Xt brake pad choice resin or sintered

1980jj

Hi all.
Little help, keeping it simple, I want to upgrade the brakes on my cube ltd race 2012. I ride Xc mainly, the question is can I run a resin pad on the xt m785 brakes? I know that I will need new discs if I go sintered pads. What are the benefits of resin and sintered etc etc. will I need to change the original rotors if I stay resin?
Any help will do.
Thanks

cooldad

Resin are a bit grippier, sintered last longer.
The rotors will make no difference.

The Rookie

Gat Kevlar, almost the best of both worlds....

1980jj

Cool dad, the rotors say to use resin pads only? I imagined it being due to heat etc etc? I was more concerned that the xt brakes would not take resin pads?

cooldad

They will take any pads.

cooldad

The only reason I believe some Shimano rotors say resin only is they are made from a slightly lower grade of stainless steel, so may wear quicker using harder sintered pads.
From personal experience, I've used the same pair for about three years, using all sorts of pads, and they show minimal wear.
So you might lose a bit of life but I don't think it makes any other difference.

slindborg

It is also possibly down to heat rejection of the caliper.
Resin/organic based pads tend to retain their heat rather than radiate it to the caliper, sintered pads tend to let all their heat through to the caliper and can boil the fluid far quicker than on non sintered.

That is something to bear in mind if going sintered with a long slow down.

cooldad

Shimano do not specify pads for the calipers, just the rotors.

YeehaaMcgee

Sintered offer better performance and longevity, but they generate much more heat, much quicker, so on long descents or under constant heavy braking they can lead to problems.

Unless I was racing DH, or was in the alps, I'd stick to sintered.

1980jj

YeehaaMcgee wrote:

Sintered offer better performance and longevity, but they generate much more heat, much quicker, so on long descents or under constant heavy braking they can lead to problems.

Unless I was racing DH, or was in the alps, I'd stick to sintered.

Shouldn't that read stick to resin???Cool dad thanks for the heads up. I ride on the South Downs where the hills just roll and roll, some longish runs that might have some hard braking, not much though.

So reading this back I can use both pads on my rotors sintered just get hot....quick. Both pads have plus and minus factors.

YeehaaMcgee

1980jj wrote:

YeehaaMcgee wrote:

Sintered offer better performance and longevity, but they generate much more heat, much quicker, so on long descents or under constant heavy braking they can lead to problems.

Unless I was racing DH, or was in the alps, I'd stick to sintered.

Shouldn't that read stick to resin???

Nope, Sintered. I like the bite, power, feel and longevity of sintered.
But, if I was racing DH, and/or making exceptionally heavy use of the brakes, I'd go for resin, so that I wasn't boiling the brake system.

1980jj

Furry muff :-) thanks again though.

The Rookie

YeehaaMcgee wrote:

Sintered offer better performance and longevity, but they generate much more heat, .

Eh the Kinetic energy of the bike is turned into heat energy by the brakes, so you'll generate the same heat regardless of pad material, sintered, resin, orgaic, kevlar, mixed or blocks of wood!

YeehaaMcgee

Ok, they generate heat far quicker because they decelerate more effectively. Is that clearer?
Better stopping = more energy turned into heat per second.

The porous nature of them may conceivably also have some effect on heat build up, too, but I don't know for sure.

The Rookie

The fact they are metal means they conduct heat better.

I've never had a brake pad (working properly) that couldn't lock a wheel, so not sure how sintered stop you quicker than organic anyway, so again I don't think sintered heat up quicker anyway.

The Rookie

Actually sintered have a steeper tail off in friction at high temperatures so that is also an issue, organic (generally) start to fade earlier, but sintered 'drop off a cliff' and fall under organic at higher temperatures which is why they are not such a good idea in the alps!

cooldad

Whilst I bow to your gnarliness, I've yet to see anyone boil their fluid doing XC stuff.
Perhaps when the OP decides to do the Mega or something.

Stu Coops

Bet that lot has eased the confusion for the OP :shock: :shock: :shock:

lbalony

Correct me if wrong but I thought

Sintered was lowest grade.

Organic - better

Kevlar - better still

Or is that correct? I am not sure where I got that from and after reading this thread I think I could be wrong

cooldad

You are wrong - none are better or worse, they are different.

YeehaaMcgee

The Rookie wrote:

I've never had a brake pad (working properly) that couldn't lock a wheel, so not sure how sintered stop you quicker than organic anyway, so again I don't think sintered heat up quicker anyway.

Let's get back to basics for a minute.

We could lock wheels with cantilever brakes, and V-brakes. But, disc brakes offer more power, and control than cantis or Vs.
If locking a wheel was all you want, then Cantilever brakes would be fine.

However, when decelerating, the brakes are doing their most work, riiiight at the point where the tyre is about to lose traction. If you get past that, the wheel is skidding, and is no longer as effective at slowing you down.
So, breaking traction, when braking, means that you've gone past the limits of the tyre.
If you're not at the point of almost losing traction, then you're clearly not decelerating as hard as possible.

So, if you were to take a tyre with plenty of grip, say, some kind of road slick, on a clean tarmac road, then you can actually start to see the limits of brakes, since the lesser braking systems will invariably give up before the tyre grip.
What you'll find then, is that sintered pads will decelerate the bike in less time, since they convert kinetic energy into thermal energy far quicker.

