Here's an excellent picture showing the life of a rear cassette (cluster) as it is starts out from a 10lb block of steel to something cyclists can recognize. The process is handled by a CNC machine for quick, precise and cost efficient machining.
Producing this is a two-step process.
1) A block of chromoly (chromium-molybdenum) steel is milled into a dome, with the cog teeth. Then its CNC-machined into the dome (3rd picture from left). SRAM states that one cassette requires a full hour of milling and machining before it's done.
2) The steel gets a nickel finish to give it immense hardness (last picture). SRAM's testing indicates that it's 35% harder than titanium. They wear out at a slower rate, so you end up replacing your cassette less often. This steel 8-cog block then gets paired with two additional "floating" cogs to make 10 cogs total. [Competitive Cyclist]
One of the most important performance aspects of a cassette should be its ability to shift the chain under load, quickly and precisely. Which is why if you take your cassette and gaze into it intently, you'll notice ramps and unique teeth profiles that helps the chain move on to the desired cog, hang on the two cogs for an instant before the shifting is complete to the desired cog. It seems to me as if those teeth profiles are pre-programmed into the CNC.
Does anyone want to comment on how these babies were made in days of yore? Stamping?
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200 bucks for that bad boy at my LBS. I opted for the 79 buck 1070 lately.
ReplyDeleteI have the older 990 or 970, I can't remember. A SRAM chain with a SRAM cassette works flawlessly. Cost effective and pretty durable in my opinion.
ReplyDeleteWell I seem to remember being able to drop together individual cogs into your own cassette less than ten years ago, so at that time I think each cog was machined out of a flat plate. Probably a lot less wasteful that way.
ReplyDeleteMakes me glad I use my Rohloff for my daily commute :) (though I'd hate to see what it takes to make the inside of one of those).
Yeah, I guess that's high performance, but as Dolan said, talk about material waste! And machine time waste! Even if I ever had the disposable income to get one of those, I might not just out of principle...
ReplyDeleteDolan and Anon,
ReplyDeleteI would think a company like SRAM would have nailed down these issues already, but yes I do see where the wastage problems can come from. Like Chris says, each unit costs 200 dollars, wow thats a hefty price tag. Obviously that means this is not cheap to produce.
Looks like the "because we can" argument being applied. Perhaps internally it's the "because we can- charge a lot of money for it" argument. Most definitely wasteful.
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