Cloud Wheels/Clone SR Foamies Review

[pkasanda]

@jeffwuneo

Yes friend, we know all about chart. But having work in manufacturing for more than 20 year, this is meaning nothing unless you actually making and testing in real life with real product. How is injection mould also play big part, how is part cool? What is shrink rate? Is many factor involve in this, not simple graph! Which standard is mould making to? Which material is use for mould? …

These test are perform with not real life part. Is just make block and testing. This not real for testing because shape of finish item play big part for strength, is no way to use graph to know strength for all

So all that you just said makes sense. However, the PC/ABS wheels are cracking and crumbling in as little as 2 months. Normal Nylon + GF cores don’t do that.

You say the same thing might happen to Nylon+GF cores if they were subjected to the same loads as the I-wonder cores. If that’s true then there is not much hope.

You have manufacturing experience. I don’t. But I do know that there is a huge difference between plastics with and without GF. I think its worth a try.

I’d be interested to see the factory smash test performed on a conventional Nylon GF core.

What they really need is stress test for plastic fatigue. The examples that cracked were crumbling with fatigue.

I’m curious if you cut the core out of a traditional PU wheel, could the Iwonder tire be bonded to it? I would think that the tire is injected molded around a completed core. Correct?

Would it be possible to Outsource the manufacture of the cores to a third party that already manufactures Nylon/GF cores. Would it be possible to use the second half of the process to bond the Iwonder tires to Nylon/GF core samples?

It would be a way to produce some prototypes for stress testing. Heavy rider, cold weather stress testing.

[BluPenguin]

@pkasanda

You say the same thing might happen to Nylon+GF cores if they were subjected to the same loads as the I-wonder cores. If that’s true then there is not much hope.

That’s the thing. Would even an real abec core stand up to the forces of a 120mm round wheel that has way more rolling force than a flat one?

@pkasanda

I’d be interested to see the factory smash test performed on a conventional Nylon GF core.

That same 5kg drop test will bounce off gf nylon. done enough times and it will crack between the spoke supports.

@pkasanda

What they really need is stress test for plastic fatigue.

The core that allegedly cracked after a few rides deems this unnecessary. This would only be important if all broken core were subject to extended period of use.

@pkasanda

I’m curious if you cut the core out of a traditional PU wheel, could the Iwonder tire be bonded to it?

Not really. Once the PU is heat cured with the core, can’t really rebond it as strongly ever again.

You could have a mfg make you the cores, but then you would still need the pu mold and other things, at that point you might as well make your own wheel.

[pkasanda]

I don’t buy into the ideal that the fatigue on these wheels is coming from the outside --from the soft foamy tire. I think the stress is originating at the center and being transmitted through the axle and the bearings. The plastic is cracking and crumbling where it contacts metal. It looks like it starts here:

It looks like the PC/ABS core does not have the resilience it needs to endure the loads where it contacts the metal. I see the core braking first at the bearing compartment. Eventually the fatigue propegates to the spokes. But the fatigue starts where the metal bearings contact the Core.

Bolt on pulleys also cause metal to PC/ABS contact – and you see how the plastic fatigue is accellerated at the metal contact points.

These pictures each show plastic fatigue where the plastic contacts the metal.

Some have argued that neither a Nylon+GF or a PC/ABS core can withstand the tortional forces of a 120 mm wheel. If that’s true, then there would be no hope for the Iwonder.

But there is strong evidence that a Nylon + GF core is capable of supporting a 120 mm wheel without cracks and plastic fatigue. Here it is.

Those should be Nylon+GF cores and they are supporting 160 mm wheels.

So I see no reason why a Nylon GF core combined with a better core design would not be sucessful in supporting a 120mm or larger I-wonder.

[Chricious]

@Riako

Why no-one make AL core yet (for esk8 wheels) ?

[Riako]

Personnaly (this wheel look shit to me… sorry), and/but I would prefer 100gr more per wheel and don’t have any kind of failure issu ^^ but that just me one again. But you can be right !

Plus just take the same design example, here we can see a big 6 stars pattern, with wider harm and a big lip around all the wheel. The than looking poor in quantity (as quality, if its than) … and the wheel is extra wide but without a huge contact patch … this is bad design wheel in my opinion. Plus maybe a better AL will be stronger and a bit lighter.

