Older cubers discussions

[kbrune]

So this is where the old guys hang out now? I remember seeing this thread posted by Marcel when I first became a member on here.

 

[Jason Green]

So this is where the old guys hang out now? I remember seeing this thread posted by Marcel when I first became a member on here.

Here we are.

 

[h2f]

In spoiler tags for those who have seen enough of my averages by now

Not to many. No need to spoil it.

 

[MarcelP]

So this is where the old guys hang out now? I remember seeing this thread posted by Marcel when I first became a member on here.

And I remember posting it. Boy how I improved ... LOL Official sub 20 seemed totally unreachable for me then...

@Marcel

Mate, I watched you video on the GuaGuan corner mod so decided to take hostage of one of my wife's finest nail boards. Have to say what a huge difference. Awesome stuff (y)

Yeah, without this mod the cube locks like crazy.. Lately I have been using the X-man Tornado (QiYi Wind). I must say, it is growing on me. It kinda locked a lot in the beginning, but after many solves it has started to be much less lockier. My guess is that it comes with excess plastic which has to be broken in. It is a very fast cube because it is very hard plastic. I have been slight over lube it to make is more gummy. I do get about same times as with my Gans 356 V1.

 

[mafergut]

Yeah, without this mod the cube locks like crazy.. Lately I have been using the X-man Tornado (QiYi Wind). I must say, it is growing on me. It kinda locked a lot in the beginning, but after many solves it has started to be much less lockier. My guess is that it comes with excess plastic which has to be broken in. It is a very fast cube because it is very hard plastic. I have been slight over lube it to make is more gummy. I do get about same times as with my Gans 356 V1.

I received my package from zcube yesterday and I haven't opened it yet. I will try to do an unboxing video, even though almost everything in there has already been unboxed by you (Yuexiao, Tornado). I'm sure my video will not be as nice as yours but it will be fun to do it. I cannot promise the box will be still closed, though I am desperately wanting to take a peek at the contents.

 

[Selkie]

Yeah, without this mod the cube locks like crazy.. Lately I have been using the X-man Tornado (QiYi Wind). I must say, it is growing on me. It kinda locked a lot in the beginning, but after many solves it has started to be much less lockier. My guess is that it comes with excess plastic which has to be broken in. It is a very fast cube because it is very hard plastic. I have been slight over lube it to make is more gummy. I do get about same times as with my Gans 356 V1.

Looks like we might have both retired our Gans 356 v1 mains Marcel! I certainly never expected the GuaGuan to live up to all the hype but I switched instantly and even picked up the 356 to look at an alg late last night and it felt very strange. It has been difficult to compare it to much as I have the early MoYu's (Aolong, Aolong v2, HuaLong) etc and the Gans (357, 356 v1, 356 v2). The unboxing of the cubicle order will be interesting as I have the tornado coming, amoung other cubes.

I will be doing another UK order for the MoYu BoChuang which I have heard great things about. Talking of 5x5's, I did look at Hoya and Yau videos last night as I feel I might need to change after comp next month to see much improvement in speed. Whilst Hoya looked great, I found Yau much, much easier to follow which is not surprising as I use Yau for 4x4. Did a few solves at around 3 minutes so will put in some practice later next month to see if it is worth changing.

Edit: Just ordered the Moyu BoChuang 5x5 from UK Cube Store

 

[APdRF]

Yeah, without this mod the cube locks like crazy.. Lately I have been using the X-man Tornado (QiYi Wind). I must say, it is growing on me. It kinda locked a lot in the beginning, but after many solves it has started to be much less lockier. My guess is that it comes with excess plastic which has to be broken in. It is a very fast cube because it is very hard plastic. I have been slight over lube it to make is more gummy. I do get about same times as with my Gans 356 V1.

Exactly, how the mod is done?

 

[h2f]

I had no practice of 3x3 since competition. First ao50 20.37 is very promising because I did crosses on white and yellow. Maybe I'll do another 50.

 

[earth2dan]

Looks like we might have both retired our Gans 356 v1 mains

I keep my Gans 356 V1 at the office. It's my main there becuase it's so quiet compared to my other clacky cubes. I'm really eager to get my YueXiao after seeing all these reactions though

Edit: Just ordered the Moyu BoChuang 5x5 from UK Cube Store

The BoChuang is fast becoming my main 5x5. I'm sure you'll love it, but you may need to tension it and break it in before it grows on you. I also recommend breaking it in before you lube it. I've been doing that and I'm starting to think I won't bother lubing it at all. I have a Yuxin as well that I really like (felt great right out of the box), but as noted in an earlier comment it's stickerless and the shades just aren't very nice.

 

[kbrune]

@ Marcel

Lol official sub 20 still seems un reachable for me! My 3x3 times seem to be slowly getting worse now. I'm completely frustrated with it.

Cool to see how far you've come though!

 

[mafergut]

Exactly, how the mod is done?

You can check the video of the Yuexiao corner mod on his Youtube channel. He just rounded off the pointy corners a bit.

Talking about youtube, I couldn't resist more and had to record the unboxing during my lunch time

Here it is for all of you to have a good laugh again... and a bit of motion sickness. I promise I will never again record an unboxing with "go pro" style head camera and will use a tripod. Also the video is a bit long and boring but I got so carried away...

 

[h2f]

I've just seen it. Great!

 

[APdRF]

You can check the video of the Yuexiao corner mod on his Youtube channel. He just rounded off the pointy corners a bit.

