AFC Pulley Wheel Review.

Back by popular demand, the general all-things Road forum!

Moderator: robbosmans

dereksmalls
Posts: 2305
Joined: Tue Aug 02, 2011 9:20 pm
Location: New Zealand

by dereksmalls

I guess for me, looking at the price of Token, Fiberlyte, Extralite and AFC, they are all hellish expensive compared to Rothsheck and also KCNC. The Fiberlyte though for me would be the best of all of them if I was prepared to pay that much for a part that really I couldn't tell that much if it makes a big performance increase or even a major weight saving. But I guess that's not the Weight Weenie way :D I have just sawed down a nylon bolt to replace a single bolt on a derailleur for gods sake for a weight saving over the aluminium one of SFA!

User avatar
bura
Posts: 842
Joined: Mon Mar 01, 2010 8:07 pm
Location: Civitatis Vaticanae

by bura

Derek I have checked prices.
Listed the lowest available or lowest found.
High to low.One pair.US Dollars.
List is incomplete.
Listed are only superlight,light and lightish types.
Therefore Tacx is not listed.
Feel free to correct and or add details.

-Token Carbon Tiramic bearings- fm 150 up > 183
-KCNC Ti DLC Ceramic bearings- 150
-Fibre Lyte Carbon -no bearings-bushings-72
-Extralite - Delrin -steel twin bearings in one pulley -59
-Rothsheck Carbon -ceramic bearings-> 58
-Token and KCNC ano alloy - Tiramic or ceramic bearings-51 up >55
-Omni ano alloy - ceramic bearings- > 50
-AFC TB Delrin- steel twin bearings in one pulley -almost identical with Extralite - 43
-Rothsheck Carbon -steel bearigs - 40
-Far & Near ano alloy -steel bearings - 40
-AFC Speed Ten Delrin - steel bearings - 39 (WCW's )
-AFC Speed Eleven Delrin - steel bearings - 38 ( my road bike pulleys)
- AFC SA Delrin - steel bearings - 36 (stronger built - on my MTB)
-Token ano alloy -steel bearings - 33
-KCNC ano alloy -steel bearings - 31

And many many others below the 30 bucks price range.Mostly ano alloy .

Bearings fixing - I think that bearings are pressed in to metal wheels and are glued to Delrin ,other composite and carbon wheels.
Exceptions possible like Extralite and AFC TB pulleys.Both Delrin and not glued in due to double bearing design.
Kuota Kom Evo
viewtopic.php?f=10&t=111825&p=955235#p955235" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
SOLD

by Weenie


Visit starbike.com Online Retailer for HighEnd cycling components
Great Prices ✓    Broad Selection ✓    Worldwide Delivery ✓

www.starbike.com



weeracerweenie
Posts: 500
Joined: Mon Aug 15, 2011 4:48 am

by weeracerweenie

bura wrote:Bearings fixing - I think that bearings are pressed in to metal wheels and are glued to Delrin ,other composite and carbon wheels.
Exceptions possible like Extralite and AFC TB pulleys.Both Delrin and not glued in due to double bearing design.


Agreed, all metals and composites would be pressed or glue pressed, plastics would be glued.
I guess there's worse hobbies than making a bike light? Right?

weeracerweenie
Posts: 500
Joined: Mon Aug 15, 2011 4:48 am

by weeracerweenie

Here is the email conversation between Selcuk and myself, note his comments that he seemed aware of the problem? Or is that just me? Anyway the fact that the bearings could not be pressed out when brand new, but can after riding suggests that somehow the bearing degrades or the delrin stretched leading to the bearing movement.

Other wise i thought he handles the situation well... :noidea:

FIRST EMAIL:

Hi there Selcuk.

I was racing on the weekend when the mount bolt you made for Geoff Searle snapped, the entire derailleur got caught in the wheel and then went around and cracked the chain stay on my bike. Is there a reason why it would have done this? AS you can imagine im a little annoyed but when you try products like these (as brilliantly as i thought i had been built) you have to expect failures of some sorts. So im curious why it would have done it, it wasnt over tightened, it was correctly built, everything had been fine for the two or three months i had been riding it. One theory i had may have been that the chain had hopped off the jockey wheel (one of yours) jammed inbetween the cage and jockey and caused it to snap the bolt... Ive noticed that when i had hopped off and checked out the problem, the jockey wheel had slid off the bearing over the bearing cap and the chain was wedged in the now created gap. The bearing cap could have been the issue as it doesnt stop the bearing from sliding sideways, so an option to fix it might be to increase the diametre of the cap to cover the sides of the jockey wheel body and then prevent sliding. When my new jockeys arrive ill build some bigger caps for them to try reduce the chaince of it happening again.