Just look, and e-toxx rims is only :

Hubs are really light for full alloy with 60mm width :
Rearhub with bearings 280gramms
Fronthub without bearings : 240gramms

With a really big diameter for eMTBoard tires and tubes.

Maybe the same wheel as your example well made can be around just 500gr with a new design.
Maybe more than less Alu is better …

The middle one here look like the perfect opposite of your 660gr wheel :

I will try to see if I can get weight estimation from Fusion corresponding with matérial use.

[alexnz]

The Cloudwheel is 120mm vs 105mm for the other ones, and had bearings and spacer. So overall lighter.

Rubber is probably heavier than a swiss cheesed aluminium

[BluPenguin]

@pkasanda

But I don’t think that I’m wrong becasue of this…

Those should be Nylon+GF cores and they are much larger than Iwonder Cores.

Yes but look how much more material is in that hub. AT hubs can be pure ABS and still work, ultimately its a balance of material and design.

[pkasanda]

Well I definitely overlooked something big. The Iwonder has 6 spokes. TB pneumatic wheels have 5 spokes and the diameter of the bearing compartment is much larger. So the TB spokes are much thicker and there is alot more plastic surounding the bearing.

So now i’m going to change my position and agree that the six spoke design of the i-wonder core just does not have enough material to support the bearing and to prevent cracking.

And then I would have to agree with @Riako

Kegle five spoke is the way to get the right amount of material to support the bearing and put more material into the spokes.

But the material should be industry standard Nylon + GF

[ShutterShock]

@pkasanda

I don’t buy into the ideal that the fatigue on these wheels is coming from the outside --from the soft foamy tire

The problem is that it’s not just about it being soft and foamy. The problem is that the loading is so incredibly different with the weird application of load due to the softy and foamy.

The rider still weighs the same, thus the same amount of load has to be trasferred into the wheel, then the bearing seat, that it would on a regular abec wheel. The rigidity of the outer material does a lot for how the loads are transferred into the bearing seat.

My guess is that because of the soft outer area that they are transferring some load into a weird axial position and creating stresses that the original wheel core wasn’t designed to handle. They should probably have considered a different way of filleting the spokes so that the load is more evenly transferred and they might have not seen the same break occur.

Maybe a material change would help but like Jeff is saying I think there might need to be some attention paid to the core design, which is unfortunately extremely costly.

Think of it like this: remember how hard chinese hub wheels chunk and you can file the sharp edges to help them prevent chunking? I think there are some sharp edges that could be improved in their core design that might transfer loads better.

[pkasanda]

Agree with everything you said. All true. I had many of the same thoughts as you concerning axial loads. But I recently changed my mind concerning those loads.

I suspect that the differences in axial loads are not as great as one might think they are. Certainly if you are comparing a TB 110 mm and an Iwonder wheel turning a corner on a perfectly flat and smooth surface then the TB wants to sit flat and the Iwonder wants to twist. Agreed. Totally.

However once the surface becomes irregular and bumpy then the reverse happens. The square profile TB tire hits a rock on the outside edge and then it wants to twist because the entire weight is sitting on the outside edge. Its a shock load with a great deal of leverage against the centerline of the tire.

The soft and round profile Iwonder would absorb the irregularity of the rock. The shock load would be less sever. The further the rock hits from the centerline of the iwonder tire, the less sever the shock and the lighter the load.

I’m not saying the Iwonder tire is superior. I’m just saying that when you move from a hardwood floor to a rough road, it becomes difficult to argue that the Iwonder core has more sever twists and loads to deal with compared to a conventional large diameter PU wheel.

What the Iwonder does suffer from is an insufficient quantiy of core material and a problematic un-reinforced core composition.

A conventional Nylon +GF core configured for Kegle might have enough structure to support the bearing without cracking. I can’t see the spokes cracking. I don’t think the rim would collapse.

I’d say Iwonder should atlease test a prototype. Lathe the core out of a traditional PU wheel, shape it like an Iwonder Rim. Bond an Iwonder tire to it as a rough prototype for stress testing.

[pkasanda]

The other potential solution might be mass 3D printed Aluminum cores – identical in shape to the existing I-Wonder core. I’m not sure if the Iwonder Tire and foam would bond effectively to aluminum. But if bonding was possible then they could skip the costly mold development and new material testing and jump directly into a position where there would be zero chance of a core failure.

