In the Guangzhou Big Cubes ’10 there were many records broken, including 2 WR. And, for the first time, the Alpha V-SV was revealed; many of the participants got the samples as a souvenir of the competition.
These are the first shots of the mold, so there are possible flaws in the puzzle itself; but just like the original Alpha V prototypes, you could always keep it for memorial as it is the very first version.
As before, I will always welcome advices and constructive criticisms whether you like the cube or not.
I have said before that the new Alpha V-SV will not yield much new conceptual designs; it would simply possess the more successful designs so far that we have applied. The Alpha V-SV does not need to be eye-catching this time, nor does it need to have very prominent performances; I simply want it to be clean and straight-forward, to be more widely accepted by most cuber. The objective of this cube is not being the dazzler like before.
The Alpha V-SV does not have very significant innovations, but there are still some very interesting details about this model that are premiere.
First of all, why is the cube a “SV” model 5, rather than a “mainstream” Alpha VI? Well, I did wanted to call it Alpha VI in the first time, but then I remembered about the definition of the two series…..
In the beginning, the earliest sealed mechanism speedcubes have caps on the outside (i.e. Alpha I, II, and III -SVs). However, starting from the Alpha IV-SV there are also caps in the insides, too. The mainstream Alphas all have one-piece edge pieces and are not caped at all, while the “SV” series uses caps to produce evenly distributed contacting su**ces. Since the Alpha V-SV has similar mechanism with the previous IV-SV (both have edge caps on the insides), it is rightful to classify it in the “SV” series.作者: daniel0731ex 时间: 2010-7-15 12:29:54
Now to the design; what are the little holes on the edge and corner caps for? Actually, it is the weight adjustment design that was handed down from the HaiYan: you could put screws in these holes to change the weight to your liking (though apparently not many people knew about this feature…or that they could not find the proper sized screws so they never tried it before). There are some improvements on this feature in the new Alpha V-SV cube that makes it more accessible: the holes are now molded onto the caps rather than on the pieces like before.
And to solve the problem of finding the proper screws, in the final edition will be enclosed the corresponding screws for the weight adjustment. If you want your cube light, it is extremely lightweight; but if you prefer heavier cubes, simply attach more weight to the pieces and you will be satisfied by the result.
The center pieces, which many of you find it to be very odd, are designed to provide support on the bottom of the center piece, while the rigidity of the top is provided by the caps. The purpose of this design is to produce stable friction with and reduce viscosity. I personally think that this is a big improvement from all of the previous designs, as it achieves both stability and minimal resistance. It seems that the prototypes have met the objective, but the caps do not seem to stay on very well; this problem will be corrected in the future.
The edge pieces have an apparent new design: the outer edges of the piece have been “trimmed” to create a chamfer that increased the comfort of the cube. This solved the problem of the corner and edge pieces hitting on each other [COLOR = “Green”](Daniel: I’m not quite sure what he’s talking about here…) and, above all, looks much better and more elegant.
The overall design focuses on the prevention of increasing viscosity of the turning. Currently Alpha has been working on not only the feel of the cube, but also the durability (i.e. performance consistency) and tolerance to lubrication. From the design and material of the new Alpha V-SV, you could see that it basically got rid of the deterioration issue that the majority of speedcubes have. The plastic used have a rather crispy feel to it, and we combined the designs of the contacting su**ce reduction and stability to improve the overall durability. We hope that this cube would be a new milestone of deterioration reduction.
The size is 54.5 mm on each side, a slightly smaller yet not too much size. However in my opinion, it doesn’t matter whether you prefer the size or not, being able to let most people to achieve fast times is the only thing that matters for a successful design.
And one more minor detail is that the center pieces have its bottom slightly larger that the top; we hope to achieve better stability and lesser resistance using this method.
Don’t forget that this is the least creative product currently; we wish to let this cube raise the quality and workmanship to a higher level
We encourage you to tell us about problems with this cube that you found, so we could correct them. A good product takes time and endless changes for it to mature. We will inform you about the performances and assembling/modification instructions later on.
