Cotton Mod

[SpeedCubeReview]

I have heard many people who do not like cubes to feel hollow. I am one of those people. To me the cube then feels cheap. I decided to set out what would happen if I filled pieces of my Gans 357 with cotton. I did not put them in the centers out of fear to what would happen to the springs.

It did not make it quieter, but definitely gave it a deeper tone. The cube doesn't feel any heavier either which is nice.

 

[SenorJuan]

I wonder if applying pieces of 'Duct tape' / 'Duck Tape' or similar to the insides of the pieces may also have a deadening effect.

 

[SpeedCubeReview]

I wonder if applying pieces of 'Duct tape' / 'Duck Tape' or similar to the insides of the pieces may also have a deadening effect.

 

[SenorJuan]

Serious. I'm sure there's plenty of things that would work, it's the weight issue that makes some of them less appealing. Rubber sheet, like bicycle inner-tube rubber, is quite absorbent (it's noticeably less springy than regular elastic band rubber), maybe glueing pieces of that inside the cubies would do something.
Sound deadening products are widely used in vehicles, to reduce engine/transmission noise, body panel vibration, tyre noise etc. I'm sure some Googling would come up with some ideas.
Another different approach would be to bond on stiffening ribs internally along large flat areas. There are specialist ABS / PVC cements / glues, for industrial pipework, scrap ABS sheet is easily salvaged from junk like old PC CD-ROM drives.

 

[trackdork]

Preeeeeetty sure he meant "inside" like... on the interior of the cubies themselves, not on the surfaces that touch each other. I mean, granted, that would give a DECIDEDLY dampened-feel to the cube, but it might reduce TPS and corner-cutting significantly

Seriously though, I enjoy a bit of a heavier/solid feel to my cubes... The 357 is my main now, but I've often wondered if potting the cubies with clay or silly putty or something similar would give it a nicer feel. I'm hoping the 356 that's in the mail will have some of that hefty feeling.

 

[SenorJuan]

I've had a little experiment with my Zhanchi, and tried duct tape in the edge pieces. I used the finger-nail tap test to compare standard vs modified. A single layer of tape on the 4 main flat surfaces did little, a double layer was quieter. I did all 12 edge pieces, and the result was a slightly quieter cube. I'll try the rubber sheet on a cubie this weekend, I have a duff bike inner tube, and some 'Evo-stik' type of contact adhesive.
The Zhanchi corners are effectively seperated into two 'chambers' by the interlocking mechanism that joins the three parts. It would probably be necessary to treat each of these seperately from an acoustic point of view.
I have some 'felt-like' sheet, about 4mm thick, salvaged from the bottom of an inkjet printer [used to soak up stray drips of ink], that could easily be cut into triangular pieces that are neatly trapped inside the corner-piece cavities. They would act like ViolaB's cotton, I suspect.
For info: the main things I'm tackling are:
1)effectively thickening/stiffening the large flat surfaces so they vibrate less
2)damping out the vibration of the surfaces using lossy materials (rubber, cork, dense felt as examples)
3)generally absorbing any sound produced (eg. part-filling cavities)

Other techniques that might be applied include changing the shape of cavities / surfaces so there isn't one particular main resonant frequency, there are multiple different frequencies, each having a small portion of the energy. This gives less of a 'click'.

Obviously, keeping the added weight to a minimum.

 

[Glaffspunt]

Preeeeeetty sure he meant "inside" like... on the interior of the cubies themselves, not on the surfaces that touch each other. I mean, granted, that would give a DECIDEDLY dampened-feel to the cube, but it might reduce TPS and corner-cutting significantly

Seriously though, I enjoy a bit of a heavier/solid feel to my cubes... The 357 is my main now, but I've often wondered if potting the cubies with clay or silly putty or something similar would give it a nicer feel. I'm hoping the 356 that's in the mail will have some of that hefty feeling.

I know this is a bit off topic of the thread, but where are you getting the 356? I can't find it anywhere right now.

 

[trackdork]

I know this is a bit off topic of the thread, but where are you getting the 356? I can't find it anywhere right now.

I preordered the two of the ultimate edition cubes in January directly from the Taobao site, though they didn't start shipping until Feb 28th. Living in the US I had to go through a sketchy buying service. If they arrive before things come in stock locally I'll probably just sell it on here or something.

 

[obelisk477]

Just did this cotton mod to the Guangying, HIGHLY recommended

 

[SenorJuan]

I'm still working on the rubber sheet etc quietening, it works well on the edge pieces, the amount of rubber used can be minimised so the overall weight of the cube increases by less than 10%.
I'll get back when I've done more.

 

[CriticalCubing]

Just did this cotton mod to the Guangying, HIGHLY recommended

How does it feel now? The speed is more controllable? Less lock ups?

 

[obelisk477]

How does it feel now? The speed is more controllable? Less lock ups?

Well I didn't say it did magic lol. But what it helped the most was how loud it was, it sounds much nicer now. I only did it in the edge pieces. And I guess maybe it's slightly more controllable, but not by a lot

 

[SpeedCubeReview]

Well I didn't say it did magic lol. But what it helped the most was how loud it was, it sounds much nicer now. I only did it in the edge pieces. And I guess maybe it's slightly more controllable, but not by a lot

I haven't tried it with my Shrengren yet, but I think I will now that you posted this.

 

[SenorJuan]

I found that the quieter cube was less distracting, and I was able to concentrate more. My initial tests (with various different silencing methods) mainly affected edge pieces, I'm sure the corners can be tamed similarly, so I think I will be keeping some kind of modifications on my cube.