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Magnets Discussion and Help thread

Chree

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I made my yuxin blue magnetic guys! i underestimated how many magnets i needed so I'm missing magnets in 5 more corner pieces, but essentially the cube feels pretty cool. Recommendation and tip for anyone who wants to try this: try slightly weaker magnets than n35 4x2 for the inner layers. my inner layers feel great at edge pairing but i can tell it really lags a bit during PLL parity. my inner layers also realign themselves at 1/3 a piece, so I'm not even sure if it'd be comp legal lol.

Awesome! Sounds like a good mod! I was thinking of adding magnets to an Aosu, but maybe I'll try my Blue instead.

And if it realigns itself any less than a Qiyi Pyraminx, it shouldn't raise any red flags.
 

TheChaiCuber

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@Dom and anyone else interested, atm I'm having trouble uploading a 5min video on youtube (Im in china currently, won't be leaving for another few weeks). I let it load overnight and its only at 10%. If theres no progress i'll gladly post some pictures to show how i did it.
 
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Dom

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@Dom and anyone else interested, atm I'm having trouble uploading a 5min video on youtube (Im in china currently, won't be leaving for another few weeks). I let it load overnight and its only at 10%. If theres no progress i'll gladly post some pictures to show how i did it.
Wow. Yeah, if the video won't upload, pictures are worth a thousand words. That really makes me appreciate my internet speed here in the U.S. I officially have no right to ever complain. :)

China: fast cubes, slow internet
 

TheChaiCuber

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Wow. Yeah, if the video won't upload, pictures are worth a thousand words. That really makes me appreciate my internet speed here in the U.S. I officially have no right to ever complain. :)

China: fast cubes, slow internet
its not so much the wifi speed as youtube simply being blocked by china internet. I have to bypass this by having a VPN subscription, and that makes internet quite a bit slower for some reason. totally sucks.
 

TheChaiCuber

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View attachment 7346 View attachment 7347

EDIT: adding text now lol, my browser crashed and i guess i just uploaded pics.

The video project failed, it simply won't upload and i need my computer for other things. so heres a couple pictures and text for proof and advice on how to make one.

the picture with the exposed pieces is the important one. there are 3 magnets per edge and 2 of them have to be for the inner layer magnetization. at the moment do not worry about the singular, outer magnet.

the 2 in the inner layer are distributed into 1 per split edge piece. They are OPPOSITE POLARITIES. That's key. The way you control that and build is by taking apart all of the edges into split pieces. you should have 2 types of split pieces, reflected/opposite shapes to each other. for each type of split piece, put magnets in 1 direction. for the other types of split pieces, put all the magnets in the opposite direction compared to the first group of split pieces.

Choosing which direction to go does not matter, because these magnets do not affect the outer magnets for the outer layers. just make sure the inner magnets are opposite polarities to each other within the same edge piece.

For the single magnet used for the outer layer, do not worry too much about that. the placement is the same as a regular split piece design 3x3. when placing magnets on the edge, look at each edge pair as ONE EDGE, just as you would during 3x3 stage of solving a 4x4. corners are the same as a 3x3 as well, which is why i felt it unnecessary to post a picture of the corners.

Btw, the magnetization in the inner layers when i put it all together was super strong, and thats prolly because there are two pairs of magnets working the inners. When i first bought magnets i didn't anticipate this, so in hindsight i think buying weaker magnets for the inner layers is better. The outer layers I can't really say, because I did not manage to magnetize all the corners (i ran out of magnets with 5 corners to go, but i swear i did all the important stuff for a magnetized 4x4), but for the 3 corners that are magnetized I can feel it ever so slightly when turning slowly.

RECOMENDATION: buy weaker magnets for the inner layers than N35 4x2 magnets. it doesn't have to be the same strength as the outer layers because again the inner and outer layers don't interact with each other.

I hope this helps you guys, i know text can be confusing to read.
 
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TheChaiCuber

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So do you have 4 magnets in each edge and 6 in each corner? Could you fix the problem of pieces aligning 1/3 of a piece off by reversing the polarity of one pair?

sorry, I just added edited text, if your confused about it. if the text doesn't help feel free to ask some more.

but yeah, I managed to control the problem of the inner layers possibly not aligning correctly by edges being flipped.
 

TheChaiCuber

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also, i feel like i left out some important points:

1. the magnets in the outer layer (N35, 4x2mm) feel very faint, only noticeable when turning slowly and like some demonstrations of magnetic 3x3s the layers really won't realign, theres just a faint snap and resistance. for me it feels perfect and even though i can't feel it turning quickly it oddly brings a sense of extra stability.
2. the cube is definitely heavier. the cool thing is that i think the yuxin is only a couple grams heavier than the wuque, so it was already a pretty light 4x4. putting magnets in other 4x4s might make them very awkward to hold. for example the heavier cube the aosu might not feel that great in the hands cuz it could be so heavy. then again this is personal preference.
 

JTcuber

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Hey guys, have any of you made a magnetic 4x4? I'm going to make one and I want to make sure I get the placement and polarity right. (I'm using a Yuxin Blue)
 

4Chan

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How did you figure out the polarity?

Since a lot of people have figured it out as well, I think it's okay to tell the secret!
(Usually I'm not supposed to share work secrets.)

If you consider the orbits of the inner edges with just one magnet each, parity can make it so they're "flipped in place".

So I thought hard about it, and realised that if you use two magnets each, and arrange them in a rotationally symmetric pattern so that one is north facing out, and the other one is south facing out, then they'll attract even when you have parity!
 

JTcuber

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Since a lot of people have figured it out as well, I think it's okay to tell the secret!
(Usually I'm not supposed to share work secrets.)

If you consider the orbits of the inner edges with just one magnet each, parity can make it so they're "flipped in place".

So I thought hard about it, and realised that if you use two magnets each, and arrange them in a rotationally symmetric pattern so that one is north facing out, and the other one is south facing out, then they'll attract even when you have parity!
So how did you go about making one? Did you just do something similar to a 3x3? Where you create 1 magnetic corner, and you can base the edges on that?
 

newtonbase

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Woahh crazy! Do you know if they did the centers too?
He didn't say but I know he used 144 magnets which fits with what @4Chan says about placement. 6 per corner and 4 per edge.

I've made a bunch of these for friends, and you don't need to do the centers :)
They must be very good friends! How long does it take you to do? I assume you must be quicker than pretty much anyone with your experience. New event?
 
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Berd

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Yeah I did my asou and it's awesome. 100% recommend. However I manged to get it so that the 2 magnets in each corner attracted each other - that made it very tricky to get them to stick down!
 

aybuck37

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Yeah I did my asou and it's awesome. 100% recommend. However I manged to get it so that the 2 magnets in each corner attracted each other - that made it very tricky to get them to stick down!
Nice! Could you send a video? I've still never turned a magnetic cube
 
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