Saturday, July 1, 2017

How I Fixed My Lepin 05053 Not Lego Republic Dropship with AT-OT


Hi! Welcome back to Its-Not-Lego.blogspot.com.  Belated Happy Star Wars day!  I was going to post this article on May the Fourth (Star Wars day), but I've been so busy/lazy I put it off until today. 

Anyways, I'm sure you have already seen quite a few reviews on the internet about the Lepin Star Plan Republic Dropship with AT-OT set 05053.  It's a fake copy of the same named Lego Star Wars set 10195.  From what I've read from the other reviews, there were numerous problems with parts coming drooping and coming off everywhere on this set.


I just got my Dropship set from Aliexpress last month, so instead of doing my regular review of this bootleg set, I thought I would let you know what I did to fix the problems instead.  Of course, I'll still be showing you how the build progressed in pictures.

So my set Lepin Dropship/AT-OT set came in a large cardboard box that got left at my front door by DHL (yay!  no duties this time!).   Packed tightly inside were lots of un-numbered bags of parts and a thick instruction manual.  The large sticker sheet that came with the set was taped inside the instruction manual.  It's still there, as I chose not to use any of the stickers.  BTW, I heard from other reviews that they're not all that great, so just as well.


Remember, that as I'm set building, I'm always on the lookout to see where I can substitute a new brick piece with some old or off-coloured brick I have in my spare stash.  Well, I managed to hide a couple of pieces inside the frame of the AT-OT walker.  


The AT-OT frame is sturdy enough but the back ramp needs to be fixed.  Firstly it's too steep for the clone troopers to ascend.  I would attach a ladder piece to the ramp so that they can get a foothold.


Secondly, whenever you bend it, one of the pieces comes off where the triangular plate meets the black rectangular plate.  My solution would be to make the base of the folding ramp entirely out of technic pieces, so that the current technic brick is hinged to another technic brick that would be attached underneath the black plate piece .  I have a design in mind, but don't currently have the pieces I need at the moment.



The next gripe I have is about the AT-OT walker lower legs which won't stay attached.  They keep coming loose and the legs just fall off.  I think it's design issue, in that the technic pin that holds the lower leg in place are too short to make a good insertion into the printed round plate.


My simple fix to this problem was to turn the technic pin around and insert it from outside in.  Then to secure it, you use a yellow technic bolt.  The printed plate sits nicely onto top of the reversed technic pin and it doesn't come off.


Here's how the legs look now.  They don't fall off anymore.


Another leg issue I had was the cylinder brick on the upper legs would fall off.  To fix this problem, I attached a light gray 1x3 plate across the two sides of the upper leg.


Sometimes the round feet would come off as well.  To rectify this, I added 5 extra 2x2 plates to each of the feet and this seemed to resolved my problem.  Note: you'll need a total of 40 pieces (5x 8 feet) if you plan on doing this too.



The remainder of the build was problem free until .....



... we got to the AT-OT cockpit.  I'm guessing the Lego fit and finish of the cockpit canopy glass had better tolerances than the Lepin canopy.  Whenever I went to flip the canopy open, inevitable the glass would come off the two black pivot pieces, because they were basically being held by 2 connection points and they were just too loose.  I'm surprised that no other Lepin dropship reviews indicated this was a problem, because this really bothered me.


I used three brick parts to fix this issue. One 1x3 finish plate, one 1x3 straight plate, and one 1x2 single stud.


Attach them altogether and place into the canopy like so.


Now, re-attach the canopy to the black pivots.  I now have 4 connection points instead of two and it holds the canopy glass in place quite securely.


Oh, one more nit I had (geez, I'm so anal!).  I didn't like that the cockpit canopy roof wasn't really secured.  I slightly redesigned the canopy roof and added a 1x2 stud piece as pictured below.


When you place the clamp down, it basically locks the cockpit canopy in place.


So as I finish building the AT-OT, the final issue is of course the droopy turret guns in the rear.  You'll notice that mine don't droop at all.


