zhanchi

Review: Camcuber Zhanchi SE

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cz-blackI haven’t really posted many hardware reviews on the site, mostly because, as a mediocre solver, I’ve tended to feel like my opinion and knowledge of cubes was not very valuable. But I do think I have a discerning eye (or, as it were, touch) and that, in some ways, an average cuber’s views are more interesting (as we are still wading our way through hardware and techniques). So, sheepishly I proceed….

I’m excited to have purchased a Camcuber Zhanchi SE, which is an OEM Dayan Zhanchi that has received Cameron Brown’s custom “tune up.” Cameron sells them at his shop for $39.99 (plus $5 more for the Special Edition). When I tried to buy it a month ago, the site listed it as sold-out. I emailed to see about pre-orders, and got a near immediate response. Cameron was working on a new batch, and they’d ship soon. So, I pre-ordered, got a shipping update about three weeks later, and the cube arrived two days after that. I was surprised to find it nicely wrapped in holiday paper with a bow and candy cane and all. A really nice touch over the holidays.

Before I get into the review, here’s an excerpt from the description page: Continue reading →

36 seconds (on-video PB)

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I just got my fastest recorded (on video) 3×3 solve of 36 seconds. I’ll cut to the chase, and put the long-winded commentary below the media content for once. Here’s the video:

(music: “The War” from the Duplicity soundtrack; cube: properly Lubixed white 57mm Dayan Zhanchi with Cube Depot light matte sticker set)

At 36.10, this was not my fastest 3×3 solve; Continue reading →

28 seconds

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My first sub-30 solve: 28.28 seconds!  Pretty Lights’ “Finally Moving” played in the background.

Clearly, this is well outside of my ~40 second average. Even with the benefit of the 28-second solve, the session average was over 40 seconds. Everything just came together easily: I visualized the cross perfectly and performed it in six moves; my four F2L insertions went off without a hitch and with minimal hunting; and I knew the OLL (#23).

I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that I got lucky with a PLL skip, which probably saved me 4 seconds. But, even if you throw in a 2-look PLL, I should have been below my previous personal best of 34 seconds (with best-recorded of 39 seconds).

I guess my recent F2L work is paying off!

Eppur Si Muove (Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Dyed Cubes)

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Yes, I know this is a LONG post. It really needs the backstory to contextualize (and justify) the cube-dying project. If you’re here for the DIY only, skip to the jump.

Backstory — The Force Cube

I’ve been cubing for about seven months now, and, in so doing, have gotten four friends to take up cubing. The five of us have spent our fair share of time on amazon.com and comparing notes, and have each come to favor Dayan Zhanchis as our go-to speed cubes. No real surprise there; many consider Zhanchis the gold standard. The surprise is more subtle. Of the three varieties of Zhanchis (black, white, multi-colored unstickered), we each rank them in exactly the same order: first, the unstickered; second, white; third, black. There’s just something “softer,” smoother yet clickier, more controllable about the unstickered cubes. We guessed that the matching preferences were the result of either small differences in the plastics or a shared placebic hallucination.

Slightly confounded, I found validation in this speedsolving.com thread about the “Force Cube.” Turns out another cuber, AL60RI7HMIS7, also had a hankering for stickerless Zhanchis. Realizing that they weren’t competition legal (the piece edges reveal the color of a face pointing away from you), she came up with a clever solution: Buy six stickerless Zhanchis, disassemble, and then reassemble, creating six different Zhanchis — each of a single color of plastic (read: competition-legal), and each made of the stickerless plastic that many some cubers prefer. Those solid colored cubes could then be stickered like any other cube. BRILLIANT! The only rub was that six Zhanchis would generate only one white cube, with five “byproduct” cubes in undesirable colors. Of course, none of the six were black.

Continue reading →

RIP, Zhanchi No. 1

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PROLOGUE: We can make type look like HEADLINES or fine print; emphasize the important parts with color, boldfacing, italics, or highlight; use superscript or subscript notation; strike-through to show edits,

blockquote (like this) to draw focus,

and switch to fixed-width to show code. But there is no neat, and tidy way to indicate “hey, I’m about to get all facetious and sardonic on you.”

I hereby propose Comic Sans as the official signal of sarcasm on the internet.And, even if you never read another word on my blog again, I’ll be ok — as long as you promise to read this McSweeney’s opus: “I’m Comic Sans, A**hole.” So. Friggin. Good.

My Zhanchi died last Thursday. FUBAR. In the middle of learning the N Perm, it locked up on me. And not just an align-better-and-proceed lock up (à la Rubik’s brand cubes). Jammed. Stuck. No bueno. With some elbow grease, I eventually got it unstuck, by which I mean that the yellow-green-orange corner and yellow-orange edge each violently ejected. The corner piece was gnarled and twisted so badly that, even after straightening it by hand, the cube would barely turn when I replaced the pieces. Open heart surgery — some heat, crazy glue, counter-twisting, etc. — barely helped. The re-assembled cube just didn’t want to turn any longer. I pronounced the cube dead a few minutes later. Continue reading →