Fred
Veteran
I recently bought and installed The Cubicle's Meilong 7x7 ballcore kit and decided to also do some other mods while I was at it. I followed Ethan Cho's modding tutorial and did Florian and Dorito mods as well. These mods made an already very good puzzle even better. Buoyed by that success, I also Florian and Doritoed my Meilong 6x6, and I'll describe each of the mods below.
Ballcore: The Meilong 7x7 is a fast puzzle that can feel a bit uncontrollable. The large size (tiny for a 7x7, but it's still a 7x7) also made me crave a bit more control. The ballcore provides exactly that, while keeping the fast, light turning feel. You need superglue to install the parts, but it's pretty easy to do. It so happens that there's room to stack another magnet or two on top of the corner magnets, if you want a stronger magnetic feel. I tried it to see if I could get some auto-alignment going, but it made the cube feel to heavy to turn so I removed the extra magnets. The biggest difficulty with this mod is putting the puzzle back together when it's fully disassembled. The corner-core magnets pull the corners out of place, so you have to build up around one corner to keep it in place. Pi Cube also sells a version of the ballcore kit (including for many more puzzles), and if you have a 3D printer you can make your own with the files provided in the Ethan Cho video.
Dorito: My new favorite mod. This mod involves cutting out a small triangle (a Dorito) from wing pieces to speed up slow inner layers. It's only necessary to do this on the inside of the innermost wing edges, and only on the half of the piece without a magnet on that side (for odd cubes---even cubes are a bit different). Both Meilongs originally have rather slow innermost layers, while being quite fast in the other layers. The dorito mod speeds up those innermost layers to be a lot closer in speed to the other layers. I loved the results so much I also Dorito modded my old MGC 4x4 and 5x5, and those puzzles improved dramatically as a result. They're still clearly worse than my new Aosu 4x4 and Gan 5x5, but they're now reasonable backups. The Dorito mod for odd big cubes is described in the Ethan Cho video, but for even cubes I cut elsewhere, as shown below, since it was recommended not to have Dorito holes facing each other in adjacent layers. On the MGC 4x4, cutting just one side was enough to speed up the inners substantially. On the Meilong 6x6 I had to cut from both sides to get the speed I wanted.
Florian: Painful to do. This mod takes a long time to execute, and the results are a bit more subtle. The reverse corner cutting improves a bit right away, and some more after the sanded pieces smooth out with break in. For me, the Meilong 7x7 already had reasonable reverse cuts so the improvement was less noticeable, but the Meilong 6x6 had terrible reverse cuts and desperately needed this mod. The question is whether it's worth your time and effort to do this mod when the Aoshi 6x6 exists. In addition to the Ethan Cho video, Lai S Cube also has a nice explanation video about the Florian mod.
Results: These mods did not noticeably drop my times (about 4 minutes for 6x6 and 6 minutes for 7x7 plus or minus half a minute), perhaps due to the high variance in my times. However, they make these events more enjoyable for me, so I'll practice them more. The Meilong 7x7 now feels like a flagship puzzle. For the Meilong 6x6, my two biggest complaints (slow inners and terrible reverse corner cutting) are fixed, but the puzzle is still a step down from the 7x7, and not just because it's missing a ballcore. The Dorito mod alone also made my MGC 4x4 and 5x5 feel usable again, and I think it's a great mod for any big cube with slow inner layers.
Ballcore: The Meilong 7x7 is a fast puzzle that can feel a bit uncontrollable. The large size (tiny for a 7x7, but it's still a 7x7) also made me crave a bit more control. The ballcore provides exactly that, while keeping the fast, light turning feel. You need superglue to install the parts, but it's pretty easy to do. It so happens that there's room to stack another magnet or two on top of the corner magnets, if you want a stronger magnetic feel. I tried it to see if I could get some auto-alignment going, but it made the cube feel to heavy to turn so I removed the extra magnets. The biggest difficulty with this mod is putting the puzzle back together when it's fully disassembled. The corner-core magnets pull the corners out of place, so you have to build up around one corner to keep it in place. Pi Cube also sells a version of the ballcore kit (including for many more puzzles), and if you have a 3D printer you can make your own with the files provided in the Ethan Cho video.
Dorito: My new favorite mod. This mod involves cutting out a small triangle (a Dorito) from wing pieces to speed up slow inner layers. It's only necessary to do this on the inside of the innermost wing edges, and only on the half of the piece without a magnet on that side (for odd cubes---even cubes are a bit different). Both Meilongs originally have rather slow innermost layers, while being quite fast in the other layers. The dorito mod speeds up those innermost layers to be a lot closer in speed to the other layers. I loved the results so much I also Dorito modded my old MGC 4x4 and 5x5, and those puzzles improved dramatically as a result. They're still clearly worse than my new Aosu 4x4 and Gan 5x5, but they're now reasonable backups. The Dorito mod for odd big cubes is described in the Ethan Cho video, but for even cubes I cut elsewhere, as shown below, since it was recommended not to have Dorito holes facing each other in adjacent layers. On the MGC 4x4, cutting just one side was enough to speed up the inners substantially. On the Meilong 6x6 I had to cut from both sides to get the speed I wanted.
Florian: Painful to do. This mod takes a long time to execute, and the results are a bit more subtle. The reverse corner cutting improves a bit right away, and some more after the sanded pieces smooth out with break in. For me, the Meilong 7x7 already had reasonable reverse cuts so the improvement was less noticeable, but the Meilong 6x6 had terrible reverse cuts and desperately needed this mod. The question is whether it's worth your time and effort to do this mod when the Aoshi 6x6 exists. In addition to the Ethan Cho video, Lai S Cube also has a nice explanation video about the Florian mod.
Results: These mods did not noticeably drop my times (about 4 minutes for 6x6 and 6 minutes for 7x7 plus or minus half a minute), perhaps due to the high variance in my times. However, they make these events more enjoyable for me, so I'll practice them more. The Meilong 7x7 now feels like a flagship puzzle. For the Meilong 6x6, my two biggest complaints (slow inners and terrible reverse corner cutting) are fixed, but the puzzle is still a step down from the 7x7, and not just because it's missing a ballcore. The Dorito mod alone also made my MGC 4x4 and 5x5 feel usable again, and I think it's a great mod for any big cube with slow inner layers.