[BluPenguin]

@pkasanda

However once the surface becomes irregular and bumpy then the reverse happens. The square profile TB tire hits a rock on the outside edge and then it wants to twist because the entire weight is sitting on the outside edge. Its a shock load with a great deal of leverage against the centerline of the tire.

The soft and round profile Iwonder would absorb the irregularity of the rock. The shock load would be less sever. The further the rock hits from the centerline of the iwonder tire, the less sever the shock and the lighter the load.

You got it opposite. Carefully consider the shape of the urethane (the structure), the foam (lets pretend its hollow air since it provides no structural support) and the core.

In a regular wheel, the urethane is one continuous circle, any impact or pressure from the side or straight is spread homogeneously through the material and dissipated into the core evenly, if you run an impact simulation, the impact propagation would look like a wave generated from a single point, the single point starting from the outside of the wheel, to the core, where it is almost fully dispersed horizontally.

The cloud wheels, are essentially struts of urethane. During regular riding, the wheel is applying singularity points of pressure to the core where the urethane spokes go, the foam being an air filler only. Even during riding in normal flat conditions, unlike a normal wheel where the core sees a continuous rotation of pressure, the cloud core is being hammered in singularity points over and over.

The only reason why I keep disagreeing with you, is that you are very focused on only the material of the core, and not stepping back and looking at the whole picture. What if they change to gf nylon and the cracks keep happening? Then what will you say?

[pkasanda]

It looks like you are talking about how the energy of an impact is dissipated thorugh the material.

I was thinking mostly about the torsional forces on the bearing compartments.

On smooth ground traveling in a straight line the loads would be equal:

On flat ground turning there would be more torsional forces for the Iwonder:

On irregular ground, there could easily be higher torsional forces on the conventional wheel because collisions with stones would happen further from the centerline.

Also, the spongy properties of a cloud wheel would spread out impact over a longer period of time.

@ShutterShock, whom I have tremendous respect for, suggested that the Iwonder cores would be under greater stress than a conventional PU wheel.

I agreed that his point would be true while turning, but that other real life road conditions could create relativley higher torsional forces on the bearing compartments of the conventional PU wheel.

So if you are comparing a Nylon GF core in a 110mm TB wheel to a similar material and design of core designed for an I-wonder 120 mm wheel, I supect the torsional forces on both cores would not be significantly greater for either core.

So if the material was a similar Nylon+GF, and the spoke design was similar (kegel) and if the outer diameter of the core was similar, then I suspect the redesigned i-wonder core and bearing compartments would not be overloaded simply due to the round profile tire and the soft tire characteristics.

Really, I’m being an optimist, and saying that it would be worth it for I-wonder to test a prototype that took advantage of the industry standard core material and the stronger denser spoke design of a kegel pattern core.

I’m also agreeing with @BluPenguin and @jeffwuneo that just changing the Iwonder core to Nylon GF without changing the core design would probably not be sufficient to prevent cracks and fractures. The two of you have argued that point quite a few times. I now understand and agree with that point.

[pookybear]

professorshartsis?

[BluPenguin]

This is what I meant by the impact load, the foam creates hollow spots which intensifies the impact force to the core rather than spread it out, this then also spread right down the spoke into the inner bearing shell

[pkasanda]

So I could see how the iwonder tire could put alot more force on the rim of the core because less the spongy center of the tire is not translating the forces into central body of the core cylender. That makes sense. But are those increased loads enough to break a rim? Isn’t the biggest problem the cracking bearing compartments?

[BluPenguin]

Look at one of the pictures, the crack started right in line with the spoke. Not sure that’s a coincidence…

[pkasanda]

That’s not how interpret the crack. I see the crack happening because the bearing is busting out of the bearing compartment. By far the weakest part of this wheel is the skinny cylender of plastic around the bearing compartment. No reinforcing fibers in the plastic. Signs of plastic fatigue.

Lets assume I agreed with you that the force that broke the bearing compartment came from the spoke. Sure. That’s possible. But the thing that broke is the bearing comparment. That’s the weak link in the chain.

Either theory is possible. The round bearing streaches the bearing comparment and it cracks. Or the spoke sends load into the outside of the bearing compatment and it splits.

The problem is not the excessive force. The problem is the lack of strength in the feature that cracked.

[BluPenguin]

If the crack is due to impact forces, gf nylon may crack even worse… Reinforced materials are stronger but they fail more catastrophically when they go

[magharees]

Paging @dani come in Dani. This would be an interesting simulation