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Worth pointing out that they are not "porous" but they have a poor surface finish which leads to them accumulating materials that are much softer than them in the surface. It is surprising that they didn't at least coat the sliding surface with an amorphous carbon coating to prevent this. Would have made a huge difference.
Out of curiosity, did you see any wear in the caliper that would suggest the piston removing the ano down the bare aluminum?
Since ceramics have a porous nature that provides them with their high insulation values I think I am still in the right here, but that's splittin' hairs between our respective opines. That it is evident on the running face of the piston does look to be a helluvan oversight, that we can agree on. I will say the caliper bores did look a bit shiny, but without having seen a brand new unit dissected I can't make proper call but I suspect the shiny surfaces to be due to rubbing related surface erosion.
Yeah, I've seen ya mention that in the past, which gets me wondering what grade of AL and what heat treat (if any) most large scale manufacturers are using for their calipers and MCs. If the same thing is happening to some brands due to phenolics, that would be eye opening/concerning.
I saw 2014 T6 for one of the older Hope models.
Might be different for forged vs machined brakes though.
Im just being an annoying ME now but porous ceramics are a thing except they are sintered from larger diameter media, under much less heat and pressure, and make great filtration devices. Porous media has not only gas but at most times liquid permeability of which ceramic pistons that we are discussing do not. These are most likely manufactured via hot press method that results in a non-porous but poor surface finish alumina or yttria ceramic oxide that's commonly called zirconia.
I work with high performance ceramics for both filtration and high strength hard on hard seal applications. But from my experience the lack of quality surface finishes with ceramics results in the need to use DLC type coatings, much more tricky to do with a non-conductive material or to "green machine" the blank prior to firing. All in all it's not the best matierial considering that there are realistic price points to hit with off-the-shelf commercial products.
Its a great find either way and and interesting discussion.
This, I guess it could be 6000 or 7000 series for machined brakes, your Radics, Trickstuffs, Intends, Lewis(?) while something more conducive to forging for mass produced brakes, your Shimanos and Srams and Hayes and the like.
As for bore scoring, I don't really think it's the caliper piston scratching the bore, making particles that then travel to the lever and damage the master bore. It's a bit far fetched, I'd say oil in the caliper is in most cases quite isolated from the oil in the lever.
Furthermore, with the calipers, it's the piston running on the seals in the bore. Damaging the bore is just collateral damage (as long as it doesn't affect the piston sealing against the seal).
With the master the piston sealing and running on the same surface. Besides that, due to the lever and linkage geometry, I'm guessing there is a fair bit of sideloading on the master piston vs the caliper piston (hopefully the pad is supported by the caliper body). So I'm fairly certain most aluminium particle contamination comes from the lever, not the caliper. I'm not saying exclusively from the lever, but I'd be willing to bet it's mostly.
More from them- plus seems to be released now. I posted elsewhere in Tech but also seems like best place to put it.
Threading the pistons is neat. It’s on my mind right now as I just revitalized a clutch of seized Sram calipers, threads would have helped (if they didn’t just strip out).
https://www.hustokengineering.com/our-brands
The miniature thrust bearings on the caliper bolts seem a bit OTT just to avoid caliper rotation when tightening.
Colour me dubious about the functionality of their twin IFP reservoirs. That looks like a number of potential problems all in the wings waiting to happen. Aside from some old Zrace brakes, I am unaware of any other brake using IFPs in lieu of bladders for their reservoir.
IFPs work nicely when preloaded, but that won't work for a brake... Without a serious preload I suspect it's likely the ifp will bind. Or at least not want to move because of friction...
Precisely. Relying on the pressure differences from seal slip and roll and lever actuation to balance the fluid level in the system due to pad wear and fluid expansion/contraction seems to be asking mucho. Having flashback to Elixirs with that MC piston/bore setup too.
Like the fact someone's taking chances, but I am definitely in the wait n see camp here.
We did a spring backed IFP on the DH-R brake adjuster. It works fine so long as you keep the spring preload within reason. The main idea behind the whole brake adjuster was actually to have a base brake line pressure be about 15 psi so that the system would be less sensitive to bubbles. Not much impact on pad retract at that pressure with that brake, but much past it and you'd start to notice decreased pad retract/lever throw. But yeah relying on fluid to pull something as opposed to push something is a trickier thing.
Brembo ride test. Price will be somewhere around $1k it seems.
20 years ago they were 1K euro and just two pot so not that bad I guess.
Cant shake the feeling they look a bit cheap this time though…
Re brembo: Will be interesting to see how they survive in the real world. Was telling a buddy of mine that WC racing isn’t really a stress test considering that those brakes are bled every run. Based on hydraulic leverage ratios they will be quite powerful… Another player isn’t a bad thing…
Man, could be the best brake on earth, they look cheap af
Brembo press release here if you want to read a bit more: https://www.vitalmtb.com/news/press-release/brembo-now-makes-brakes-mountain-biking-introducing-gr-pro.
Could get 20 db8s for the same price.
https://www.bananaindustries.co.uk/products/sram-db8-4-piston-brake-set-950mm-2000mm
All jokes aside, these are double the price of the new Hopes. If they’re anything less than way better performance wise, I can’t see them being a big commercial success in the aftermarket world. And the Hopes look incredible if you care about that sort of thing. Bright red doesn’t go with a lot of other commonly seen colours on bikes.
Anyone who has owned automotive Brembos or even ye olde Grimeca System brakes will know how often they need a repaint due to fading from red to pink and chipping of the paint.. Hard anodizing on the other brands is a major plus (For me anyway)
It would have been great if they offered the Brembo motorcycle Stylema anodised finishes.
I don't have the numbers, but OEM is the place to sell volumes, aftermarket feels important, but in reality its just a side hustle
My last 2 cars have Brembo brakes. My hope is that their MTB brakes are as easy to work on.
Wanted to check them out today on Sea Otter but none of like six bikes on display that had them, or any of the brakes on the stands, had any mineral oil in the lines. Thats defo not the way to show off your obviously premium brakes if you can’t really give them a squeeze.
Then you could pick up this and have quad brakes!!! lol
TRP released new budget brakes. With all the big fancy things being released its nice to see some budget stuff. Especially for this TRP lover.
Post a reply to: Nerding out on Brakes shall we? Not another tech deraliment