The Energon Pub

Hey gang,

My room is on the side of my house which faces the sun, most of the day. I close the shades to keep excess sunlight out. My room is the warmest of all in my house, which often makes summer hell due to the heat and humidity.

So anyway, one night I was looking at the TF Classics on my shelf, as I often do, when I noticed something which seemed strange to me -- the rubsigns were all 'on.' By 'on,' I mean not black; they all displayed colours, mainly reds and greens.

Is this normal? Is this hazardous for the rubsigns? They go back to displaying only black when the heat dies down, like at night or in the early morning. I know that they are heat-sensitive stickers, but this is the first time I've seen them behave in this fashion!

Well since they are heat-sensitive I asume it's normal that they light up like that in the heat in you'r room. And no it dosn't damege them, that is if they are as good as the old ones from the 80's, cos my old (and busted) Astrotrain's rubsign still works and he's been in the attik for a long time and my attik can get realy hot.

Yeah although they're called "rub singsn" it's actually the heat of your body and not the friction that causes them to appear. It's perfectly normal.

Normal. The rub sign "technology" is used for checking temperatures of things like aquariums and I have a thermometer made of the same material. If it was a thermometer it's reading the room temperature.

Thanks, guys. Ya gotta love heat-sensitive stickers!
Now I don't even need to look at my thermostat, I just glance at my Classics to see how hot is is. According to Mirage, it's Dark Brown right now.

1337W422102 wrote:Thanks, guys. Ya gotta love heat-sensitive stickers!
Now I don't even need to look at my thermostat, I just glance at my Classics to see how hot is is. According to Mirage, it's Dark Brown right now.

And jet a nother eoisode of How usfull Transformers are.

My rub signs do that too. For a while I thought it was a sign that I was getting too caught up in collecting. But then I figured it out. I think it's cool.

Dagon wrote:I think it's cool.

If they're doing that, then your room must be hot.
(just being a smartass)

I have no idea why I came in here. I started out was just goint to say "I don't know what normal is, I work in Theater, nothing is normal." But then I actully read the post and that doesn't really apply.

Anyway I'm going to agree with what everyone elce said, they're heat sensitive stickers, they're just responding to the room's temprature.

Come to think of it I actully remember my Transformers doing the same thing and I never even realized the stickers exsisted till they responded to the heat in my house durring the summer. This is with my Beast Wars toys. If you have any of them the rub signs are all in weird places like under one of Megatron's butt fans.

Come to think of it you might not notice if you only have the Armada Versions of characters but even though they don't have the rub signs they never bother to change the molds to remove the spot where the rub sign would be. In other words the Armada toys still have the little squares on them but no stickers.

Here's a better question... why do some rubsigns (like on Battle Beasts especially) get so damaged? What does it exactly? Crappy sticker glue oozing in and freezing the oils in place?

You're gonna save yourself a lot of rubsign-related blisters this way.

Apparently it is some sort of like "liquid crystal" in them and after a while they just get broken. the one on my aquarium is wrecked but hte ones on my wine carboy's work well. I guess after time they may break down.

1337W422102 wrote:Hey gang,

My room is on the side of my house which faces the sun, most of the day. I close the shades to keep excess sunlight out. My room is the warmest of all in my house, which often makes summer hell due to the heat and humidity.

So anyway, one night I was looking at the TF Classics on my shelf, as I often do, when I noticed something which seemed strange to me -- the rubsigns were all 'on.' By 'on,' I mean not black; they all displayed colours, mainly reds and greens.

Is this normal? Is this hazardous for the rubsigns? They go back to displaying only black when the heat dies down, like at night or in the early morning. I know that they are heat-sensitive stickers, but this is the first time I've seen them behave in this fashion!

I have a C9.5-ish Skylynx and C9.5-ish Metroplex, both complete, and even though they do not sit in the sun, their rubsigns are still fine.

Your main concern is probably the rubsigns rubbing off. If it gets hot enough in direct sunlight, and your room gets like an oven, they may start to "slide" off slowly, following the corse of gravity.

This happened to a G1 Hound I had as a child. Same conditions with the room, etc.

But it only slid less than a CM, and it just needed pushing back while the adhesive was still warm.

No biggie.

If I were you, I would be more conderned with yellowing of plastic and fading caused by the sun. That is a killer.

You can get repro rubsigns almost anywhere now, so it's essentially a non-issue.

Hope this helps, LEET.

Thanks for the suggestions, YFG! Don't worry, my TFs are on a shelf out of the path of direct sunlight. I never even turn my blinds to point light on them (except for when I take photos of them).