Powerlinks don't go together or come apart when squeezed
Manc33
Posts: 2,157
After watching a few videos on how to connect and disconnect powerlinks, they all say "squeeze the plates together" but that doesn't do anything, it just doesn't work. One video even showed a guy putting one of these inane links together using pliers.
If it takes pliers to put these things on, what purpose do they actually serve, aside from being 100% a gimmick?
Out on the road for example - everyone with a powerlink needs to take a pair of pliers out with them for the powerlink? I have to laugh at this stuff honestly. These inane "links" are the most ridiculous gimmick I know of on a bike. Wheel reflectors have more purpose. Mudguards in the Sahara, would serve more use.
I am only messing about with them to see how they go together out of curiosity - or should I say don't go together. People using these things and raving about them must never remove them or connect them, fair enough if it is just there as part of your chain never going wrong you might be led to think they are fine, or that if it ever needed to be disconnected you could do it by hand... just lol, good luck with that.
People squeezing them must be using ones that have been well worn out or something, new ones don't go together. Put it this way for it to go together I would probably be pulling the chain so hard it would end up cutting my hand, so you need tools then... what a surprise. :roll:
They don't even come off the chain with a chain breaker because of the nature of the powerlink, if it was a normal link however, you could just use the chain breaker to do it. Its pretty ironic actually that you could be stuck somewhere unable to get some stupid thing off your chain where if it was a standard link, you could.
With a chain breaker you can break the chain, so powerlinks introduce a problem that wasn't there before, its LESS time consuming using a chain breaker tool. No squeezing necessary, its as simple as it gets.
This isn't to mention the fact that powerlink outer plates get fused together, meaning you'll be lucky to remove that even if you do have a pair of pliers with you. Last time I had that happen I just had to throw the thing away and redo the chain so it was complete again by adding normal links to it.
These things are absolute garbage.
If it takes pliers to put these things on, what purpose do they actually serve, aside from being 100% a gimmick?
Out on the road for example - everyone with a powerlink needs to take a pair of pliers out with them for the powerlink? I have to laugh at this stuff honestly. These inane "links" are the most ridiculous gimmick I know of on a bike. Wheel reflectors have more purpose. Mudguards in the Sahara, would serve more use.
I am only messing about with them to see how they go together out of curiosity - or should I say don't go together. People using these things and raving about them must never remove them or connect them, fair enough if it is just there as part of your chain never going wrong you might be led to think they are fine, or that if it ever needed to be disconnected you could do it by hand... just lol, good luck with that.
People squeezing them must be using ones that have been well worn out or something, new ones don't go together. Put it this way for it to go together I would probably be pulling the chain so hard it would end up cutting my hand, so you need tools then... what a surprise. :roll:
They don't even come off the chain with a chain breaker because of the nature of the powerlink, if it was a normal link however, you could just use the chain breaker to do it. Its pretty ironic actually that you could be stuck somewhere unable to get some stupid thing off your chain where if it was a standard link, you could.
With a chain breaker you can break the chain, so powerlinks introduce a problem that wasn't there before, its LESS time consuming using a chain breaker tool. No squeezing necessary, its as simple as it gets.
This isn't to mention the fact that powerlink outer plates get fused together, meaning you'll be lucky to remove that even if you do have a pair of pliers with you. Last time I had that happen I just had to throw the thing away and redo the chain so it was complete again by adding normal links to it.
These things are absolute garbage.
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I have also got a KMC link, just put it on but can't get it back off without pliers.
If it is not removable or reusable why do they exist?
Powerlinks exist for 2 reasons; first for joining chains more easily and reliably than allowing cack handed spanner monkeys loose with a chain tool and a joining pin. Secondly to allow chains to be separated to clean them.
Not all Powerlinks are designed to be taken apart because some of them only exist to fulfil the first idea above.
But you knew all this, didn't you?
When your front and rear mechs both shift against these powerlinks enough times, they make the outer plates of the powerlink fuse together. While we're pointing out what I know and don't know, I do know that and they are not to be used as a permanent thing.
How do you 'know' this?
Someone here might know some trick, but there is no trick, they simply don't work.
They are touted as something that makes it easier to take your chain on and off, which is just flat out b0llocks.
If it is meant to be a permanent fixture then it is a useless invention because standard chain links have already been doing that perfectly fine going right back to the 1800's when chains first came about.
These things are a total gimmick.
Because I had one on my Rockrider 5.2 and after using the bike for about a year, the powerlink had "fused" into its own pins making it immovable - ironically this wouldn't happen with a standard link, you don't have your mechs making the metal gradually fuse into the pins. See that hole in the powerlink thats a little bit bigger than the hole the pin snaps into? That bigger hole was reduced (fused) so much you can't snap the pin back out, no way, no how.
Powerlinks don't go together or come apart.
Unless this isn't a bike forum I dunno let me check...
"after chewing up my fingers getting those links to unlink, which always seems to take too long, I got the Park tool for this job. Yeah it was $14 but boom it works instantly just like you think it should. No more torn up (or dirty) fingers."
Right then. There is is.
Can anyone here explain what the advantage is if he needed a tool to use the powerlink?
Nope.
Is there any conceivable advantage to using these links?
Nope.
Its hardly my fault if I have higher standards than other people and can sniff out BS when I see it. Keep on using them by all means lol. I wouldn't go anywhere too far though.
I am only trying to warn people:
1. You can't remove a powerlink without tools (they are advertised as a "tool free solution")
2. You can't put on a powerlink without tools (again, they are advertised as a "tool free solution")
3. After enough time the outer plate fuses making the hole too small to remove the link.
If it is "sad and strange" to you to point these things out, maybe you should stick to kids cartoons?
Again its an accepted thing apparently that you'd need tools to use these powerlinks:
http://www.bikeforums.net/bicycle-mecha ... st12642755
"You do want the Park tool to make it easier."
No, I don't. I could just use a chain breaker and do away with the powerlink.
I didn't know these things existed but I have seen it all now...
I think that's considerably bulkier than a chain tool.
So people just take that Park Tool thing everywhere with them if they have a powerlink on the chain? :roll:
If you have that tool on you its easier than a chain breaker, but I would say not much quicker and it takes up three times the space and probably twice the weight of a chain breaker. Pointless. Useless.
1. Yes you can, provided they are designed to be undone.
2. Yes you can; this is the whole point of them.
3. This may have happened to you.
I may move on to pictures of small elephants with pretensions to aviation...
There isn't any "may" about it. I knew these links were useless already because of that fusing where there's a hole in the plate.
I am just shocked that after checking into them again I find you also need a tool that looks like a pair of pliers to undo the link, making it worse than just having a standard link there because of the fusing thing, which normal links don't suffer from.
Powerlinks introduce a problem where there wasn't one.
Why would me saying anything I am saying be bothering you anyway.
I won't be replying, I am putting some go faster stripes on my car...
Do you think if everyone else is saying something works and yours doesn't, maybe you are doing something wrong?
How can I be doing something wrong using a stock bike and the powerlink plates get damaged by the front and rear mech?
I never knew there needed to be a Park Tool for these links until today, no, but thats because I wouldn't assume something that is advertised as a tool free thing would need a tool for it, why would I.
They may be seized from lack of maintenance.
What people are trying to tell you is - nobody else has these problems. The issue is either with you, or with the many hundreds of thousands of satisfied users who have never once managed to mess up such a mundane technical issue.
Give over now, we get the picture that you can't get on with the link you've got.
Thanks for sharing.
He'd do more maintenance if he could get the chain off