Make sense?

The Rookie wrote:

Actually sintered have a steeper tail off in friction at high temperatures so that is also an issue, organic (generally) start to fade earlier, but sintered 'drop off a cliff' and fall under organic at higher temperatures which is why they are not such a good idea in the alps!

Where are you getting that information from?
Are you aware that cars and motorcycles use sintered brake pads?

lbalony

cooldad wrote:

You are wrong - none are better or worse, they are different.

Which are advised for what though? I always buy Kevlar if available. I might have been better off with others!

cooldad

From SS webbie
Organic - High power soft pad for great feel and power, excellent bite from cold
Sintered – Hard pads for long life in abrasive condition, extra long life
Kevlar – Soft race pad for ultimate power but Kevlar fibres give much longer life than Organic

Close enough. I buy for conditions. Organic are nice and cheap, sintered if it's really nasty weather or I'm going to Wales. Kevlar sometimes because they are red.

I doubt it really makes much difference to most people except for wear rate. They all stop you.

danlightbulb

I bought sintered pads last time I needed to change them, and like them far better than organic. They seem more powerful to me (may be that I took the time to bed them in properly though), plus I seemed to be flying through organic pads recently.

The Rookie

YeehaaMcgee wrote:

The Rookie wrote:

I've never had a brake pad (working properly) that couldn't lock a wheel, so not sure how sintered stop you quicker than organic anyway, so again I don't think sintered heat up quicker anyway.

Let's get back to basics for a minute.

We could lock wheels with cantilever brakes, and V-brakes. But, disc brakes offer more power, and control than cantis or Vs.
If locking a wheel was all you want, then Cantilever brakes would be fine.

However, when decelerating, the brakes are doing their most work, riiiight at the point where the tyre is about to lose traction. If you get past that, the wheel is skidding, and is no longer as effective at slowing you down.
So, breaking traction, when braking, means that you've gone past the limits of the tyre.
If you're not at the point of almost losing traction, then you're clearly not decelerating as hard as possible.

So, if you were to take a tyre with plenty of grip, say, some kind of road slick, on a clean tarmac road, then you can actually start to see the limits of brakes, since the lesser braking systems will invariably give up before the tyre grip.
What you'll find then, is that sintered pads will decelerate the bike in less time, since they convert kinetic energy into thermal energy far quicker.

Make sense?

None at all, If all can lock the wheel, then all can be held at the point of locking (Other than Canti's which are pants), organic or sintered just as well, point of locking being dictated by the tyre/surface interface not the brake, so both are creating the same heat energy, make sense?

YeehaaMcgee wrote:

The Rookie wrote:

Actually sintered have a steeper tail off in friction at high temperatures so that is also an issue, organic (generally) start to fade earlier, but sintered 'drop off a cliff' and fall under organic at higher temperatures which is why they are not such a good idea in the alps!

Where are you getting that information from?
Are you aware that cars and motorcycles use sintered brake pads?

Friction material manufacturers and anecdotal evidence of people using sintered in the alps.

Cars and motorbikes don't use sintered very much at all, they mostly use a sintered/organic mix to give a wide spread of characteristics.

YeehaaMcgee

Locking the wheel means you're not decelerating the wheel, you're no longer turning kinetic energy into thermal energy. It's also meaningless as a metric for brake performance, because it actually depends on your tyre, and not really the brake.

The reason people using sintered pads have such drastic performance fall of in the alps, is because they will boil the fluid, basically creating a catastrophic failure.

And finally, I'm getting curious now, what do you think "sintered" actually means?

The Rookie

We're not talking locking, we're talking maximum braking without (my point on locking was that if you can lock the wheel you can also hold it at the point of locking) under maximum rolling braking any pad will generate the same heat regardless of pad material!

No sintered pads generally have a very fast drop off at higher temperatures, if the lever stays solid it's pad fade not fluid boiling.

Sintered means the pad material is sintered metal (powder heated and compressed so it melds and retains shape when cooled) what else does sintered mean?

YeehaaMcgee

Sintered has nothing to do with being metal. Skiis and snowboards commonly have sintered, plastic bases, for example.
Sintered ceramic is also fairly common.

If the lever stays solid, then yeah, it's not the fluid boiling. But with sintered brake pads, on long descents, that's, generally, not what happens.

Holding the wheel just before the point of locking actually requires more powerful brakes, capable of dealing with heat build up, when compared to a brake that can hold a locked wheel.

The Rookie

YeehaaMcgee wrote:

Holding the wheel just before the point of locking actually requires more powerful brakes, capable of dealing with heat build up, when compared to a brake that can hold a locked wheel.

Yup, but sintered does not heat up any quicker than organic, which was my original point you were arguing with and semed to have forgotton. Sintered doesn't have any more 'power' than organic either so both can be held on the point of lockup and will gain heat energy at the same rate - did you have a point?

I said metal right?

YeehaaMcgee

Sintered do decelerate you faster, Rookie, they really do. They bite harder, they shed speed at a greater rate, and therefore produce more heat.

capoz77

I only ride sintered now, wore through a set of organics in one long muddy damp winter ride last year.

Sintered longevity does it for me, and the modulated braking is supurb