  I don't really like the red street lamp, so I'll probably replace it later.  I should point out that the flowers attach really well to the plant stems.

One of things I don't like about Sluban is the smaller size doors.  Also, you have to cut away excess plastic from the window parts.  I left them on so you can see what they look like before I trim them off.  There is no glass for the window parts.  There's no interior details for any of the floors.

Here's the side view of the first floor.

Front view.

Overhead view.

Here's the second floor module.   The third and fourth floors are identical.

This is how the inside of each floor looks like.

The second floor can be easily removed from the first floor.

The rear view with two floors completed.

Third floor added.

A look around back.

 Side view after three floors completed.

Another view.

Fourth floor added.

This thing is tall!  side view.

Hey guys, Be careful, Don't fall off!

Finished the roof portion.  Here's the front.

The rear view of the roof top.

Here's the completed four storey building.

Last look.

This thing towers over my Hsanhe modulars for sure.

Thanks for looking at part one.   The review of the Sluban tower crane continues in part two here.