[Review] Moyu HuaChuang 5x5

[Chree]

This thread is for reviews of Moyu HuaChuang 5x5. You can vote in the poll above, but please only vote if you own this particular puzzle. When posting your review, please follow a template similar to this:

Where the puzzle was purchased:
When the puzzle was purchased:
Thoughts on the puzzle:

What are your thoughts of this puzzle? Please vote one of the options above - but please only vote if you own and have used this puzzle extensively!

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Where: cubes4speed.com
When: 1 week ago

Thoughts on the puzzle: Catchy and dry out of the box, just like any moyu cube. It improved significantly after just the first few solves. After another few days of constant use, the break in seemed to level off and I lubed, tensions, and restickered it.

Compared to the AoChuang, it feels a lot more stable and possibly a lot faster depending on how you tension and lube it. That's good for people with a controlled turning style... bad for clumsy folks, such as myself. It is not at all forgiving with misaligned/over turning and is very catchy. I'm hoping someone can let me know what they did to the cube to fix this.

It doesn't have the nasty lockups like a Shendshou or the AoChuang are capable of. However, on looser tensions you can still experience similar lockups, but they're much easier to fix.

For now, the AoChuang is still my main. The constant catching ruins otherwise decent solves, but it's still getting better all the time. It's possible that after a long period of break-in, the catching goes away. Time will tell. I already know many people are using this as their mains, because of the newly improved stability. I hope I will get that kind of result.

 

[collppllzbf2lll]

Where: Thecubicle.us
When:2 weeks ago
Thoughts:
Horrible out of the box and no corner cutting but flawless after breaking it in.
lubed the core with weight 5, tensioned a bit looser, didn't lube the pieces yet.(I don't have any lube right now).
Done about a 100 solves and dropped my avg with about a minute(3:30 to 2:30)
Now it cornercuts about 40 degrees and reverse is pretty crap so far, still better than a florianmodded SS.
all the outer layer catches have gone away and the cube is extremely fast, while still being really controllable.
So far I've only had 1 bad lockup, but that was during really fast handscrambling. No pops have ever happened to me.
I don't think this cube can be improved, maybe a little more reverse cornercutting would be nice

 

[Chree]

Update: Over the last week or so, the cube continued to get better and better. Just not good enough for me to switch. But that's probably my fault...

The middle layers are basically perfect. Fast, smooth, stable. They cut well and inspire confidence during centers.

The outer layers catch less... but they still catch. Is still a much faster cube than the AoChuang, but I think that very fact is the issue I can't get past. I personally prefer cubes (big cubes, especially) that are at least a little slow and sluggish. Thus, my times still suffer, and I'm do much better on my AoChuang. This does leave me at risk of getting those epic lock-ups, but I'm getting much better at avoiding them, but still better at fixing them when they occur. That was really the only advantage of the HuaChuang for me, but it wasn't enough for me to switch.

I still hope to see Moyu apply this mechanism to larger cubes, so long as they can fix the catching issue. It appears that on the corner pieces, that second anti-pop bump gets caught on the center corners a lot. It might be enough to just make that anti-pop bump smaller or more rounded... though I'm not tempted to test this out, myself, by modding a nearly $40 cube. I'm terrible at moding, so this is just gonna have to remain speculation, for now.

That said, I still think this is the perfect cube for a lot of people out there. If you like smooth, fast turning and have good control on big cubes, you'll probably love it. If nothing else, it's a great cube for the collectors.

 

[pdilla]

Where: thecubicle.us
When: Jan 4, 2015

Immediately out of the box, that "Aosu-like" dry feeling was apparent on all layers. Also, the constant small lockups were immediate noticeable during my first few solves. After lubrication, that dry feeling slowly went away and a smoothed out bumpy feeling replaced it. The small lock ups remained but larger lockups started happening until I tightened the tensions a bit more. Suddenly, no more big lockups at all. I am very confident in turing this puzzle and muscling through the smaller lock ups without worry of pops or big jams.

At looser tensions, I've also noticed that the corner-centers seems to enjoy trying to spin around in place and causing all kinds of a mess.

Like a neurotic dog that never gets a walk, these pieces live to torment me.

Tighten the cube slowly until that goes away and you are at perfect tensions, my friend.

I love this cube. I've never tried an Aochuang, but as I hate the more unstable feeling, I would much rather have the HuaChuang over the AoChuang.

 

[datfijiankid]

Where the puzzle was purchased: Cubezz.com
When the puzzle was purchased: January 5 2015
Thoughts on the puzzle: Overall this cube feels quite reminiscent of the aosu out of the box, of course people would expect it to be legendary out if the box, while that is partially the case, it just gets better the more it is broken in. It is my first 5x5 and I compared it to some other cubes at a competition I went to recently, and not to sound like a cocky lad or anything but it was much better than others cubes I felt. There may be better cubes that are modded and such but this cube is great in nearly all aspects except one. Whenevever you try and turn the outer layers quickly it tends to lock up a fair bit. Now some people claim that it is due to what they think is a difference in the outer layer compared to the inner layers but I took out the pieces and actyally measured them and they are quite literally the sane in dimensions. Overall I would rate this cube a 9/10 simply because of its raw capability to perform exceptionally well as opposed to other cubes. This is the best 5x5 money can buy. Sorry I didn't include all the aspects of a review. I cbs

 

[~Adam~]

Spoiler: Rant

I don't know why we have this standard format for posting puzzle reviews. There is no good reason to care about where it was purchased and barely any reason for date since the review will likely have the amount of use the puzzle has gotten in it.

I have had the puzzle in my car since it came out which means it gets more use than my main (AoChuang).
It's fast and I'm sure I'm faster at centres and sometimes edges on it but then parity and 3x3 stage ruin my solves almost every time. It locks up constantly. Maybe if I turned better this wouldn't be such an issue.

In conclusion I'll stick to the AoChuang since even with a minor pop it's probably still faster for me than a typical HuaChuang solve.

 

[pyr14]

Where the puzzle was purchased:http://www.speedcube.com.au/
When the puzzle was purchased:Jan 18, 2015
Thoughts on the puzzle:Out of the box, it was a meh. after working it in a bit, i saw the fixes of the lock issues. it still has minor locking issues though. It had that sandy feel at the start. Once I started lubing it with maru, it started to fade (sandy feeling). some people have been saying it feels like a fangshi, not to me though. If you have a rough turning style though, you might get lockups.

It cuts allright.

the only cons are the minor lockups and major (if you have rough turning style), but major lockups don't happen for me in a while. aochuang it happens a lot for me. and the only con is that it's a bit on the pricy side.

It's the best 5x5 i have so far. I've never really owned an aochunag but i have tried it. my previous main was the shengshou and i just could not get the tensioning right there and that just took forever to work in.

 

[Ordway Persyn]

It's a great 5x5, I've broken it in with 400-500 solves and the minor catching has been significantly reduced. This cube is also very stable, no lock ups or pops. the only bad things about it are the outer layers aren't the best and its expensive. I'd recommend the Yuxin over this.
Grade: A-