Thank you! I'll look it up. And good unboxing

 

[mafergut]

Thank you! I'll look it up. And good unboxing

Thanks! And I was able to record the whole video without barely a swear word... well, just one
Anyway, compared with a professional youtuber like you I did a poor job but it was a lot of fun. I'll probably do more of those.

 

[sqAree]

Thanks! And I was able to record the whole video without barely a swear word... well, just one
Anyway, compared with a professional youtuber like you I did a poor job but it was a lot of fun. I'll probably do more of those.

Lol I once made an unboxing video and your seems so professional compared to mine (not going to send a link here, too embarrassed ).
Will you finally use the YueXiao as your main?
Can you solve a Gigaminx? My SS Giga will arrive next week, I have no clue how to solve it, we can maybe race.

 

[Shaky Hands]

A bit of self-analysis after my first 300 timed 5x5 solves. As I may have said before I've picked up a 5x5 and solved it every now and again, but in the past week or two I've been making more of a concerted effort to do so. In fact I've put in 25+ hours on this now.

Some stats:

Cubes 1-100
Best Time: 5m 6s / Worst Time: 9m 51s
Best Ao5: 5m 36s / Best Ao12: 5m 50s / Best Ao25: 5m 57s / Best Ao100: 6m 33s
STDEV: 54.59s
Within UK Hard Cut (5m): 0 cubes
Nearly there (up to 15s out): 4 cubes

Cubes 101-200
Best Time: 4m 26s / Worst Time: 8m 16s
Best Ao5: 5m 7s / Best Ao12: 5m 16s / Best Ao25: 5m 30s / Best Ao100: 5m 49s
STDEV: 47.53s
Within UK Hard Cut (5m): 7 cubes
Nearly there (up to 15s out): 16 cubes

Cubes 201-300
Best Time: 4m 17s / Worst Time: 8m 28s
Best Ao5: 4m 47s / Best Ao12: 5m 1s / Best Ao25: 5m 7s / Best Ao100: 5m 24s
STDEV: 38.01s
Within UK Hard Cut (5m): 23 cubes
Nearly there (up to 15s out): 19 cubes

All of these were on a Moyu 5x5 except for the final 10 solves (a Yuxin arrived at lunchtime which seems like it has potential.)

For Parity, I just know cases 1-3 and 5 at http://i.imgur.com/wsTqj.png currently. I know case 4 is a mirror of case 3 but I'm not good at auto-mirroring and it took me ages just to learn the mirrored A-perm for 3x3.

Managed to sort out my big cube problems with Ga, Gc, Ja and Na perms. This should help my 4x4 too. Still struggling with Gb, Gd and F but the rest are working OK for me.

Learned free-slicing after solve #50. Times took a small plunge at first but managed to get over it. Occasionally I manage to mess up the centers in the process and get a sup-7m time but this is fairly rare now.

I'm aiming to revisit cyoubx's videos on solving the centers next. He had a lot of good stuff in there ("spaceship", "half-testicle" etc) but I've been focusing on solving intuitively so far to get the hang of the way the different cubies move around.

It's been good learning something new. The practice does show some improvement and hopefully there will be some more to come.

Cheers all.

 

[mafergut]

I've just seen it. Great!

Lol I once made an unboxing video and your seems so professional compared to mine (not going to send a link here, too embarrassed ).
Will you finally use the YueXiao as your main?
Can you solve a Gigaminx? My SS Giga will arrive next week, I have no clue how to solve it, we can maybe race.

Thank you both! But Konstantine, you don't have to feel embarrased. I'm sure your video was nice.

Regarding the Yuexiao, it's too soon to know. I will try to do some solves this weekend with both the Yuexiao and Tornado and see if they are any better than my Chilong and Tanglong.

I don't know if I know how to solve the Gigaminx. I will have to try and see. I hope to be able to finish it intuitively without any help but, let's see. I will also try to do a solve this weekend. But the puzzle feels so good for a monster like that. Almost as good as the SS Mega, just a bit heavier but very smooth.

 

[Selkie]

The BoChuang is fast becoming my main 5x5. I'm sure you'll love it, but you may need to tension it and break it in before it grows on you. I also recommend breaking it in before you lube it. I've been doing that and I'm starting to think I won't bother lubing it at all. I have a Yuxin as well that I really like (felt great right out of the box), but as noted in an earlier comment it's stickerless and the shades just aren't very nice.

I'll look forward to receiving mine though my maain Yuxin is going to take some beating

Talking about youtube, I couldn't resist more and had to record the unboxing during my lunch time

Great unboxing video :tu

The practice does show some improvement and hopefully there will be some more to come.

Some great analysis there and soem really good improvement

 

[earth2dan]

@Shaky Hands. Nice stats! That's a steady rate of improvement.

The parity case (case 1 in your link) is the only edge case I learned an algorithm for. I usually use the concept for case 3 (slice, flip, slice back) for all my last 4 edges. Though I prefer to use the sledgehammer move for edge flips. If you have parity you can always reduce it to that one edge with this concept. I won't bother learning any new edge algs till I'm faster.

I still have some PLL's that I just 2-look on big cubes A simple T-Perm to U-Perm is faster and less risky than a clumsy messed up 1-Look alg. I know I still stand to gain a lot more by optimizing my center and edge building than perfecting my 1-Look PLLs.

Glad to see so much big cube love here lately

 

[h2f]

I've made second ao50 - it's worse 21.40 and ao100 a little below my best 20.91.