bmw does not produce any cars in china, joint venture to produce cheap cars meant for the asian market doesnt mean they produce x5 m5 or any of there high end cars in china - not even the low end 3 or 1 series are made in china. parts yes, but not any major part.
on the other hand, bike manufactures produce their best and highest end frames in china (excluding cervelo R5 Ca). if wiki is all you got, you better fact check your shhhh...
for those that think china hasnt been stealing technology for years, you should read your history. though i will say this, the french took gun powder from china. japanese took their characters for language, but the japanese say their implementation is better and less complicated... ha.
jordo99 wrote:
First off, Chinese carbon products are not equal to the high-end name brand parts. If someone tells you otherwise they're probably lying. There are two reasons for this; technology that goes into developing the parts and quality of the carbon used (there are likely other things such as expertise of the frame builder, accuracy of the machinery...but those could honestly go either way)
Technology that goes into these bikes, is different is that what your saying? they are built in the same factory by the same people (most of the time) - laminate schedule, fiber and resin will be very similar, they will not want to gamble with success. if they are built in the factory the machinery is the same? thus the end product being very similar. dont you think they learn how to build their own copies, when they build a large majority of name brand bikes in your own shop? come on.
jordo99 wrote:
For the technology I'll refer to my FM098 (Venge copy) as an example but it encompasses nearly all Chinese carbon products (at least for cycling). I've seen both bikes an hour apart (I had to grab a shifter clamp as I lost one of mine) and there are some very noticeable differences:
First, the Venge is lighter and stiffer (100-150g lighter...I haven't ridden one but I've heard they're a little stiffer). That is because the FM098 is built up with Toray 800T carbon. I'm not sure what the Venge is made from but it is probably toray 1000T quality or better (the "high-end" chinese carbon frames are 1000T). This doesn't necessarily mean the Venge is safer...only that it requires fewer layers of carbon (less weight) to make the frame as stiff as they want it.
you didnt ride one, your going by what someone else told you and no real world test to see which one is stiffer, hmmm. but i believe you. ok, here we go.
if you took 2 mins, you would know that toray T800 (not 800T) is the same stiffness as T1000 (exactly the same 294Gpa). so to make a bike with the same stiffness would require same amount of ply's; 10 ply's of T1000 and T800 would net the same stiffness if you used the same resin. T1000 has a higher tensile strength and a 0.1% advantage for elongation at break, which can be compensated for with the use of a different resin. stronger doesn't mean stiffer. please do more research before you talk about something you know nada about. im not bashing on you per say, but your information is flawed. if the venge uses all T1000 also depending on resin - impact resistant toughened resin it would technically be safer than a bike using a lower tensile strength carbon.
ill give a quick example... carbon rims and the issue of de lamination should have never happened, especially to a companies like enve or reynolds, where we pay top dollar for a carbon rim $750 or more. why should it have never happened, because their is resin that can take up 2500°F of temperature. they use them on helicopter blades. its been in use for years!!! but cost is high for BMI resin's usually upwards of $100/lb. seriously how much do we need for a rim and we dont need 2500°F protection because a rim will never get that hot, we just need protection up to 650 -700, after that your tubes pop anyway, maybe even before. these companies used stuff that would only go to 400 - 450. but they knew these problems would happen. if they did not know ignorance is not an excuse for lack of testing.
btw, the price of t1000 and t800 is not that great for building a bike. where it gets really expensive are the high modulus fibers. a good fiber for a bike would be IM10 fiber from hexcel - has about the same tensile strenth as T1000 but it is stiffer at the expense of elongation 0.1% (very little).
T100
Te n s i l e S t r e n g t h 9 2 4 k s i 6 , 3 7 0 M P a
Te n s i l e M o d u l u s 4 2 . 7 M s i 2 9 4 G P a
IM10
Te n s i l e S t r e n g t h 1010 ksi 69,84Mpa
Te n s i l e M o d u l u s 44 ksi 303 Gpa
t1000 has been around for 20 years nothing new, but IM10 has only been around for 2.