Diamond Coated Bearings

blackworx
blackworx Posts: 123
edited January 2009 in The workshop
Diamond coated bearings for the ultimate in techno-tart.
"Thanks to this coating, we can produce components that are much more robust than conventional elements," says IWM's Dr Sven Meier. "The coated bearings remain sturdy even if they are not sufficiently lubricated or if they run dry... Our coating method is also suitable for geometrically complex parts, such as bearing cages."

...

They can already coat individual plastic ball-bearings in a sphere of hard, tough diamond as much as 0.02 millimetres in thickness: and they reckon to apply their process to other materials soon. The IWM statement mentions "bicycles, slide bearings in the crankshafts of ships, or high-performance bearings in motor sports".

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/01/27 ... _bearings/
Trek XO1
FCN4

Comments

  • always_tyred
    always_tyred Posts: 4,965
    This will be CVD - clean room (silicon chip) type technology - likely new only in the sense that the world has found someone is daft enough to apply it to bike parts. So they should probably think about putting a few circuits on there as well so that the bearings can tell you when they are running dry.