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Viscosity of Lubix Found! Cheaper Alternative!

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*NOTE* Look at my picture for viscosity if you're too lazy to read the thread or to look at the picture, here's the viscosity of Diff oil you want to look for = 50,000 WT (Fifty Thousand weight..... measurement unit should not be cST, It should be WT)

I have found the approximate viscosity of Lubix in an experiment which was not intended to hurt the sales of Pixel. I got the viscosity from a source but I was kind of paranoid so I tested it and it was actually correct! Some people compared Lubix with Shock oil which is basically a runnier version of lubix (Only goes up to 200wt I think) I bought the 200wt shock oil but it wasn't thick enough so I tried to find a thicker version of shock oil so I asked my friends who had RC building/racing as a hobby if there was suck a thing and they told me there was! it was called Differential Silicone Oil which was also for RC cars. This oil went up to 200,000wt ( Two hundred thousand). My friend told me that the approximate viscosity was about 50,000 wt (Fifty Thousand) so I went ahead and bought some Ofna 50,000 wt Silicone Diff oil from a hobby shop (you can get some on eBay; Traxxas is also a good company). I got 40cc for $12 including taxes. I tested the viscosity of Lubix and the Diff oil and what do you know? They were about the same! I tested it in 2 different GuHongs with the same tension set and no mods. I used a syringe with a makeshift applicator and the Results were about the same! I went ahead and asked about 28 people from my school to try the cube and tell me which was smoother and they said that they were the same.

Conclusion
The Differential Shock oil has the same performance of Lubix. It has a lower price than lubix and it also has a higher quantity of liquid than Lubix. If Lubix stopped producing the FANCY STICKERS, the price would probably be cheaper. The Diff Oil has a very simple label and it does not include a syringe (comes in a bottle). Overall, I would get the Lubix if you're lubing a few cubes because they make it easy for you with the syringe. If you want the better deal though, I would get the Diff oil because it is basically the same substance as Lubix.

30K version of Diff oil; here

30K works just as well as 50K


I need your help too!
I am currently learning the Fridrich method and I have gotten F2L down, but I am very slow. If you have the time, could you reply with some tricks to help me get faster quicker?
 

aronpm

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Sep 9, 2009
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You asked non-cubers about which cube was smoother?

BREAKING NEWS

People who don't solve Rubik's Cubes are all idiots and don't know how to tell if something is smooth. Billions distraught.
 

cuber93

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Feb 5, 2011
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You asked non-cubers about which cube was smoother?

I mean if it was a random sample there may have been some cubers in there, you never know. But had this been at my school I could find approximately 0 cubers there besides myself. (there was 1 last year, but he graduated)
 

aronpm

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Really? I hardly can, so I just use whatever lube I have lying around (Often Jig-a-loo or Maru lube). It's either lubed or not lubed. >_>

Obviously you aren't a cuber.

Meep skewber :3
 

Juju

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Oct 11, 2010
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Obviously you aren't a cuber.

Meep skewber :3

Obviously he isn't super obsessed with lube and hardware like many of the posters on the forum, and spends his time actually cubing instead. You can get awesome times on your cube regardless of the lube you use.
 

andrewgk

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You said you "tested the viscosity" of both lubes. But what you really did is put them in 2 different cubes and see if the results were the same.

An alternative is something that yields similar results but is not the same exact product. The title of the thread is "Viscosity of Lubix Found! Cheaper Alternative!". He tested it in two different cubes and saw that the results were the same, therefore he found an alternative to Lubix.
 
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I would just like to show something I saw in another thread. It's from a hobby site, who deals with RC cars.

Basically, they say that it's very hard to have a standardized measurement for Shock and Silicone Differential Oil. So, 50,000 wt of one company might feel very different from 50,000 wt of another company. The guy says the best way to standardize that measurement is to stick to a single company, since they set their own criteria, and if you go higher or lower, it'll reflect from the 50,000wt you started with.

So, your 50,000wt Differential Silicone Oil that is similar to Lubix, might actually be different to another brand's 50,000wt.

Maybe it doesn't matter that much when cubing, but I just wanted to put this out here, for other to know that this exists.

You can read it here:
http://traxxas.com/forums/showthread.php?316637-How-do-I-change-diff-oil

The difference between shock fluid and differential fluid is viscosity. Yes, they are both silicone fluids, but differential fluids are much, much thicker than shock fluids. If you were to fill your shocks with differential fluids you would most likely not have any shock action at all. You can follow the Traxxas manual when filling your differentials but I feel that shock fluids are entirely too thin to get the job done. I use anything from 1K (1000) to 5K (5000) in my differential on my JATO depending on the track surface. You'll have a tough time finding that viscosity in shock fluids. As you may have noticed on page 44 of your JATO manual it states that the JATO was shipped with "SAE 30W viscosity silicone shock oil". That is one of the problems when grading shock or differential fluids, there is no set standard to do so. Company A makes a differential fluid that they say is 10000 weight. Company B makes a similar product but when compared to Company A's fluid there is a great difference in viscosity. Company C comes into the fold and has a diff fluid product that they say is 30 weight. There is no standard method of determining accurate viscosities between manufacturers.