What do you think?

Tayler Reed

FIRST REPLY:

Hi Tayler,

I am very sorry that this has happened to you.

Before I make a further comment pls send me your drivetrain set up.

Crank .Compact or regular? Brand?
chain: Brand and type.
Casette: Smallest and biggest cog teeth figures.
FD and RD: brand & type.

Thanks for your input.

Cheers,

Selcuk
AFCBike

SECOND EMAIL

I run a stronglight fusion 2 crank, 53 - 39 with SRAM Red chain, 11 - 23 SRAM Red cassette. Super record front derailleur and a SRAM Red rear derailleur. Strange combination but it works great.

I emailed you mainly because i was curious to why you think it could have happened?

Tayler

SECOND REPLY:

Thanks for the info.

I check with QC and will revert. Can be tomorrow.

Thanks for your patience.

Selcuk
AFCBike

THIRD EMAIL:

That fine, thanks Selcuk.

THIRD REPLY:

Making some tests with some pulleys from the lots we have sent Geoff and you.
Not quite sure but assume it is a pulley braekdown rather than a bolt failure.
Machine will run during weekend and I will revert on Monday.

Thanks for patience.

Selcuk
AFCBike

FOURTH EMAIL:

Thats fine. I think it may have been because the pulley, with enough force, can slip over the bearing and them jam onto the cage plates. Thats what my theory is. Let me know what you find out

FOURTH REPLY:

Hi,

Your case is much of importance to us because we are manufacturing Delrin pulleys for other applications where much greater forces are applied than within a bicycles RD.And where NO caps at all are used .

But due to some troubles in the past we have worked out a manufacturing method hand in hand with DuPont end of 2010 where we have solved the problem.

Insight:
The Delrin wheels are heated up to a certain temperature in a special liquid .
Then they are taken out and have to cleaned very good and very quickly because the bearings are pressed in using some two component industrial bond .
The pulleys are then taken into an air cooled chamber where the Delrin shriks around the bearings outer race.

Nothing new that we have found out during weekend tests but we think that we may keep an eye on the structure of the industrial bond after longer storage times.

Nevertheless I am very sad of what has happened to your RD .
I am suggesting to check the bearings lateral strength of your new pulleys just by trying to push them out by your thumbs force. You should not be able to push them out of their slots.
Despite belief if they should come out pls use a strong bond (3M Scotch Weld PR 100) to glue them back.
Before doing this please take care that the original bond left overs are cleaned on the outer race of the bearings as well as in the Delrin wheels slot.
Please use a very tiny amount of bond to reglue them because otherwise you will glue your bearings by pressing the overdose out to the other side which will press through the seal into the balls of the bearing.

Let me know about your findigs.

Thank you.

Selcuk
AFCBike.

So this is where i left the conversation, mainly because i read theemail then promptly forgot to reply... Damn you memory... :oops:
I guess there's worse hobbies than making a bike light? Right?

konky
Posts: 830
Joined: Mon Dec 14, 2009 6:26 pm

by konky

What sort of weight saving do you get with aftermarket pulley wheels.
Bura's very helpful list tells you what the aftermarket Pulleys weigh, but what do Shimano etc pulleys weigh

If anyone knows what DA Di2 pulleys weigh it would be great to hear.

User avatar
bura
Posts: 842
Joined: Mon Mar 01, 2010 8:07 pm
Location: Civitatis Vaticanae

by bura

konky wrote:Bura's very helpful list tells you what the aftermarket Pulleys weigh, but what do Shimano etc pulleys weigh


Konky thank you but my list is about pricing and not about weight.
It was more or less a reply to Derek because I slightly disagreed with him on his price statement in a msg before .
Kuota Kom Evo
viewtopic.php?f=10&t=111825&p=955235#p955235" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
SOLD

Mackers
Posts: 482
Joined: Wed Sep 05, 2007 2:02 pm

by Mackers

Had a 7900 rear derailleur on my desk as I was reading this, so I checked.
20 grams for two pulleys including bolts.

