4x4x4 frustration

[Ton]

I received my puzzles from popbiying 2 days ago and I've been going around with them. I figured out parity for the void 3x3x3, solved the mirror blocks in a few minutes and decided to move on to the Revenge cube.

I made a promise to also solve it without any external help or guides and after 10 hours and several approaches I solved it.. Except for the parity case I ran into where two pieces would ne flipped. Since I failed to resolve the parity, I solved the cube FOUR additional times, only to run into parities on each case. just as I'm venting my frustration with my wife and i swear out loud to have it solve today my cubes slips from my hand and splatters with two broken pieces.

Dam I hate this day.

It took me a week to figure out how the parity (edge flip) could be solved, than I realized what caused the parity.... You only need to do one turn to set the cube in a non parity position....

 

[hawkmp4]

Yes, that changes parity of edge permutation...
But that's not really useful in a solve.

Ever used sandwich?

Lemme rephrase- it's not very useful for a reduction method, because the most obvious way to restore the centers is, of course, u'...which doesn't help at all.
No, I haven't used sandwich. (reads wiki entry) Yes, that would be useful for sandwich, I see that now.

 

[Nestor]

I superglued the broken pieces and after 2 additional tries I finally got a case without parity and solved it.

Now I can say I solved the Revenge on my own .

Afterwards I got another flipped edge case... I solved it by destroying it and re-forming it with a different orientation. I know this is a primitive approach and destroys an additional pair, but hey, it worked

Now I'm gonna look for tutorials to see what other methods are out there and how closely they resemble my own solution (after several approaches I formed opposite center blocks for all faces, then pairs around these blocks and treated the whole cube afterwards as a 3x3x3). At first I tried a Petrus-like approach but I failed at building the centers without destroying their opposites... layer by layer failed for the same reason so that lead me to work on the centers first.

Now I'm on to learn proper algorithms and optimized solutions.. and to order a 5x5x5 and a 6x6x6 of course

 

[Rosette]

This

and yes im not an artist

There isn't a parity like this.

No there isn't. I just thought it was a parity.

 

[Rosette]

This

and yes im not an artist

There isn't a parity like this.

Sorry I just thought it was a parity

 

[chris410]

To quote Joe Piscopo from Johnny Dangerously...

I solved the 4x4 once...just once...

although, I read up on the general idea and figured most of it out on my own...somehow, I got lucky on my first try since I did not have any parity.

Each and every time after that I ran into parity, now I am learning how to deal with the parity so that I can solve it each time. I am using the reduction method along with the OLL parity and PLL fix algs.

 

[Senkoy]

I wonder when Verdes will release the V-Cube 4s. I have a crappy Rubiks brand 4x4 and it's awful. I don't know if i should get a Maru (heard they're good but cost as much as i'd expect the V-Cube 4 to cost) or just wait for the V-Cube 4.

As for parity it depends on what method you use i suppose. I used to use the dan brown method and that algorithm for the flipped corners was grotesquely long, but now i permute the corners first and then the centers. Before i would get parity 9/10 times and now i hardly get it, but i don't solve it too often cause it's a pain. So many lock-ups. But anyway, the edge parity algorithm is a lot shorter so orienting first and then permuting the corners and lastly the centers is probably the best approach, but i could be wrong since i haven't solved it that many times since i started using the Friedrich method.

 

[hawkmp4]

I wonder when Verdes will release the V-Cube 4s. I have a crappy Rubiks brand 4x4 and it's awful. I don't know if i should get a Maru (heard they're good but cost as much as i'd expect the V-Cube 4 to cost) or just wait for the V-Cube 4.

As for parity it depends on what method you use i suppose. I used to use the dan brown method and that algorithm for the flipped corners was grotesquely long, but now i permute the corners first and then the centers. Before i would get parity 9/10 times and now i hardly get it, but i don't solve it too often cause it's a pain. So many lock-ups. But anyway, the edge parity algorithm is a lot shorter so orienting first and then permuting the corners and lastly the centers is probably the best approach, but i could be wrong since i haven't solved it that many times since i started using the Friedrich method.

If you use a reduction method, the chance of having each 'parity' case independently is 1/2. So, there's a 1/4 chance you wouldn't have either parity, and the same chance that you would have both.

 

[Yes We Can!]

If it's a normal sized QJ, I can offer you to buy pieces from me. I have a broken one lying around here anyway