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Teijin D2 vs tripple vs quadtex

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GregK
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Re: Teijin D2 vs tripple vs quadtex

Postby GregK » Fri Nov 19, 2021 12:54 am

Back B-K ( before kiting ), windsurfing equipment was very technical, too technical many felt. When kiting arrived, progressive former-windsurfers leading kite companies made a concerted effort to keep kiting non-technical. 20 years later and that effort continues.

For a while, Switch was releasing a fair amount of technical information as Youtube videos of their material tests. Bill Hansen's version of the double-Dacron reinforced leading edge closure seam showed he understood how to maximize the added seam strength from a second strip of Dacron.

Now Ocean Rodeo and Aluula Composites have released the techno-genie from its lamp. Teijin's ripstops have been excellent, extremely well suited for our application, but I wouldn't be surprised if they are next up for replacement on high-performance kites.
Last edited by GregK on Fri Nov 19, 2021 9:35 am, edited 2 times in total.

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Re: Teijin D2 vs tripple vs quadtex

Postby GregK » Fri Nov 19, 2021 1:10 am

dracop wrote:
Thu Nov 18, 2021 10:47 pm
I do not think alot of the kite brands are doing as much advanced engineering design and materials testing as your post indicates....They do NOT use data ...
Earlier this year, I saw a picture of a small truck Duotone had set up to tow & fly a kite off the back of the truck. It was equipped with load cells and high-speed cameras to allow them to measure lift and drag and response to steering inputs.

Now if only the kite magazines used something like that to quantitatively test kites, then they could say with certainty, " turns faster, loops harder .... "

I concur that we are at the point where many design improvements are typically so subtle that qualitative testing will not pick them up.
Last edited by GregK on Fri Nov 19, 2021 9:32 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Teijin D2 vs tripple vs quadtex

Postby Faxie » Fri Nov 19, 2021 3:50 am

Greenturtle wrote:
Thu Nov 18, 2021 8:01 pm
Performance wise I think single classic ripstop is better vs quadruple (without any other changes) for the simple reason: its lighter. How much lighter? A noticeable amount? I think especially on a larger size kite, or any size kite used in the bottom of its windrange, it IS noticeable to a discerning kiter.

Now double vs triple vs quad, meh, maybe double to quad there is a very slight, barely noticeable weight increase. What about canopy flap/stiffness difference though? Last time I checked , you don’t even need struts to hold the canopy tight haha!, let alone heavier fabric. Personally, Im not convinced of any performance enhancing quality of adding ripstop lines. Your mileage may vary! Just my opinion.

The whole idea behind adding more lines was durability/longevity, and maybe it does do that to a degree combined with the best coatings.

Claims of increased performance characteristics, Im pretty much like, uhhh, nope. Not unless the kite came out lighter than previous model because of OTHER changes such as lighter bladders or reduced dacron etc. But then the performance increase would be down to those OTHER changes and not the added lines of ripstop in canopy , and the kite would be even lighter with classic single.

Let me put it this way, if I had the opportunity to magically switch out the canopies on my lovely lightweight single ripstop kites to double, triple, or quad, at the expense of a little weight gain, I would NOT opt to.
I want best possible performance from lightest weight and great design. Not a slightly heavier kite of same design that *might* survive certain abuses better. I am not abusive. Dont need heavier. Want lighter.

What I want to see is LEI canopy material that is lighter than classic single teijin with the same (or more) strength and durability. Where is that?... Any brand using something that ticks those boxes? Lighter than the classic single teijin used on lei kites? But the same strength?
That would be a step in the right direction. Especially if it was no more expensive, ahem
To add to that first statement: Just imagine if you keep adding extra ripstop. Where will you end up eventually with a X20 ripstop cloth? Right, same but non-ripstop material, just heavier due to the thicker threads.

Also, ripstop is just that, it stops rips. Doesn't prevent them. And for a lot of impact forces a kite endures, when a rip starts it will rip all the way through most of the time.

As stated already in this thread, coating is more important as far as I know.

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Re: Teijin D2 vs tripple vs quadtex

Postby Faxie » Fri Nov 19, 2021 4:32 am

GregK wrote:
Fri Nov 19, 2021 12:54 am
Back B-K ( before kiting ), windsurfing equipment was very technical, too technical many felt. When kiting arrived, progressive former-windsurfers leading kite companies made a concerted effort to keep kiting non-technical. 20 years later and that effort continues.

