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.

Got mine yesterday evening. The stand-out differences between it and the 16 Max for me are:

1. The auto-alignment is incredible
2. It is not as quiet as a 16
3. It has more friction than a 16

Auto-alignment: I basically can't get it to stay misaligned unless I park it at exactly 45º. It's so good that it makes dis/assembly annoying b/c you're constantly fighting to get it to stay partially turned for better insertion/removal.

Sound: While I wouldn't call it a loud cube, it's nowhere near as quiet as a 16. Or a V100. Or a Swift Block Super. Or a Ferrocore. The Super Aolong is closer to it in sound, but also a little quieter.

Friction: My personal GAN16 is truly frictionless. I have never lubed it, and it did not come with any factory lube that I can detect - nothing ever came off on my fingers, and it just feels like bare plastic. The 17 on the other hand definitely has a factory lube on it, and it does "stop" at various points if I try to turn it slowly. Note: it will still auto-align if I let go, it doesn't stay there. It's just that a slow turn is a bit jumpy as the friction randomly grabs at different points in the turn. I kinda wonder if it is actually the lube that is sticking, and maybe if I remove it, that will stop.

It's a fantastic cube. The auto-alignment is so good it's hard to believe. I just don't know yet if that will actually end up mattering on solves. It seems like maybe the 16's auto-alignment was already so good that "better" may be a purely academic distinction, with no practical impact.

Hey everyone,

I have a GAN 356-ME 10-Year and a 251M Leap 10-Year, and a good friend of mine has the GAN 12ui 10-Year. We haven't been able to find a good lube for making any of these fast. They are scratchy without anything, and we've been able to quiet them some, but they either get slower or at least don't get faster.

My goal with cube setup is for my cubes to be quiet and very fast. For reference, I'm not a super-fast solver yet, I'm not at a place where I ever need more control. I have great luck with just DNM-37 on my Swift Block Mag & Super-Mag, and I'm currently going naked on my 16 Maglev Max and Super-WeiLong V2.

I've tried the following set-ups, with no luck (I disassemble & clean w/ 50/50 iso/water when going between product families):

• FZ-Rush
• FZ-Rush + FZ-Calm
• DNM-37
• Mystic
• Mystic + DNM-37

Mystic seems to make them gummier. Rush makes them quieter, but weirdly seems to slow them down a little. Rush+Calm definitely slows them down. DNM-37 has no effect whatsoever (well, it makes them black on the inside briefly :- )

As for Mystic, I've heard such great things about it, but so far my experience is that it makes cubes slower and a little gummy. Is that to be expected? Or am I just putting it on the wrong cubes?

Has anyone noticed what appears to be an accidental soft-launch of the GAN 16ui embedded in the new Minions-themed announcement on gancube.com?

In the first photo, one of the cubes shown is labelled GAN 16ui Maglev Max. It appears to also be transparent/gel-styled like the GAN 10th Anniversary series, except it has non-standard colors - once face appears to be purple, and blue and green appear to be out of order (adjacent instead of across from each other).

https://preview.redd.it/hwan328kro1h1.png?width=2200&format=png&auto=webp&s=456bd1d858bc08862973979b42d1cc2675a0c350

I really wanted to love this cube, but I just can't. It has great configuration and nice snappy magnets, it feels great to the touch, and it's gorgeous. Not to mention the Pelican case is a hoot. But...

It is slow and noisy. It sounds like sandpaper sanding hardwood when you turn it, and it just has too much friction for a flagship cube or any cube at this price point. Here's a quick video comparing a Vin3 in factory trim, one that's tuned with FZ-Rush & FZ-calm lube, and then a Swift Block Maglev. The SB is barely more than 1/3 the price of the Vin, much quieter, and easily twice as fast (see my metric in the video).

I don't have a video of the SB before lubing - it did sound like two pieces of regular paper sliding against each other - not offensive, just not silent. After lubing, it's very quiet.

https://reddit.com/link/1t7sueo/video/4n1qkblf010h1/player

Background: I'm not a speed-cuber yet, and may never be; I'm only sub 1:15, PB 45. I don't expect to ever compete, I just enjoy cube-tech & find nice cubes relaxing to solve with. I have 11 cubes that I enjoy switching between b/c I like the variation in feel & performance. In my heart my main is the Gan 16 Maglev Max, but in reality I switch between a GuHong Pro 3+ 54, Ferrocore V2, and Swift Block Maglev, and pocket a Monster Go 352M; I save the G16 for when I'm on a good run already.

I recently got a Vin3 Nova. I want to love this cube, but the scratchy sound drives me up a wall. Is that normal? I also have to keep it much looser than I'd like to get fast turning out of it. I love how strong & snappy the magnets are though, I think they're even stronger than the Ferrocore, although that could also just be b/c of the extra friction.

I like really low friction, fast quiet cubes. I primarily use FZ-Rush on most of my cubes. Those that need a little more help to be quiet I add a little bit of FZ-Calm. Neither of these are helping much on the Vin3. Turns still sound like "Sshhhhhh-k, Sshhhhhh-k, Sshhhhhh-k."

I do also have Gravitas and DNM-37 (which I'm told not to mix with Rush). I don't really use the Gravitas b/c I find it slows cubes down way too much. I'd prefer not to keep buying more lubes.

Any advice? Should I just accept that the Vin3 will always sound scratchy? I'd rather return it then, I don't want to have a $43 cube sitting around that I don't use.