DianSheng 9x9 Replacement Parts?

[UMichSpeedCubist]

I figured out how to FULLY take apart the edge pieces and corner pieces, separting the caps and magnets, without damaging anything (over 90% of the time).

However, the magnet parts are INCREDIBLY delicate (tiny clips on the sides, magnet not glued into plastic).

Before disassembling, a few of the magnets where already loose or falling out. After disassembling, I have about 10 broken magnet parts and one broken corner cap.

Is it possible to get replacement parts somehow? The box it came with did not include any extra parts, which I now find preposterous given how delicate the parts are. Out of the box, several of the colored plastic housings for the magnets where fractured (but not broken so still functional). Do certain shops offer replacement parts if contacted about it?

I prefer not to have to order a second one to harvest for parts since they are quite pricy. Does anyone here have a broken DianSheng 9x9 for parts they want to sell me? Or just the specific parts I need.

Any tips or insight about this is welcome.

 

[Fukuoka Kengo James]

I always get replacement parts from pi cube shop: https://www.picubeshop.com/products...e3a5b1ce55a.0.1&spm_prev=..index.products_1.1

 

[UMichSpeedCubist]

I always get replacement parts from pi cube shop: https://www.picubeshop.com/products...e3a5b1ce55a.0.1&spm_prev=..index.products_1.1

That page says they only offer it for puzzles they carry and they don't carry this puzzle.
But this tip may be useful to me in the future on another issue so thanks.

 

[Fukuoka Kengo James]

That page says they only offer it for puzzles they carry and they don't carry this puzzle.
But this tip may be useful to me in the future on another issue so thanks.

They do have DianSheng 9x9 M, just not shown on this site, just that they mainly put WCA puzzles on this site

 

[Fukuoka Kengo James]

They do have DianSheng 9x9 M on their Chinese site

 

[Tabe]

I figured out how to FULLY take apart the edge pieces and corner pieces, separting the caps and magnets, without damaging anything (over 90% of the time).

However, the magnet parts are INCREDIBLY delicate (tiny clips on the sides, magnet not glued into plastic).

Before disassembling, a few of the magnets where already loose or falling out. After disassembling, I have about 10 broken magnet parts and one broken corner cap.

Is it possible to get replacement parts somehow? The box it came with did not include any extra parts, which I now find preposterous given how delicate the parts are. Out of the box, several of the colored plastic housings for the magnets where fractured (but not broken so still functional). Do certain shops offer replacement parts if contacted about it?

I prefer not to have to order a second one to harvest for parts since they are quite pricy. Does anyone here have a broken DianSheng 9x9 for parts they want to sell me? Or just the specific parts I need.

Any tips or insight about this is welcome.

The Cubicle does replacement parts.

 

[UMichSpeedCubist]

The Cubicle does replacement parts.

Good guess, I did purchase it from The Cubicle. I messaged them about 36 hours ago, waiting on a response still.
I later realized I *could* repair it myself with superglue. But that would be annoying.

Also, I'm curious which of the DianSheng products share the same magnet parts. (This one was my first.) I heard they are going to release a magnetic Gigaminx which I will probably get, but they really ought to start incuding spare parts in the box. Maybe even consider changing their design... The problem is that their magnets don't attach directly to the 'stem' part but attach to the piece caps, so to disassemble, you have to pull out the magnets and caps together in one assembly and hope not to break anything. Assembling is fine I guess. The stem parts are thick enough plastic to withstand the flex, but the clips on the magnets are the size of an ant and very brittle.

 

[Fukuoka Kengo James]

Cubicle stuff takes forever to arrive. I ordered some FTO stickers in mid-Jan, and the tracking code had never got updated. I emailed the Cubicle in Feb, and I was provided with a tracking code showing that it arrived before I order, and the destination is a random address. Feels like when u ask chat gpt for OH Z perm alg, it gives you pyraminx scramble. like after nearly 2 months with no tracking code that is working at all, it finally arrived with 2 sets of stickers where I only ordered one.

However, every times I order replacement parts from Pi cube shop, they always arrive in 3-4 days with almost free shipping (0.1HKD). I even got to meet the CEO of Pi cube shop in comp last weekend and he is a very nice guy. He is very good at 2x2, even beating RuiHang Xu in 2x2 final, but ironically RuiHang is actually sponsored by Pi cube shop. During the comp, my YuHu v2 mega suddenly got weird where some faces become very stiff while some faces remains normal. I went up to him and asked him, and he knew exactly why and how to fixed it, so I just let him bring it back to their lab to fix it for me. I didn't even bought my yuhu v2m mega from them but they are still doing that for me.

