Periodic changes to turning quality in a LingYun V2

[nickoon]

My main 3x3 cube for the past 6 months or so has been a white LingYun V2, which overall has a feel that I find perfect out of all the cubes I've had the opportunity to try thus far. However, since owning it I've had a recurring issue with the smoothness of its turning, specifically that on rare occasions I will find one side suddenly turning either much smoother/faster, or conversely much rougher/slower than usual.

Now, I've played around with the issue quite a bit to rule out certain things like lubrication and tension being a contributing factor, but I find that with certain combinations of pieces on a side, the ease of turning will change dramatically regardless of lubrication, and will remain that way even with considerable changes to the puzzle's tension. I'm fairly meticulous with my lubrication and tensioning to begin with, but I've tried using no lubrication at all as well as using various tensions and find that the pieces are moving differently regardless of those factors, even when the exact same pieces are transposed to a different center on the cube.

Ultimately I can only guess that certain pieces have minor structural differences which, in certain configurations, move differently together. When a side is turning abnormally fast, I usually feel almost no friction or contact with the other pieces, the torpedoes almost feel absent, and the usual "crispy" feeling of the LingYun is completely gone. Other times the pieces will move unusually rough, and I'll notice an exaggerated clicking of the torpedoes against other pieces. Both of these can be reproduced easily just by moving certain sets of pieces to one side.

Although I've examined the pieces of the puzzle quite a bit, I really can't see any discernible defects or differences amongst them. I'm hoping I can receive some suggestions here on possible modifications or specific things to look for in the mechanism to possibly eliminate this issue. I love the LingYun, but it can be jarring and solve-killing when a random face suddenly starts turning twice as fast or much slower during a PLL.

Thanks for taking the time to read and help!

 

[bobthegiraffemonkey]

I've got a black LingYun V2 and have a similar problem. I find that sometimes the pieces open up slightly, usually not enough to notice visually. Try pressing all the pieces to make sure they are firmly assembled, even pieces which look fine, it works for me. I'm thinking of using some superglue to give a long-term solution.

 

[antoineccantin]

My Guhong v1 sometimes does something like that, often after I take out a piece or get a pop.

 

[Lchu613]

My Zhanchi has the zame problem as antoine, definitely try it out. On my old Zhanchi (which I lost), the pieces came apart really easily for some reason, so I glued them together.