Lightcarbon: New LCR017-D (or Yishun R1058-D)

[rasch]

Check your invoice. I ordered Grade A. Should be the same as you. I didn't find such problems in mine. Maybe you had bad luck.

LC is quite responsive, so I'd wait a couple of days for their answer before raising it. In my view, as I mentioned in other threads, it's not about having 0 problems, but how companies solve them.

LC has been working on their reputation for some years. Those voids don't seem natural at all.

[tiagosantos_ss]

Grade A. The new z-tier classification is the new way to sell crap at any cost keeping reputation high

[ausmtb8989]

what's this new grading system about?  I bought a MTB frame recently from LC, but didn't see any grading mentioned in the invoice.

[dinorello]

If you don't get a response you need to open a dispute with PayPal for the full purchase amount including shipping and duties paid. 

[Serge_K]

I think in this context grade A just means the light version of the frame (havent checked, but probably full T800 instead of a mix of 700&800, or maybe it's some T1000 w 800 instead of 700+800).
The Z-tier thing, afaik, came out from Hambini's interaction w LightCarbon at Eurobike. I had never heard anyone until then talk about these tiers, and i think Hambini himselft said in his latest video that he's not sure he understood it right, so maybe he just heard Z something. It would make sense that OEMs offer different tiers of quality: different carbon fiber, different finishes, different quality. Whether there are different tiers of Z-something when it comes to QC in particular is TBD. 

[dinorello]

It's all about the QC.  The more you pay the more QC will be performed.   On a retail level there's no leverage so it's all buyer beware.   

[Serge_K]

It's all about the QC.  The more you pay the more QC will be performed.   On a retail level there's no leverage so it's all buyer beware.

I'm not sure about that. There are a lot of OEM / chinese people reading this forum (Xiamen Carbon Speed, Yuanan, Winow, Velobuild, LightCarbon, SPCycle & quite a few more), and I think they know / are becoming increasingly aware of the importance of avoiding reputation damage. The reputation damage that ONE bad frame or product can do is material if it gets amplified.

On LTWOO for example, given how many problems i've had with the 5 er9 i installed, i stopped counting the number of people who WROTE on the forum they gave up on buying an erx / er9. So how many more gave up without actually writing about it? That's a personal example, but i can say that i'm not buying an airwolf frame because of the feedback on this forum. Ditto with worskwell, tantan, dengfu, and more.

As peak torque says, it's kind of the job of the customer to complain. if you pay good money for something, it shouldn't be shit. A frame full of holes is shit. A BB hole undersized so you crack the frame when you install the BB is shit. And so on. It's also a benefit of competition: we get to vote with our money.

Also, I'm French. Complaining may be what i do best

[dinorello]

I agree completely but without a forum to voice a complaint it's ultimately up to the buyer.  I don't know what happens psychologically but a lot of people feel shamed in voicing their complaint. Sellers know this and try to flip the script and turn it on the buyer, in my experience that is.

[Walter-sobchak]

One takeaway from the grading scale is the sample rate for QC.  I know everyone who drops a couple thousand dollars on a frame would love to believe it has been finely inspected in the factory, but the reality of QC is that you need to define a sample rate and have a process that is capable.  A more frequent sample rate is expensive for the labor to check, but it lowers the probability that process went sideways during the production.   It doesn't eliminate the chance that problems happen. 

I hope LightCarbon addresses this frame and replaces it.  I do think a lot of brands buy with smaller QC sample rates but rely on after market warranty to take care of issues when they arise, or they put in their own post-production inspection to return frames not up to brand standard (but this seems unlikely to me/or at least is a sample rate that is not 100%).

[Serge_K]

I don't know what happens psychologically but a lot of people feel shamed in voicing their complaint.

Interesting perspective, i hadn't thought of that. we literally learn "esprit critique" in school, so our tests virtually never are multiple choice questions, but much more mental masturbation to lay down on 8 pages of blank paper. We're supposed to critique, think, postulate and stuff. I see in this mindset a parallel with engineering, where you ask yourself is the process good, is the material right, what can fail, why, how often, how to minimize failure and at what cost, where's the break even point beyond which you're losing more money trying to avoid a problem than letting some problems happen and only then remedy them, and so on.

I do know that women often dont feel comfortable speaking up because boys are socialized to be a lot less civilised than girls, and much more conflict happy, but i didnt think about the fact that men could also feel uncomfortable telling some to eat a (metaphorical) dick.

People (and therefore factories) respond to incentives. If there's no backlash from doing crap, the logical thing to do is crap, unless you happen to find a factory / workers who take intrinsic pride in their work. We have this in France for example, you'll still find craftsmen who are proud of what they make. They're never the richest dudes, but they are the best dudes. But they're a dying breed, it's an aethos (see what i did there?) that's dying as the culture rots.

Who said we couldn't talk philosophy on a bike forum?

[neobiker]

As we are making philosophical tirades, let’s go on the tangent of critical thinking.

I am Swiss from the French speaking side and I hold a French passport so I kind of like to hate/be critical of our beloved dysfunctional neighbor third world country [France]. (our national sport).

Given the media exposure of conspiracy theorists and the support from the people to politicians financed by authoritarian countries, we can be skeptical about the practical impact of putting kids in mental masturbation torture about arguing why pedophilia could be reasonable [it was real topic asked to high schoolers for their final exams

[dinorello]

We're living in the information age and that in itself can be leveraged to affect people's narrative and actions. Be it buying a bicycle frame or choosing a president each person believes that they have agency over their thoughts, emotions and decisions.  Call it marketing in a commercial context or a psy-ops military campaign to affect an outcome do we really know if our strings are being pulled?

[neobiker]

The question is then what has been showing to consistently manage to fight information manipulation?

Critical thinking/skepticisim/scientific method.

Basically, we have to agree on how we get to the same fact if we disagree on what we observe, and decide what can be decided and what not.

[rasch]

Question to you guys since it's not clear for me. On their webpage they recommend a 4/5mm gap between the top of the stem and the expander plug.
In all my builds i used 4/5mm not to the expander plug but to the fork cut. Which, after putting the expander plug usually results in sth like 1mm gap.
How are you guys doing this on this frame?

[Serge_K]

Question to you guys since it's not clear for me. On their webpage they recommend a 4/5mm gap between the top of the stem and the expander plug.
In all my builds i used 4/5mm not to the expander plug but to the fork cut. Which, after putting the expander plug usually results in sth like 1mm gap.
How are you guys doing this on this frame?

that's not bike specific. you have to compress enough, but you dont want the stem to clamp over void, so it's about minimizing the void once you've compressed the column, without having the plug touch the stem cap, otherwise it means it's not compressed. If you're a ninja at that game, you want a 1mm space between the stem cap and the plug once it's compressed (some plugs have a lip over the steerer, some dont).
On C rings, btw, i found that plastic thing to work much better than the metal C ring. I need less torque to compress stuff. I think it's a better design. Just like plastic spacers are better than metal ones, i think a plastic C ring is better than a metal one: deforms / compresses easier, i guess. And i dont see how you can eat into the steerer with a bit of plastic, but we know a metal C ring with a bit of play can eat into the steerer.