The customer service of the Cubicle isn't even close to what Pi cube shop provides. I can't imagine how can a professional cube store not responding their customers even after like 36 hours? Pi cube shop always respond my messages in few hours, sometimes even less than 10 mins. And their premium puzzles are just as good, if not better in terms of innovativeness. They sell something like qiyi 8x8 M - 10x10 M, Core modded Volt v2 with double corner cutting, shengshou clock with custom weak springs and 3d printed pins which turns just as good as a stock qiyi but still half the price, Polished RS3M 2020 with strong magnets...

Anyway I have shopped at both shops and they are as different as night and day. The Cubicle is selling everything like double/triple the retail price, like a GAN i carry is supposed to be like $13 with free shipping (that's the regular retail price in China which is already a rather expensive option). Speaking of the services provided, the response time of Pi cube shop is a lot more reasonable. And comparing their shipping, the Cubicle prices it astronomically high, and the tracking code provided by the Cubicle never gets updated for over a month and finally shows that it arrives some where else before you order, and randomly arriving several times for the same things after nearly 2 months. While the shipping from Pi cube shop is pretty much free of charge, the tracking code provided by Pi cube shop is always accurate and always updating and logistics in China is like working for 24 hours, like when the things you order reaches a check point at 11pm, it can pretty much reach the next check point at 4am which is quite far away (tho this maybe more of the problem of USPS).

Overall, as I personally had an atrocious shopping experience at the Cubicle, I will never order from the Cubicle again.
I'll keep on shopping at Pi cube shop as they have given me a very enjoyable shopping experience.

 

[UMichSpeedCubist]

So far, my experience with them has been good. Heck, they have opted to send me a new 9x9! (Tho I bet there will be at least one broken piece in it. I plan to combine two to make a perfect one.)

But there were order problems with their stickers. I ordered matching scheme for 2x2, 4x4, 5x5, and 7x7 but for the 7x7, I got a different tint of red than the rest, and yellow was thinner sheet than the other yellows allowing the black underneth to show thru more (also chip more because it's so thin). They offered to replace those for me.

I'd like to think their customer service should/could respond in under 2 hours but it seems they are holding to business hours -- nothing on weekends, they mostly operate in the mornings Mon-Fri. But of course I don't know much about their volume of requests or their staffing. Moreoever, I don't have another puzzle shop company customer service interaction to compare to yet.

In my recent experience, I blame DianSheng's quality control. Heck, I found a broken/cracked core arm! (I never dropped it.) And there was a center-center cap that was irrepairably blemished. I'm not sure I can recommend that 9x9 to anybody, but I'm holding final review until after I've reassembled it and doing some solves on it. And I guess soon I will have a second sample to review.

As for shipping time, it was super fast for them to start the shipping (from New York) after I ordered, but it took the carrier longer than expected for it to arrive, like 5 days or so. SpeedCubeShop on the other hand got my order to me within 48 hours or something crazy and they ship out of Las Vegas, which is farther away from my location. I switched to TheCubicle because their prices on stickers and a few other items where lower. Since then, I discovered lesser known shops with much lower prices, but not sure how reputable those are. And besides, at this point I've pretty much ordered all the cubes I want for the foreseeable future. Well, besides maybe a Gan smart cube and if I want to make some decorative metalic force cubes.

 

[qwr]

Overall, as I personally had an atrocious shopping experience at the Cubicle, I will never order from the Cubicle again.
I'll keep on shopping at Pi cube shop as they have given me a very enjoyable shopping experience.

It should be obvious The Cubicle is targetted towards North America, particularly the US. Of course if you are based in HK you will get faster and cheaper shipping directly from China than a cube making a trip all the way to TC's NY warehouse and then back to HK. For those of us in the US it's the other way around.

Anyway @UMichSpeedCubist you can ask TC for spare parts but they might not be cheap. Have you tried just using superglue?

 

[UMichSpeedCubist]

Anyway @UMichSpeedCubist you can ask TC for spare parts but they might not be cheap. Have you tried just using superglue?

I considered using superglue but the amount of defective parts was staggering -- cracked core arm, blemish on a center-center cap, several broken magnet housings, a broken corner cap, and many cracked but not broken magnets. It was like the puzzle was dropped by shipping company or something. But TC seems to be taking care of me as far as I can tell. I have a shipment coming soon to confirm.