Tamiya Planetary Gear Box Set

Reader Reviews
I had a lot of fun putting this thing together. It took me over two hours, but I'll admit I was taking my sweet time. It's a lot of fun to play with, and then disassemble, and then put back together, and then disassemble... I knew how planetary gears worked before I made this model, but it's one thing to know how something works. And quite another to build one yourself. Very cool. A couple thoughts:1) It draws a lot of power. I was hoping to connect the motor (which was included) to a couple mini-solar panels I have on hand. My solar configuration is rated at 2V, 1.2A. The gearbox did not budge when I hooked it up. It did work when I hooked it up to a AA battery, but not very well. You need some pretty decent amperage to make this thing go. Two D-cell batteries connected in series work great, and should allow it to run for quite a while.2) It's not exactly quiet. The noise isn't obtrusive or anything, but it was a little louder than I was expecting.3) There were a couple pieces where the holes were off center when they should have been in the center of the piece. It was pretty obvious, and I had some difficulty getting it assembled. I actually thought about returning it. But I decided to give it a go, and I was able to get it to snap in place. It just took a while.-To mitigate items (1) and (2) from above, I would recommend applying the grease (which was also included) very liberally on all the gears. It's still going to take quite a bit of power, and it's still not going to be silent, but it helps on both counts.Overall, I'd recommend it. Just be prepared for the above items.