Lock Up Help

[winston61]

the worst it could be is that you need a new core. Do not put the screws in even slightly off.

 

[LarryLunchmeat]

My 2nd Maru 4X4 just broke tonight. Same exact problem as the last one. All of a sudden the core started misaligning on pretty much every turn, regardless of how tight I set it and rebuilding it does nothing. Adding a bit of lube did nothing. Even when the core isn't completely misaligned at a 45 degree, it's normally off to one side slightly making the turns very choppy. I've only had this one for about two weeks which is a shame because i really liked the feel of the Maru but buying a third one just seems ludicrous.

 

[Cheese11]

Maru's do eventually wear out over time and their non-locking mechanism does start to fail. The first Maru I had I got around July and it started to stop working well in around November. Although my first one isn't as bad as yours, it lock up only like once every 5 solves. The only thing I can recommend is to simply buy a new one. I just did and mine works great.

My Maru's been going strong since it came out.

 

[LarryLunchmeat]

I just found the video for the superglue mod. I tried pulling the two rivets as far as they would go and supergluing them which totally messed up the core. With the riveted posts being pulled and glued as far back as they would go the cube was totally messed. So on my second core, I tried pulling them out only about halfway and supergluing them and it works as good as new. It's been two days and about 20 solves later and it hasn't misaligned yet.

Although I noticed that one of the faces turned kind of rough and made a clicking noise at every 90 degrees for the first 10 solves or so, but eventually loosened up and now it's good all around.
The ONLY problem now is that sometimes the corner pieces can slip 45 degrees if I jam it too hard, and if I don't notice right away, it will ruin my solve..but I'm just happy to have it back

So I'm guessing this was the problem. I studied both cores (before I applied the glue mod), and found that the glue let go on one of the riveted posts. I guess the glue they use at the factory sucks or something, I don't know.

 

[guinepigs rock]

can you pm the glue tutorial please?

 

[thatkid]

i cant use my maru because im missing an inside piece

 

[LarryLunchmeat]

here's the mod that I'm referring to. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q74fcq--51w

 

[sprout]

How to stop lock ups?

Lock ups are a major time consumer in my solves. Any help?

 

[thatkid]

attain greater turning accuracy or get a cube thats good at cutting corners e.g. guhong/zhanchi

 

[Godmil]

Yeah, grab a ZhanChi, you'll probably never have a lock up again.

 

[emolover]

Turn more accurately, make sure your cube is tensioned correctly, and don't make a thread about it.

Yeah, grab a ZhanChi, you'll probably never have a lock up again.

My Zhanchi locks up all the time. I would recomend a Linyun.

 

[thatkid]

My Zhanchi locks up all the time. I would recomend a Linyun.

lingyuns pop a lot though

 

[andyfreeman]

All of the above is good advice: My turning accuracy used to be lame, and although my Zhanchi never locked, it popped instead. On a Rubik's brand or my Haiyan I tended to lock up a lot.

I slowed down, learned to turn accurately and never had a seriusly bad pop or lockup since. Generally I found I was trying to turn once face before fully completing a previous turn.

Some people on this forum have mentioned that their Zhanchi locks. Personally I've never seen this issue, so I don't know what's going on. But yes, a good cube helps.

What cube do you have at the moment?

 

[emolover]

lingyuns pop a lot though

They literally never pop if you have torpedoes in them. My OH Linyun is without torpedoes and it never pops even though it is loose.

 

[chikato_tan]

I think training your fingertrick is the best solution

 

[JianhanC]

Break the cube in. Really, that's all there is to it.

 

[scottishcuber]

Break the cube in. Really, that's all there is to it.

I wholeheartedly disagree with that .

Lock ups result as a combination of cube quality (which is generally not a very prominent factor), lack of concentration of the moves you are doing and poor accuracy. Bad turning accuracy is the thing that promotes lock ups the most in my opinion.

To improve, I recommend having complete focus on every move you do and trying not to spam moves with high TPS. Be very careful with algs and try to see if particular move patterns make you lock up the most. You can try to practice these by doing PLL time attacks (highly recommended).

 

[5BLD]

Loosen your cube and practice turning accurately. Then tighten for security at a comp or such.

I used to turn really innacurately but now I've learnt to turn properly and now can cope with very loose tensions- i pop my cube a lot during scrambling but rarely during solving now.

 

[Ninja Storm]

Stopping lock-ups:

Break the cube in. It'll help to smooth down any factory errors.

Buy good cubes. Most store-bought Rubik's brands are not meant for speedcubing(unless it's heavily modded, of course).

Practice perfecting your finger tricks. Do your algs that you have trouble with constantly on the cube, and see what you need to change in your finger tricks to prevent it from locking up.

Spend some time working with the cube. Don't assume a cube will be great out of the box. Tension it to your preferable tensions, and make sure you have lubed the cube with a good lubricant.

 

[JLarsen]

Since nobody really mentioned it yet; you could go find some better algs that better fit your turning style. Of course this only really applies to lockups in your LL but still. The wiki has a fair amount of algs but I recommend looking up PLL/OLL videos from really fast cubers. Jammyman was the go to when I was learning OLL.