Knowing you, I was expecting something early-insane-cuber-style announcement that the cube was in and that you had a video for all of us to see and maybe a poll to know whether or not to get it printed in white plastic.
And you didn't indicate that it was the cube in the video post. And you didn't change the title either.
All of which, based on how you've reacted to developments of your cube in the past, indicated to me that the cube wasn't the tempset.
The cube looks rather locky/catchy.
Yeah, and loud.
It was printed with PLA and sanded, so it's more of the plastic that causes the issue. PLA isn't as soft, and consequently, makes it harder to break in. The video shown it before further breaking in and setup.
I also want to add that this prototype was non magnetic, and that the internal mechanism isn't perfectly flush do the presence of printing lines, so of course there will be catches and loud noises. It isn't exactly injection molded.
I want to just walk everyone through my development process to show the effort going into this cube other than just to do a small announcement of the final iteration like most other cube companies and say after the matter that it took a while to develop.
As to why I said the other prototypes were good, I was talking in terms relative to other 3D printed hardware I have tried. This iteration is much better in terms of raw performance relative to the other iterations, and this prototype is more comparable to a mid range speedcube.
I still want to strongly stress two things: this is my very first speedcube, therefore, still learning. What is further a challenge is my reason for designing the cube: it isn't just a new person developing a speedcube following other cubes as a strict guide line. There are a lot of internal mechanical differences to address something that I find to be an issue with most modern cubes. Therefore, most of my design choices are highly experimental. The issue with that is since there is little to no refference on how my design choices will impact the cube, only inferences and educated guesses, and prior prototypes that aren't finished puzzles I can really use.
Here are the issues with each prototype (excluding the 2016 prototype, which is irrelevant to the development of the most recent four.
Iteration one issues: decent forward cutting, no reverse. Great turning, but had some lockups that impeded some algorithms. Would make a great budget cube, however.
Iteration two issues: line to line reverse cutting, no forward cutting at all. Exceptionally flexible, but was still useable and solveable hardware. Grainy due to a lack of internal sanding.
Iteration three: same issues as the iteration two, but smoother due to being printed with shapeways. Though turning was better, it still suffered from a completely solid infill, which I suspect is due to my inexperience with the service.
Iteration four: significantly better. Reverse is a little jarring but it does manage line to line. Similar issues to the first iteration, but lockups are nowhere near as bad as I would've expected on a fourth iteration, largely due to a heavily restructured edge.
Plans for iteration five: Begin work on cubie separation. Shapeways printed internals with FDM printed caps and splits. This is to allow for a better internal flow and less lockups. Potentially round out the edge a bit more to make cutting less jarring and to ease up on corner cutting. I anticipate this will also be the very first magnetic prototype.
Please don't hesitate to ask any further questions.
