Just to be 100% clear, I understand how the Dynaplug kit is supposed to work. And, this post isn’t about whether it works or not; happy to give them the benefit of the doubt here. My issue is with the sharp metal cone-shaped wedge you put inside the tire to make it work. Let’s say best case, you have an aluminum rim, with a nice bit of tubeless tape lining the rim best. What happens when you push that sharp metal cone into the tape? If it’s anywhere near a spoke hole, good chance it will puncture that and cause a flat. Now let’s imagine you have some nice carbon rims… What happens when that sharp metal cone gets pushed into it? My thought, given that metal is significantly harder than carbon is that it splits the rim, or breaks a chunk off, or best case (?) just cracks it. Either way, I cannot imagine that it’s a great idea to shove this thing into your tire no matter how much you don’t want to slap a tube in there. But maybe it’s just me being paranoid…
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March 13, 2020
Products I do not understand: Dynaplug Tubeless Repair Kit
Yo! So… test it! It’s a really easy test to do… get a super fancy carbon rim and smash a brass dynaplug tip Ito it with a ball hammer. Make sure not to miss, or you will hill your rim. Assuming you’re on target the brass tip gets flatted to a pancake, with no damage to the rim because brass is a super soft self lubricating metal. Much softer than any carbon layup that’d you’d use for a rim. Santa Cruz have made some really cool videos about punishing their carbon rims. Carbon is super strong. That’s what makes it… Read more »
Carbon fiber is really strong in one direction, and carbon is really hard. But whether it could withstand a sharp metal object being pushed into it would depend significantly on how it’s laid up (i.e. how the layers of directional CF are offset to provide strength in multiple directions), and how much the barb deflects when impacting the rim (I would expect not much considering that the barb is fixed to the tire), also keeping in mind that resin is part of the equation. I would guess that this isn’t a scenario most rim OEMs have designed or tested for.… Read more »