My suggestion is this, whatever shock fluid you choose stick with the same brand for different weights because the manufacturer establishes their own viscosity criteria. Through their internal control measures, their 25 weight will be less viscous than their 35 weight fluid. If you have different brands on each end you can't be certain of consistent weights. The same goes for differential fluids, pick a manufacturer and stick with it.

On our REVOs; we use Traxxas 10K (10000)-50K (50000) differential fluids depending on the track surface. The reason you fill it up to 75% is that you are leaving room for expansion and you don't blow out your o-rings or gasket.

Since we broached the subject a little earlier, here is some information about selecting the right viscosity shock fluid and pistons for your shocks.

Consider a typical R/C shock unit: you have oil of a certain viscosity passing through orifices of a certain diameter at a certain speed. Some oil flows around the outside of the piston, this is almost always laminar flow, since the gap between the piston and the housing is so narrow, so it creates a lot of drag. For the oil flowing through the holes in the piston however, it's hard to predict. When the shaft speed is very low it will be laminar, and when it's high it will be turbulent. Exactly when the transition will happen is hard to predict, but easy to feel: because the resistance of the shock is proportional to the shaft speed when the flow is still laminar and proportional to the shaft speed squared the very next moment, when the flow has turned turbulent, it feels like a kind of hydraulic lock has occurred because the difference in resistance is usually quite substantial. The transition is sometimes also described as 'pack'; it feels as if the shock 'packs up'.

This effect can both be useful and unwanted: it can prevent your car from slapping the ground when landing from a jump, but it can also make your car bounce very badly over sharp ruts or bumps taken at high speed. So it's pretty important to get this adjustment right.

The way to achieve this is to select the right piston and shock oil: both the combination of a piston with small holes and a low viscosity oil and the combination of a piston with large holes and a high viscosity oil will yield the same static damping; it will feel the same when you bump your car by hand. It will also make the car handle the same in low-speed transitions, such as smooth cornering and low-frequency bumps. But the real difference is in the high-speed damping: the first combination will pack up very rapidly because of the low viscosity fluid and the increased fluid velocity (the same amount of oil has to pass through smaller holes in the same amount of time, so its speed must be higher). The second combination will have a relatively high resistance to turbulence because of the very thick fluid which flows at a much lower speed. Hence, turbulence will occur at much higher shaft speeds, or it may not occur at all.

So selecting the right piston and oil depends largely on the track layout. Killer jumps or chassis-wrecking bumps require pistons with small holes to prevent the chassis from slapping the ground and usually making the car very unstable. On the other hand, if the track has lots of bumps or is very rutted, any packing up of the shocks would make the car bounce and thus very unstable. In that case you should try pistons with large holes.

Note that judging if the holes in the pistons are too small or too large isn't as straight forward as you'd like it to be; because the shock absorbers aren't in direct contact with the ground, there is some elasticity to the whole suspension system. Suspension arms aren't infinitely rigid and neither are rims so expect a little flex, and hence also a little bounce from them. Then there there's some more elasticity in the tires, although this is a far less 'bouncy' form of elasticity. These effects are most apparent when your car lands off a big jump and it bounces up a little without the chassis having touched the ground. It means the pistons are way too small, which makes the shocks lock up too fast, so the impact has to be taken up by the elasticity in the suspension arms and the rims.
 
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You said you "tested the viscosity" of both lubes. But what you really did is put them in 2 different cubes and see if the results were the same.

I also tested the viscosity. I put some lubix in a small container and some diff oil in another container and I stirred both of them with a thin stirring thing (one for each container) and they were very similar.
 

Hodari

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Dec 12, 2010
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Very interesting but before we all rush out to replace our Lubix, have you tested how it compares with Lubix in other ways as well as just how smoothly the cube turns? Specifically the following:
1. You get a larger quantity of oil for less money, but do you need to use the same amount of it to get similar results or are you using more?
2. Does it damage/dissolve the cube in any way?
3. Does it last as long in between needing to be relubed as Lubix would?

If it is still comparable in all of those as well, this is definitely good to know though :)
 

izovire

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Hopefully this thread doesn't have a negative effect on lubix sales. But that's competition and it happens.

We all know that silicone lube is a lot cheaper by quantity. Just think of it, Donovan takes the time and effort to apply silicone into a handy application divice, and includes logos and packaging that is rather cool. It is a specialty accessory for our speedcubes. It comes with a price that is well worth it. Don't forget the service of Ultimate's and Elite's.
 
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