How do you correctly position centres on 4x4s?

[~Adam~]

I've been cubing for a few months and started teaching everyone I know.
I've recently learnt F2L and starting to learn the OLLs & PLLs.
I found that I just wasn't enjoying it as much anymore so I regressed back to my original technique with a few alteration allowing me to solve in around 40sec which I'm happy with. I figure if I stopped enjoying it then what's the point. I'm never going to enter any competitions.

So onto the topic of the thread, to continue enjoying cubing but with new challenges I've been modifying 3x3s & 4x4s to increase the challenge without reducing my speeds. This is a pic of my most recent 4x4.

It's very easy to solve the edge pairings because each edgepair has a different smiliey of the correct colour for the side. However I can solve 4 centres with all the smileys the correct way up but then struggle to solve the final centres correctly. After a few mins I can solve the final ones just by pure luck. I'd like to be able to solve the final ones quickly everytime.

Any help would be muchly appreciated.

 

[iSpinz]

I think this link might help you. BTW, nice 4x4.

 

[~Adam~]

Thanks, but I can solve a 7X7. What I'm trying to do is get all the faces on the centres the right way up.

 

[miniGOINGS]

Thanks, but I can solve a 7X7. What I'm trying to do is get all the faces on the centres the right way up.

You want to solve a supercube 4x4?

 

[iSpinz]

Centers are the only part that's really different about supercubes, although they are not the only part that you have to solve differently. In a supercube, every center has to be solved into the correct spot - they're not interchangeable anymore. Thus, instead of just solving blocks of centers, you have to actually pay attention to what goes where.

In a 4x4, you only have x-centers, which have three colors in the standard Pochmann sticker design (which I really recommend, because just drawing arrows or cutting corners off the stickers makes it very hard to see what goes where). I always put 4x4 centers together by making two 1x2 blocks. This probably doesn't require any explanation at all, although you might find it helpful to know that if you pair up the two yellow centers across a red-yellow 'edge', the other stickers will be paired across an orange-yellow 'edge' (since orange is the opposite of yellow). This can make recognition and setup easier.

If you go to solve centers, you might notice that the last center doesn't automatically solve itself anymore. That should happen 5/6 of the time, but fortunately there are algorithms to fix this quickly. If you want to swap Ufr and Ufl, you can use this A-perm-like algorithm:
x r' U r' d2 r U' r' d2 r2
If you want to do a diagonal swap, on the other hand, the algorithm I currently use comes from the Square-1 and is as follows:
r2 U D r2 U r2 U D r2 U r2 U D r2.
So your centers should be solved and you can now start on the edges step.

That part of the page. I don't know where you got the 7x7 idea from.

 

[~Adam~]

Thanks. Sorry, didn't know what a supercube was. Just assumed from a quick scan of the page that it was instruction on how to solve a standard 4x4 with the super prefix to point out that it was more difficult than a 3x3.

 

[~Adam~]

What does the x at the beginning of the 1st algorithm mean? Sorry if this is a stupid question.

 

[iSpinz]

http://www.nascarjon.us/notation.html

 

[miniGOINGS]

What does the x at the beginning of the 1st algorithm mean? Sorry if this is a stupid question.

It's a rotation, like R but with the entire cube.

 

[cmhardw]

Use the standard A-perm, only use inner slice r turns instead of R turns. A-perms are really A9 commutators, and the same concept works on other pieces.

Hope this helps,
Chris

 

[~Adam~]

Yay

Thanks for the help. Anyone know if there will be legal implications of selling my modded cubes on ebay?

edit - just realised I hadn't solved the orange centre.

 

[cmhardw]

Use the standard A-perm, only use inner slice r and b turns instead of R and B turns. A-perms are really A9 commutators, and the same concept works on other pieces.

Hope this helps,
Chris

fixed.