Two worn KCNC pulleys I had laying about the place proved to be one gram lighter :)

weeracerweenie
Posts: 500
Joined: Mon Aug 15, 2011 4:48 am

by weeracerweenie

SRAM Reds standard weight is 22gm a pair, including bolts, these AFC's i was running were 5.9gm a pair, so a huge saving!
I guess there's worse hobbies than making a bike light? Right?

User avatar
bura
Posts: 842
Joined: Mon Mar 01, 2010 8:07 pm
Location: Civitatis Vaticanae

by bura

WCW ,
Yesterday I have ordered one pair of AFC Speed Ten 10T 5.9gr pulleys .
According your experience with them followed up by Selcuk s suggestions to check the bearings stability before riding I will in any case apply a bit more force to the bearings to pop them out. Then I will apply the 3M bond Selcuk suggested to glue the bearings back .
I weighed my original Shimano pulleys with 22gram so this is actually a huge weight saving like almost 4/1 with AFC's lightest option.
Keeping the prices of aftermarket pulleys in my previous post in mind I think that this is a good weight loss for the money spent.
AFC still has the lightest aftermarket pulleys with this type.
Wish me luck :wink:
Kuota Kom Evo
viewtopic.php?f=10&t=111825&p=955235#p955235" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
SOLD

User avatar
prendrefeu
Posts: 8580
Joined: Wed Oct 31, 2007 10:32 pm
Location: Glendale / Los Angeles, California
Contact:

by prendrefeu

Bura,

Please let us know if you encounter any failure using the 3M Scotch Weld PR-100 glue.
I'm thinking now (literally, I'm looking at my failed pulley wheels off to the left of my desk) that I can replace the bearings with some nifty ultra-spinny ceramic ones, use the glue... and now we're golden. Light and fast.
That is if the glue solution works.

So really, really test these Bura. My massive power ( :lol: ) already popped the bearings from the original, factory fresh AFC pulleys... surely you can test these like Cavendish would. DO IT!!! :twisted:
Exp001 || Other projects in the works.

weeracerweenie
Posts: 500
Joined: Mon Aug 15, 2011 4:48 am

by weeracerweenie

As another thing to be wary of is that the chain can't hop off the pulley. I have a few ideas on how the whole incident happened, and it's very plausible that the chain dropped if the side and pushed the pulley off the bearing... I still think the point if contact between the chain and the pulley is WAY to thin. SRAM and Shinano, are they that wide for a reason? I think so.
I guess there's worse hobbies than making a bike light? Right?

konky
Posts: 830
Joined: Mon Dec 14, 2009 6:26 pm

by konky

Wouldn't a sensible compromise be the Token ceramic wheels. Yes they're 4.9g more than the AFC ones but you avoid all the hassle of making them safe and the stress that at any moment the bearings still may come loose and potentially destroy half your bike.

There is still the question of price. You can still buy a complete bike for the same cost of a pair of Token ceramic pulley wheels.

User avatar
bura
Posts: 842
Joined: Mon Mar 01, 2010 8:07 pm
Location: Civitatis Vaticanae

by bura

@prendrefeu - I will test them and come back with a feedback .Will take a while depending on weather conditions.

@ konky - The Token Carbon Tiramic with an overdose price of 150 plus have 14gr-pair according to Token website.
The Token Aluminium anodized TBT with 51 to 55 usd price tag have 19gr-pair according to Token.

The AFC Speed Ten steel bearing pulleys with 39 usd price tag have 5.9gr -pair as per AFC website .
Weight has been confirmed by WCW. So much more difference than 4.9gr to Token.
The AFC seem to be a very good option priced less and have sensational low weight. I can imagine that this is only achievable
with a tiny minimalist design.

The heavier AFC's Speed 11 Delrin I ride made an impressive improvement in silent and good shifting over some alloy KCNC s I had
before.
With 10gr-pair they are half the weight of the KCNC alloy pulleys .

So Token is not the right choice for me.
Kuota Kom Evo
viewtopic.php?f=10&t=111825&p=955235#p955235" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
SOLD

weeracerweenie
Posts: 500
Joined: Mon Aug 15, 2011 4:48 am

by weeracerweenie

I'm not a fan of the tokens, I'm still thinking Roth scheck for my new ones, or a heavily modified AFC...

I have some big faces coming up so I really can't afford to be playing with my bike at the moment. Training 3 - 5 hours a day, 6 days a week... Winter I'll start up true Weight Weenieing again.
I guess there's worse hobbies than making a bike light? Right?

Post Reply