This was the simplest fix of all.  I simply ripped up some of the bags that the parts came in and shoved them into the ball socket.  I didn't trim them yet so you could see what I did.  Basically it gives some friction so that the turret ball won't move inside the socket, then you can freely position the guns as you wish.  And they will stay in place.


Ok, that was a really long post.  I'll wrap this up for now and in my next blog post, we will look at the assembling the Lepin dropship and fix whatever issues we find there.


Oh btw, I recall I had one or two missing pieces but they were fairly common plates or something, so I just scrounged up the replacement parts and continued building.  Nothing significant to hinder the progress of the build to this point.   Thanks for looking!!   Part Two coming soon.

Monday, May 1, 2017

One of the Best Lego Blogs on the Planet!


Wow, how cool is that?  It's Not Lego blog made the Feedspot Best Lego Blogs List!



Read all about it here:


We rank #26 out of the top 50 Lego blogs.   Should we tell them our blog is about fake Lego?   

Nah.

Monday, April 3, 2017

Enlighten 1120 Not Lego Camper Truck Set Review



Hi there, today I will review the Enlighten brick set model 1120 which is called the Pleasant Trip Camper.   This set was released in 2015.

This 380 piece set is an original design and is not a bootleg of any Lego set.  I didn't realize that this camper is larger than I thought.  It comes with a family of 4 mini figures.

The Enlighten brick quality has the same feel and finish as Lego but I did notice that the clutch is a bit too tight.  Once you snap the bricks together, it's really hard to pry them apart.   Luckily Enlighten provides a blue separator tool.

The good thing about this set is that there is a lot of attention to detail.  There's so much going on it's hard to know where to begin.  I'll start from the front and work towards the back.  In the front passenger seat, there is a navigation screen.  This is something I've never seen in any Lego set.

The four seats are not your regular Lego seats, but these custom reclining pieces.  In the back of the camper, you get a small fridge, a sink and a cooking surface.  There's some small bottles and a mug too.

Now one thing that I'm not sure if I like is the fact that this camper is 8 studs wide instead of the standard 6 studs.  If I park this vehicle next to my other Lego type vehicles, this one will look a lot wider than the rest.  At some point, I might decide to rebuild the Enlighten camper as six studs wide.

Here's some of the accessories that come with the set.  There's a camera, a mountain bike with rubber tires, a barbeque grill, a garbage can, some goblets, two fry pans and a pair of fish.

Here's the mini figure family. They look a bit like hippies, especially the dad with his floral shirt.  The son and daughter minifigs have shorter legs but these are unique because they still can bend at the waist.  The print quality is good.

You also get a small 8x8 stud that represents a patch of grass, a palm tree and some 2x2 tiles with sea shells on them.

Here's the completed camper.  On the camper roof, there is a solar panel, and an antennae.  There are even roof rails and a shovel.

One the side of the camper is a fire extinguisher.

On the other side is a small axe.

The camper comes with rolling wheels and rubber tires but the rims are not as nice as the standard Lego rims.

At the back of the camper, there is a ladder to access the roof.  You also have a clamp to hang the mountain bike from.

The solar panels and antennae both can tilt.

The back of the camper divides into two and folds open behind the front seats for easy play access.

Despite the 8 stud width, there's so much stuff in the camper, it still feels cramped.  I could put the barbecue grill into the back, but there's no room inside for the garbage can.

Here's a closer look at the barbecue grill.

One thing I had to change from the original instructions was to move the windows from the middle of the camper to the rear.  By doing this, I can give the son and daughter mini figures, some elbow room.  If I didn't do that, it would be hard to close the back of the camper properly.

Here's a few more pics.



There were no missing or deformed pieces in this set but no extra pieces either.  I should point out that the colours of the corresponding bricks in the instruction manual don't match the actual brick colours, so novice builders might get a bit confused.  

In summary, it's a nice looking vehicle with lots of extra features but the 8 stud width doesn't make the Enlighten camper fit with my other Lego compatible cars and trucks.  Also the brick clutch is a bit too tight for my liking.


Brand: Enlighten Brick
Model: 1120 Pleasant Trip Camper
Number of pieces: 380
Mini figures: 4