Initial thoughts on MP BW Megatron from HK...

[predahank]

Originally Posted by theamazingspiderham

Mine also has the broken crotch issue.

I saw some small cracks on the front and wasn't too concerned but after reading the TFW2005 threads, I took a look at Meg's butt and found a full crack on the left side. Crack is totally from ratchet pressure as I can see it widen when moving the legs.

Debating returning him now or seeing if this is salvageable....

Man, that’s disappointing. Haven’t opened mine yet but I’ll go with, expect the worse but hope for best, mentality

*waits for Pascal to say this is an isolated case

[QuadESL63]

So I finally cracked my Megatron open and transformed him. I haven’t watched any of those YouTube reviews about how to transform Megatron, and I must say the instructions are indeed crappy even though I understand some of the written memos in each step. And I don’t understand why they didn’t recommend us to slide off the left & right dino “skin” parts on the robot back where the dino arms are - it definitely makes transforming & locking down the robot body/waist a lot easier. I took these two halfs out, transformed the body, transformed that two halves separately, and attached them back to the back. Speaking of which pulling out & extending the robot body to fill the void in the torso is not trivial because it is, like many have mentioned, extremely tight. It takes gut and you have to be very patient. I didn’t unscrew anything but it took me quite a number of tries. Locking the body/waist/torso after filling the void is also a challenge since you have to make sure the dino part that you folded in is not in the way. With all the forewarnings I did not force anything to happen to prevent breakage. The whole transformation is actually not that overly complicated as some might have suggested (it is pretty clever to be honest), but again it definitely takes time, patient and a bit of care.

A lot of the parts are very fragile but if you are careful and take your sweet time you are fine, and I don’t think I have left any visible stress mark. There are one or two hairline “marks” on the crotch - I hesitate to say “crack” because the crotch is not breaking or anything on mine at least. I supposed it is due to the plastic TakaraTomy has chosen. Is it a concern? May be if these were developed into cracks and things started breaking off, but I couldn’t feel anything is breaking or loosening at the moment. I have a second one to be kept MISB so I do have a replacement which I hope it won’t happen. But for now I am OK I supposed. Although it is a transforming toy I don’t think I will put Megatron back to dino alt. mode again, at least not in the near future or may be ever, which is a shame.

Fragility aside, it IS a nice MP figure by TakaraTomy standard. I know it may sound like an Apple to Orange comparison it is nice but not on the same level as FT Phoenix or the recent Bandai DX Chogokin VF-1J (which actually cost me less than this BW Megatron). But don’t take it the wrong way: by no mean I think it is a bad figure or doesn’t worth my dough, and I do like this MP BW Megatron.















Once again, when I started this thread it is not a deflamation effort - I read about those first hand reports and was trying to post a forewarning. I bought two so there is definitely no hateful intention. And having read those did help - at least I am prepared LOL. Have a good day!

[MapleMegatron]

Awesome, glad you like the toy and that your copy is good.
In other news, someone in the tfwiki staff added MP beast megatron to their list of GPS toys
https://tfwiki.net/wiki/Gold_Plastic_Syndrome

[Pascal]

^lol

Originally Posted by predahank

I saw a facebook post with a crack in an unopened copy still in the clamshell

If someone can fake a pinned Siege Starscream...

[MapleMegatron]

Some interesting stuff over at TFW as people try to see what is wrong and if there is a way to avoid a problem. there seems to be a miss assembly (to go along with the questionable plastic) :

My friend, who's copy was cracked right out of the box, brought his over, and I took a look.

At first, nothing seemed different, but then I took off the ratchet piece., and it was definitely miss assembled at the factory. The diecast hip bar has a square peg. The purple ratchet has a square hole. His, however, was put on wrong, somehow not lining up the square to square.

You can see the ratchet was put on rotated 45 degrees from where it should, and forced down enough that it smashed the plastic down. Those corners at the green arrow shouldn't be there, and were created by forcing the part down over diecast hip joint. You can see the smashed plastic at the red arrows.



Here's another angle without the arrows so you can see the smashed down plastic a little better.



And compared to how it should look



So what does this do? Well that damaged ratchet doesn't sit down as far as it should, since there's now smashed plastic in they way of it sitting properly. I'd also guess the internal circular section is pushed outward slightly too. All of which, in turn, will create extra tension and stress when two crotch have were screwed, too tightly, together, causing the crack. You can see below that the affected ratchet, on the right side in this picture, does sit slightly further out than the one of the left.

