I picked up a depth gauge (iGaging 0-4" Electronic Digital Depth Gauge SnapDepth 0.0005" Inch/Metric/Fractions Tire Tread Gage) on Amazon and just used it to adjust tensions on my Huanglong 3x3 - has anyone tried this? It worked well!
Usage was simple - I had already assembled, lubed, and tensioned the cube manually - I had all my screws aligned and (I thought) at the same tension.
I went around the cube measuring the distance between the screw head and the outer surface of the puzzle. As it turned out, a few of the screws were a little tighter than the rest. I adjusted all screws to be essentially the same distance using quarter turns, and now the cube feels exactly tensioned on all sides.
You just zero it, then push it down to get a reading - simple. Cost about $15 but you can probably find them cheaper.
Here's how I used it.
First, I zero the gauge on the top of the cube. This pushes the probe all the way up into the device, and sets it to zero. The gauge will now measure depth, proportional to how much the spring loaded probe is sticking out from the bottom:
After that, I remove the center cap and align the probe onto the top of the screw:
Push the gauge down so its flush with the top of the cube, and take a reading:
It's hard to see the reading but this is showing me that the screw is tightened down so its 5.31mm LOWER than the top of the cube.
If I go around the rest of the cube now they're all tightened to essentially the same depth - 5.30, 5.32, 5.31... much closer to equal than I could get the tensions just by using my eye.
Hopefully this makes sense!
Unfortunately the probe itself is a little too wide to fit comfortably between the center tiles of my Wuque 4x4. the tip unscrews (so you can make the gauge longer) so its possible to make a thinner attachment that threads on. I'm going to see about finding or making something that will allow me to take measurements in more confined situations like on a 4x4.
I also adjusted tensions on my cyclone boys skewb. Here I'm measuring how far the screw is tightened with the lip of the surrounding piece internal as the reference point. This measurement was a little harder because the diameter of the piece internal is so small and the tool isn't totally flat there - you can kind of see this in the picture. I need to get a straightedge I can use in a situation like this to get a level surface that is wide enough to seat the tool on if that makes sense. Nonetheless with a little care I was able to get all the screws adjusted - some were off by up to 1.5 turns:
Update: did my chuwen as well - the 2x2s with the rounded edges are easy to tension using the gauge. Once again, one of my screws was off even though it looked fine to my eye.
I realized that for doing 4x4s etc, I can probably just tape a paperclip or something similar to the probe to 'extend it'. It just needs to stay put during measurement. I'll try it later and report in the thread if it works - a permanent attachment would be nicer of course but that will take some time to develop.
Usage was simple - I had already assembled, lubed, and tensioned the cube manually - I had all my screws aligned and (I thought) at the same tension.
I went around the cube measuring the distance between the screw head and the outer surface of the puzzle. As it turned out, a few of the screws were a little tighter than the rest. I adjusted all screws to be essentially the same distance using quarter turns, and now the cube feels exactly tensioned on all sides.
You just zero it, then push it down to get a reading - simple. Cost about $15 but you can probably find them cheaper.
Here's how I used it.
First, I zero the gauge on the top of the cube. This pushes the probe all the way up into the device, and sets it to zero. The gauge will now measure depth, proportional to how much the spring loaded probe is sticking out from the bottom:
After that, I remove the center cap and align the probe onto the top of the screw:
Push the gauge down so its flush with the top of the cube, and take a reading:
It's hard to see the reading but this is showing me that the screw is tightened down so its 5.31mm LOWER than the top of the cube.
If I go around the rest of the cube now they're all tightened to essentially the same depth - 5.30, 5.32, 5.31... much closer to equal than I could get the tensions just by using my eye.
Hopefully this makes sense!
Unfortunately the probe itself is a little too wide to fit comfortably between the center tiles of my Wuque 4x4. the tip unscrews (so you can make the gauge longer) so its possible to make a thinner attachment that threads on. I'm going to see about finding or making something that will allow me to take measurements in more confined situations like on a 4x4.
I also adjusted tensions on my cyclone boys skewb. Here I'm measuring how far the screw is tightened with the lip of the surrounding piece internal as the reference point. This measurement was a little harder because the diameter of the piece internal is so small and the tool isn't totally flat there - you can kind of see this in the picture. I need to get a straightedge I can use in a situation like this to get a level surface that is wide enough to seat the tool on if that makes sense. Nonetheless with a little care I was able to get all the screws adjusted - some were off by up to 1.5 turns:
Update: did my chuwen as well - the 2x2s with the rounded edges are easy to tension using the gauge. Once again, one of my screws was off even though it looked fine to my eye.
I realized that for doing 4x4s etc, I can probably just tape a paperclip or something similar to the probe to 'extend it'. It just needs to stay put during measurement. I'll try it later and report in the thread if it works - a permanent attachment would be nicer of course but that will take some time to develop.
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