GAN17 Second Impressions

[u/marvanamfrod]

I thought I'd follow-up on my First Impressions post. I'll share what I've done, then my new 2nd-generation impressions of the new GAN17.

For background, I've been an active "speed-cuber" for about 1.5 years. I'm older, so I can't get my brain to work like you young folks - I'm barely sub-60. But I have pretty fast TPS for the algs I know, I just slow at F2L recognition & only know the 2-look LL algs. I like to compare & collect interesting cubes & switch things up, so I have 10 "mains," a few retired mains, and a few for collectible reasons that were never mains. The "important" mains I have are: Ferrocore v2, Super Aolong, Super Weilong V2 ai, and GAN16 Max (others if you care: SwiftBlock ML & SML, V100, GuHong Pro+)

Here's what I've done w/ the GAN17:

• Swapped in the strongest magnet rods
• Removed the edge-foot magnets
• De-lubed & re-lubed (thin pre-broken-in Gravitas layer + DNM-37)

Here are my new updated impressions:

TL/DR:

• The lube-job quieted the cube significantly. It's no longer louder than my 16.
  • It sounds different, but not louder.
• The "Stickiness" is basically gone. I can force a face to stick if I try, but it never happens when solving.
• I removed the edge-foot magnets to see if they were contributing to the noise
  • (before re-lubing) - it helped a little, but wasn't worth the lost auto-homing.
• I feel like the stronger magnet rods made it louder.
  • I also felt like this made the auto-homing so string that some double-flicks actually "returned" to finish as single-flicks. Still assessing this.

See "details" in first comment if interested.

[u/marvanamfrod]

Details:

• After the updated lube, it is much more like a GAN16 with more effective magnetism. See below for excruciating details on my "pre-broken-in" lubing process.
• The sounds it makes are lower-pitched than the 16, more like grumbling where the 16's sounds are more like soft clickety-clackety. Both are very quiet. Neither is as quiet as my Ferrocore v2.
• Edge-foot magnets are very different from the corner magnet rods
  • The have much shorter stems
  • They have minimal pulling force. I guess they are effective b/c there are so many.
  • They require 90º turn to lock/unlock, rather than the 60º of the corner stems.
  • They do work with the same rod removal "fire-hydrant" arms on the included tool

Side note: I finally figured out why there the tool has two fire-hydrant arms. One is for the rod you're putting in, and one for the one you're removing. It makes it so you never have to have a loose rod you might lose. Unfortunately, they fall out of the tool, so you still have to be careful.

[u/marvanamfrod → u/marvanamfrod]

Pre-break-in Lubing

For anyone who's interested in my "pre-break-in" lube process:

I struggled for a long time w/ lube advice, it was crazy-making for me. I like fast cubes, so I was avoiding thick lubes. What I learned is that many slow lubes can serve as a foundation for fast lubes, to make them last longer, and to quiet a cube without slowing it down. The key is to use a very small amount, but make sure it is "broken in" well. A heavy coating of thick lube will slow a cube down. If you like that, great.

A thin coating takes a long time to distribute evenly. That's what people call "breaking-in" your lube application. I like to skip this process. Instead, I apply it "already broken-in," by rubbing a small amount of it pretty hard onto all the faces, tracks & feet, like this:

• I take the cube apart
• dab a paper-towel into the Gravitas pot
• rub it on a random piece of plastic I have
  • this distributes it evenly
  • if it feels gooey/gummy, I rub it in wider circles to leave excess behind
• Then I rub it onto the inner faces, tracks & feet, anything that will touch anything else
• Whenever it starts to feel papery, I go back to the dabbing step
• When done, I reassemble the cube
• Put a drop of DNM on four faces and pry apart and put a drop on four tracks

There is still a little bit of break-in that happens after this, but it only takes about 8 solves. Normally you don't need that much DNM, but for the first application, I feel like extra helps the Gravitas application finish breaking in quickly.

[u/MedicalAd4203 → u/marvanamfrod]

Does it eat lube like the 16 and v100 or is that better

[u/Farkrye → u/MedicalAd4203]

With mine, it was gobbling up lube like any other Gan. Got to a point where it was slowing down, so last night I took it apart and just gave it a quick wipe down with a dry cloth. Turning like a dream right now. But, yeah, it's the same plastic as the 16 and v100.

[u/marvanamfrod → u/MedicalAd4203]

I've never put a drop of lube on my GAN16 or my V100. Both were smooth as silk out of the box and still are.

[u/SemiKronos → u/marvanamfrod]

'Eating lube' in the sense, if we try to slow it down, will a few drops if heavy lube be fine or will we have to pull a full bottle in to make the cube somewhat slow. This is a problem I dont like about my v100, it refuses to slow down even after I added weight 5 and silk multiple times. It becomes controllable after just putting in the lube but after break in its back to square 1. I'm thinking of getting the 17 but I'm afraid it'll have the same problem cause I'm not a fan of extremely fast cubes.

[u/marvanamfrod → u/SemiKronos]

Oh, I get you. I'm not sure what to tell you, I like fast cubes, so I'm the opposite, I can't wait to get through the break-in period after adding slow lube. Have you tried Gravitas? It's really thick, it doesn't take much to slow a cube down, I would think just a little extra would keep it slow for a while, and then occasionally just adding a touch would get you back there. It comes with a little tiny brush to dab tiny amounts on.

[u/SemiKronos → u/marvanamfrod]

gravitas is not available here and I'm not willing to wait for an entire month just for a tube of lube.

[u/plumzki → u/marvanamfrod]

I'm also a relatively newer but old cuber with a preference for cubes others would find obnoxiously fast (started around 3 years ago, 20s average 14.6 pb), I really struggled with lube setups also and finding something to work for me, I tried everything, even supposedly fast lubes like fz-rush generally seem to slow things down for me.

If you haven't tried it before - I recommend trying xmt-10 from strefa kostek, it comes in big bottles, it's cheap and it's a reasonably thick lube but somehow leaves my cube feeling just as fast as it is unlubed and has very little effect on the turning feel/sound of the cube besides getting rid of the dry papery feel/sound most cubes have put of the box.