[ssjgoku22]

Originally Posted by MapleMegatron

Some interesting stuff over at TFW as people try to see what is wrong and if there is a way to avoid a problem. there seems to be a miss assembly (to go along with the questionable plastic) :

My friend, who's copy was cracked right out of the box, brought his over, and I took a look.

At first, nothing seemed different, but then I took off the ratchet piece., and it was definitely miss assembled at the factory. The diecast hip bar has a square peg. The purple ratchet has a square hole. His, however, was put on wrong, somehow not lining up the square to square.

You can see the ratchet was put on rotated 45 degrees from where it should, and forced down enough that it smashed the plastic down. Those corners at the green arrow shouldn't be there, and were created by forcing the part down over diecast hip joint. You can see the smashed plastic at the red arrows.



Here's another angle without the arrows so you can see the smashed down plastic a little better.



And compared to how it should look



So what does this do? Well that damaged ratchet doesn't sit down as far as it should, since there's now smashed plastic in they way of it sitting properly. I'd also guess the internal circular section is pushed outward slightly too. All of which, in turn, will create extra tension and stress when two crotch have were screwed, too tightly, together, causing the crack. You can see below that the affected ratchet, on the right side in this picture, does sit slightly further out than the one of the left.

Well that's interesting. I haven't transformed mine yet, but I'd definitely like to check to see if I have the same issue with the ratchets. Damn Takara, all this could be avoided if they'd properly inspect their products...

[xueyue2]

Originally Posted by Pascal

^lol



If someone can fake a pinned Siege Starscream...

Yeah,these fake news guys would do anything to hurt HasTak's reputation, like the MP09 Rodimus. Among thousands copies sold, how much reports we saw has issues? Less than 100, just less than 100 and how dare people to call that a defective product?

[ssjgoku22]

So, just transformed mine and all good. No cracks or breakage in the crotch area. I even played around with the legs quite a bit and it all seems sturdy. All in all, I've got nothing but praise for Mp-43. It's literally Takara at their absolute best. Still I will exercise caution with the legs. I wasn't able to loosen the screws on the crotch area because it's difficult to get to (the right thigh is in the way). I'd still like to loosen them for preventative measures.

Actually, I'd be more careful with those panels on the back (they seem extremely scary to maneuver when being folded into the backpack). Wotafa's video is extremely helpful with transformation when going back and forth from each mode.

To end this off, I dare say that this is Takara's best masterpiece to date?...

[Nocturn]

Originally Posted by xueyue2

Yeah,these fake news guys would do anything to hurt HasTak's reputation, like the MP09 Rodimus. Among thousands copies sold, how much reports we saw has issues? Less than 100, just less than 100 and how dare people to call that a defective product?

Okay but if 10,000 of a toy sold and 100 of them break, that's a 1% failure rate? Annoying, frustrating if it's your copy that's F'ed up, but that's far from being "defective", if 99% are just fine... XBox 360 anyone?

They clearly shouldn't have used that metallic swirl plastic, though. We all know by now how fragile that shit is.

At the end of the day though, it's a mass-produced item. If you expect 100% QC on mass-produced items, you're only fooling yourself. If 100% was achievable, there wouldn't be broken condoms.

[joshimus]

Originally Posted by Nocturn

Okay but if 10,000 of a toy sold and 100 of them break, that's a 1% failure rate? Annoying, frustrating if it's your copy that's F'ed up, but that's far from being "defective",
At the end of the day though, it's a mass-produced item. If you expect 100% QC on mass-produced items, you're only fooling yourself. If 100% was achievable, there wouldn't be broken condoms.

So I do agree that if the defects are a very small percentage of units sold, it isn't a defective item, but Takara should be sending out replacements to those that have legit issues with that particular fault. Even if say only 1% of all units sold has that issue that still places Takara at fault for not properly aligning the machine. It doesn't appear to be weak plastic as much as it is the mis-alignment of a gear when pressing the part in to place causing the issue.

This is something that Takara should send replacement parts for. This isn't a 100.00 toy. I've seen people complain for smaller things on Hot Toys figures and PF Statues and they run close to the same price if not LESS than BW Megatron.
Mass produced or not, even the best made companies still have defective units but that doesn't excuse Takara nor should it let them off the hook to help those who ended up with that bad batch.
I havent gotten mine yet and I am worried about it, but if I get the defect batch I would hope for some support.