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Winner Announcement: Backlit Cube Give-Away!

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Well, the “Hacked” LED-Backlit Cube Give-Away has come to a close. Dozens of new blog subscribers and loads of great youtube comments later, it’s now time to announce the winner.

(music: “Luckie Street Jam” (11.17.2000), String Cheese Incident)

To pick a winner, I first did a virtual coin flip on random.org to determine whether the winner would be a blog subscriber or youtube commenter. Yes, the 50/50 chance gave disproprotionate weighting to the blog subscribers, which are fewer in number than the comments on the video — a thumb on the scale, if you will. No matter, tails meant a youtube commenter. To pick which commenter, I used a Youtube Random Comment Picker tool.

CONGRATS SKCUBER! I’m a new fan of your channel, and encourage others to check it out. It’s got solves, unboxings, creative projects, and good production.

Thanks to everyone who participated. And remember what I wrote in the opening post: If you have any ideas on how to improve the re-wire job or have the skills to partner up on something more ambitious related to it, let me know....

1500 Subscribers + Christmas = Backlit Cube Give-Away!

Adventures in Cubing3 Comments

1500b_300pxWith repeated thanks to CrazyBadCuber, I’ve hit 1,500 Youtube subscribers. (At the same time, my blog subscriptions have increased, but certainly not as dramatically.)

1500 is a big milestone that coincides nicely with the holidays. Time for a give-away!

THE GIVE-AWAY CONTEST

One of the most popular posts on this blog and videos on my Youtube channel surrounds a LED-backlit Ghosthand Crystal Cube that I “hacked” for constant-on, blink-free illumination. As showcased in the how-to video below, I’ve hacked another one, and I’m giving it away through this contest.

The contest opens immediately, and there are three ways to enter: Continue reading →

crystal cube hack – part 2

Adventures in Cubing3 Comments

hacked crystal cubeI wrote last week in Part 1 of this post about hacking, so to speak, a Ghosthand Crystal Cube. As detailed in that post, I wired past the motion sensor and on-board IC that caused the irritating and impractical blinking. That forced the cube into a constant-on state once I connected two leads that I had temporarily extended through the core for testing.

As described below, I solved that problem with a switch inside the core that could be reached with a paper clip. Here is a video of the final result, showing the cube powering on/off and a sample solve in the pitch dark. It’s not a speed-cube, and it is prone to pops and lock-ups, so I solved at a casual 55-second pace.

Continue reading →

crystal cube hack – part 1

Adventures in Cubing4 Comments

Ghost Hand Crystal Cube

Part 2 available here.

I thought it would be a fun novelty to have a cube that lit from its core. It would make it easier to cube in dim light — and, let’s face it, not being able to cube in dim light tops the serious first world problems list!?! And it would be fun. There are some decent glow-in-the-dark cubes (e.g., the C4U ones). But those have to be “charged” and need a very dark environment to glow. They also don’t help one bit with sticker colors.

It turns out that there is at least one model of light-up cubes: The Ghosthand Crystal Cube, which is a bargain at a mere $5.99. Knowing I’d want to “hack” the cube, I bought three.

Hack it? Yep, hack it. Continue reading →