How To Setup & Customize a Rubik's Cube

There are four ways you can customize the way you want your Speed Cube to feel .

And while it may seem like each new flagship Speed Cube comes with its own new customization system , some of which are very confusing .

I'm looking at you 10 Yun V two , these systems all accomplish the same things in the end .

So as long as you understand how each of these customization options work , then you'll be able to quickly learn to customize any new cube that you get .

The first thing to know about is the screw depth .

This also goes by axis distance or a centerpiece travel .

I don't know why there's no standard name for this .

But if you see any of these words , then this is probably what they're talking about .

The way to adjust the setting is by popping out a center cap .

And if you see a screw head , then this is it sometimes there's more than just the screwheads and we'll talk about that later .

But if you don't see crew , then there are usually two customization systems in here and it usually is the thing closer to the middle and to be sure , make sure you check the instruction booklets as long as you can read Chinese or just flip it over for a screw , it's clockwise to tighten it and counter clockwise to loosen it .

And for a different system , check the instructions for how it works .

What the screw depth does is it changes how much each piece is allowed to move .

The main thing you want to look at when adjusting the screw depth is the corner cutting .

You can test different amounts of corner cutting as I'm showing here and see whether it's easier or harder or just not even possible on certain settings .

Usually the corner cutting is better when the cube is looser .

But if you make the cube too loose , you'll also have to start worrying about pops and corner twists and the cube just generally feeling very flimsy on newer cubes , a piece popping out of the cube during a solve is not very likely but can happen if your cube is too loose , what's more likely is corner twists and this isn't really something you should worry about as you are changing the settings of your cube .

But once you find the settings , you like then go do a bunch of solves .

And if this happens very often , then you should tighten it .

You'll also want every side of the cube to have the same screw depth , which is easy if there is a number system .

But if there are screws , it can be hard to tell if the sides are even .

So what I do is I pull apart at the edges and push in on the other side .

And this compares blue and green here where you can see that green is a lot looser and this is what it would look like for two sides that are roughly even the next setting is the spring strength or compression or tension .

Basically , anything to do with springs .

Now , spring customization is not available in every single cube .

If it is available , it's usually the setting under the center cap that is closer to the outside .

And this works differently on pretty much every single cube .

So you'll have to go read the instructions or watch my review on that cube or I how it works .

The purpose of the springs in the cube is to not allow all the pieces to move freely within the space that they can move .

Instead the force of the spring pulls all of the pieces into the center .

So it's almost like gravity on the cube .

And when you change the strength of the springs , it changes how strong this force is .

And what makes this different from the depth is it doesn't change how far the pieces can move only how easily it can move within that space .

If you have a cube without springs , then the pieces can freely move wherever they want .

However , the cube won't fall apart because the screws are holding it all together and somehow even without springs , a cube can still corner cut , but the pieces will jiggle around .

So it has some overlapping effects with the screw depth .

But the main thing that it does is it affects the flexibility of how this cube feels .

If you make the spring stronger , the cube will feel more stable .

And if you make the springs weaker , then the cube will feel more flexible .

So you'll just want to set this one depending on your preferences because neither stable nor flexible is necessarily better than the other .

Oh And if you have an older system , you can technically change this , but you'll need a different set of springs , you'll have to take out the screw and springs and switch in different springs , which is a very tedious process .

Next , you can also customize the magnet strength .

The setting is usually found on the outside of the cube , on the edge pieces .

Each system looks a little different , but they generally are pretty straightforward .

And again , some cubes don't have the system .

One thing that it does is it can perfectly align the layers on each of your turns .

Now , this mainly affects flick layers as if you're turning the sides here , your hand has full control and it doesn't really matter that magnets .

The other thing .

And I would say the more important thing that it does is it stabilizes any layers that you are not holding as you do turns , you're not perfectly holding the rest of the cube that isn't turning and sometimes it can miss a line on a non magnetic cube making some of your turns harder .

However , the magnets really help hold the cube in its cube shape .

So you don't have to use corner cutting too much .

The magnets can also affect the speed of the cube .

As of course , if you have stronger magnets , then the layers will click into place better .

And therefore you need more force to get a turn started .

They can also especially slow down the slice layers because as you turn this , you're going across two layers of magnets at once , which means that these turns can be harder if your magnet's strength is too high .

My advice for magnets is to only make the magnets as strong as they need to be but not any stronger .

The reason for this is while it is true that stronger magnets will help the turns align a little better and weaker magnets won't when you are turning very fast .

That doesn't really affect things .

I don't think having the layers be able to align perfectly , really helps with mistakes much .

What's more important is not feeling like the cube is flimsy while you're turning and that the magnets aren't so strong that they control the cube more than you do .

And finally , there is lobe or lubricant .

I usually start by adding weight one from speed cube shop as it lasts a long time and keeps your cube feeling good .

I have a video on exactly how I do this and at the time I used weight five but I think I prefer weight one now as I've changed my preferences to slightly faster cubes .

And if it's for a cube that is pretty much too fast already , then this might just be all I need .

But for cubes that start out a little slower , I'll often add something else as well .

I add Martian .

If I want the cube to be a little bit faster .

Lunar is like Martian , but it just makes the cube even faster than that .

And Stardust makes my cubes faster than the speed of lights .

And you don't really need a guide on how to apply these .

It says right here , just six drops break in and enjoy and all you gotta do is just drip it into the cube like that .

But I mainly use startups for bigger cubes as I want these just to be as fast as possible .

You'll use Lobe mainly to control the speed of the cube .

It can also affect the feel of it a little bit .

And by a feel , I mean like the texture of the insides .

When you turn the cube , I don't really care about that part .

So I don't know much about it .

So for me , Lobe is just controlling if the cube turns fast or slow and keep in mind , the faster you make your cube , the more often you'll have to little bit to keep that speed .

Now , with all these options , it can be overwhelming how you're going to approach this .

Here is the order that I recommend going in work on the screw depth first because this affects the most important things such as popping , corner , twisting and corner cutting .

Think about screw depth as setting the limits on what your cube can and cannot do .

And then everything else is a minor adjustment within that next set the spring compression to give you the type of flux ability that you want , whether you want a more flexible or a more stable cube , then set the magnet strength in a way that complements this and don't just set it to what makes the magnets feel nice .

You'll want to do fast turns to help you determine if the magnet settings are good because if the magnets are too strong , they can restrict your turning .

And if they are too weak , then your cube won't feel stable and then apply lobe in a way that fits your turning style , whether you want this cube to be faster or slower .

And why did I say the 10 and V two system was bad ?

Well , that's because there's a screw and a number system both for screw depth .

And this doesn't make any sense because the whole point of the number system is to prevent you from getting inconsistent screw settings .

But you still have a screw so you can still mess it up in the core .

You can only adjust the screws and the springs .

Yet there are three different customization settings in here makes no sense .

If you're wondering about the specific cube that you have or you're wondering which settings I use for any cube , then you can watch the separate review I have on that cube .

Assuming I've made a review on it .

Usually if a cube isn't that great , then I don't make a review on it .

So yeah , if there's no review on it , that's how you know your cube sucks .

Just kidding .

Don't get mad at me anyway , if you have any more questions then feel free to leave it in the comments .

Thanks for watching and I'll see you all next time .