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Old 04-01-2012
johnnyp johnnyp is offline
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Default gradings of ceramic diff balls

recently posted by a retailer on oople

For your reference:
The ABEC scale is an industry accepted standard for tolerances.
ABEC = Annular Bearing Engineering Committee

ABEC 1: 0.0075mm (0.000295")
is the most crude, the least precise, and the cheapest
ABEC 3: 0.0050mm (0.000197")
is what is mostly known as cheap. Won't roll very smoothly or fast.
ABEC 5: 0.0035mm (0.000138")
these are the normal grade that the majority buy and what normally one finds on the market
ABEC 7: 0.0025mm (0.000098")
would be very fast and ultra smooth, but very expensive. Although extremely suited to RC and very long lasting, there is a risk of needlessly damaging them if you over tighten your diff.
ABEC 9: 0.0012mm (0.000047")
the highest grade and ridiculously expensive

this information is correct for bearings however the balls we use for ball diffs are in silicon nitride and come under there own gradings known as AFBMA


AFBMA Std 10 - Principle Tolerances

the standard available grades are grade 5 and grade 25
in laymans terms the grade 25 bearings are too 1 micron in roundness and the grade 5 is too a quarter of a micron in roundness and tolerance over a batch
so a true grade 5 diff ball bearing is too a tolerance in roundness and overall diameter of .25um and 1um is 0.0000001
unfortunately somewhere along the lines there seems too be some confusion as ABEC is the wrong grading too use

hope this clears up the confusion about diff balls
john plummer
CPD Racing
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Old 04-01-2012
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Buds balls are grade 5 and available in all sizes

Regards

Buds

Ps cheers for clearing that up Johnny p
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  #3  
Old 04-01-2012
johnnyp johnnyp is offline
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so are CPD racings and are all instock
didnt want too post as a blatant advert for ourselves tho!
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Old 04-01-2012
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RudeTony RudeTony is offline
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Hi John and other Gents that seem to have interest in this.

Firstly, my understanding is that AFBMA stands for Anti-Friction Bearing Manufacturers Association does it not? With that name I am sure it doesn't just relate to diff balls.

I have no desires to argue over products or qualities ect ect but the product we are selling is clearly not in any competition with either of you gents or in fact anyone in RC.
Our diff balls are grade 7 which I believe no one sells.
If you do sell grade 7 diff balls then i will delete immediately.
I am not the type of person to step on people toes and if you know me personally, you would know that.

The higher grade balls are clearly also more expensive.
It should not affect any other sales in the industry.
We can't go telling Ferrari not to make cars because Vauxhall can't sell Astras, surely!!
Nor (in my opinion) should we deny the racers the chance to buy a Ferrari or the higher grade diff balls.

I have been told Bud Balls are very good.
Not sure what you sell John but either way drivers make their own minds up what product they want to buy.

Lastly, if you wish for me to ask our manufacturer to grade by the way you guys do, then advice me the method or standard and i will be more than happy to ask them.

All the best and regards to all
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Old 04-01-2012
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I tried the same with bearings, but people werent interested in the higher grade bearing kits, although I was selling 4 or 5 kits a month people were more interested in spending less and getting cheaper ABEC3 rated kits instead of ABEC5.

Price usually wins over performance I found, as people arent anal enough to care about ABEC rated bearings turns out people are more willing to purchase lower rated and lower priced kits.

the grade and performance debat will carry on long after where in our graves but someone once said anything over ABEC3 or Grade 5 balls wont give you a performance advantage noticable worth the extra £££.....

....I agree with this now ive tested them for months and compared kits I still run ABEC5 kits but when it comes to replace them I think I will be more than happy to go back to some sealed ABEC3.
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  #6  
Old 04-01-2012
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Answer-RC-Pete Answer-RC-Pete is offline
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For a long time I have had many conversations regarding the grading of Si3N4 Balls and the relative benefits of each manufacturer. Im not hear to bang on about who makes the best but to try and clear the issue up, I wont even mention what grade ours are but you can find it on our data sheet.

There has been a huge amount of incorrect thought bandied about by people and often pushed by those selling them.

I have seen people make up grade numbers related to the ABEC scale which bears no significance to balls specifically but to an assembled bearing.
I have also seen people who have bought grade "X" or "Z" balls claim theirs are superior as the number is higher than brand "A" without realising that the ABMA grades are inverted to what you would expect of an ABEC rating. I have seen people proclaim grade 7 - which dpes not exist in the ABMA scale. I have seen people claim that theirs are the best as they are grade 5, therefore superior to grade 3.

As far as we are aware, all manufactures work to the recognised ABMA grading stsyem for spherical balls. There is no debate about grading systems for spherical balls.

There is more info on Wiki
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ball_%28bearing%29#Grade

And a variation on the Wiki page from when we initially launched our own Si3N4 Balls
http://www.answer-rc.com/downloads/C...ta%20Sheet.pdf

Hopefully that really does clear things up..
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Old 04-01-2012
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Quote:
Originally Posted by RudeTony View Post
Hi John and other Gents that seem to have interest in this.

Firstly, my understanding is that AFBMA stands for Anti-Friction Bearing Manufacturers Association does it not? With that name I am sure it doesn't just relate to diff balls.

I have no desires to argue over products or qualities ect ect but the product we are selling is clearly not in any competition with either of you gents or in fact anyone in RC.
Our diff balls are grade 7 which I believe no one sells.
If you do sell grade 7 diff balls then i will delete immediately.
I am not the type of person to step on people toes and if you know me personally, you would know that.

The higher grade balls are clearly also more expensive.
It should not affect any other sales in the industry.
We can't go telling Ferrari not to make cars because Vauxhall can't sell Astras, surely!!
Nor (in my opinion) should we deny the racers the chance to buy a Ferrari or the higher grade diff balls.

I have been told Bud Balls are very good.
Not sure what you sell John but either way drivers make their own minds up what product they want to buy.

Lastly, if you wish for me to ask our manufacturer to grade by the way you guys do, then advice me the method or standard and i will be more than happy to ask them.

All the best and regards to all
It seems to me tony that you are misleading people by calling your balls grade 7 which dos'nt exsist if this is intentional or not it's still misleading due to the industry standard.
Also you refer to your diff balls "Ferrari" and others as an "Astra" well that's your opinion and your entitled to it but that dos'nt mean its correct

Buds
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