For a while, Switch was releasing a fair amount of the technical information as Youtube videos of their material tests. Bill Hansen's version of the double-Dacron reinforced leading edge closure seam showed he understood how to maximize the added seam strength from a second strip of Dacron.

Now Ocean Rodeo and Aluula Composites have released the techno-genie from its lamp. Teijin's ripstops have been excellent, extremely well suited for our application, but I wouldn't be surprised if they are the next for replacement on high-performance kites.
I miss that era of Switch... they were very transparent back then.

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Re: Teijin D2 vs tripple vs quadtex

Postby Havre » Fri Nov 19, 2021 11:08 am

dracop wrote:
Thu Nov 18, 2021 10:47 pm
Havre wrote:
Thu Nov 18, 2021 5:34 pm
It would be odd if they were all exactly the same. I think brands generally are doing a poor job explaining why they use certain materials and how that is better than the alternatives, but then again most don't get kites like an engineer would evaluate a product. So I guess they have concluded it isn't worth the effort. Not sure.

It would have been really cool starting up a brand where one would be a lot more transparent about why the product is made the way it is and what kind of trade offs one have dealt with designing and producing it the way one in the end did. All design, engineering and production of these kind of products have had to evaluate a million trade offs along the way - so nothing wrong with disclosing some of the more important ones.

Generally speaking a "new" product seems to always be better. Personally having worked a lot with engineers through the years it takes time to fully understand new materials, techniques etc. - so better to jump on the train at the second or third station/generation. Brands can't accept that of course, because they need to get money back on their investment quickly, so unless people buy the first generation there might not be a second or third. Fully understandable.
I do not think alot of the kite brands are doing as much advanced engineering design and materials testing as your post indicates. ALot of them are more hack and slash with designers just trying different things and trying to get some feedback. None of the brands do serious testing, Instead they get together a bunch of pro riders who all weigh 150-170lbs and test it for a couple of weeks then try to invest marketing slogans to sell it.

I have met some of the designers for the big brands in this industry and none of them has sat down and used a data/scientific approach to design.

They do NOT sit there with a bunch of riders each doing 100 jumps with a WOO comparing the % improvement of one proposed design vs the prior year's model.

They do NOT use data from a Woo/PIQ to measure how much force it takes before their design warps/jellyfishes.

They DO focus on a small amount of limited data from a few 170 lb superpros riding 2-3 sizes of the kite and then just invent from there without any real idea of what their product can and cannot do.

They are cutting and sewing fabric based around ideas and seeing what makes an improvement in the direction they are aiming for and they have a limited design time frame each model year to throw ideas at the wall and see what sticks. Its why they do not explain what each feature does and how to utilize it.

There are only a handful of attempts at advanced design/engineering such as ALuula, Click/Shift Bar, Fireball, Chicken Loop, etc in this industry. Heck, the industry does not even take full advantage of what other industries have figured - we are way behind on materials for canopies (Sailing tech), bladders (look at inflatable SUP tech!) ,etc.

In terms of the OP, I dont think single vs quadtex is a huge advatange when the kite is new. Quadtex is normally a stiffer fabric that weighs more per square meter. Over time I think it will reduce the canopy tendency to bag out. UV is the main killer of kite performance over time as it it will shred the fabric and leaving a less dense, thinner canopy which captures less wind power, make the pull less strongly. The number of RIpstop points does not really help with this altho when the fabric is weaker I suppose those points help reduce stretching tendencies. As a heavier rider doing big air in strong winds, I like the quadtex for its stiffness and willingness to resist being bagged out.

A GOOD improvement to canopy material is we could get a more UV resistant fabric. I seem to recall reading that since ALuula is a process as opposed to a native fabric, you can apply the same molecular construction process to ripstop and make that canopy material non-reactive to UV. Also recall they mentioned the process could be used for bladder film. No idea if thats all true, we will find out in the next 10 years - if they can a kite fully UV resistant, that would be amazing. Might crimp kite sales after the first batch though lol.
It could be that they are not talking about it because they haven't got a clue of course :lol:

It is also possible to make fantastic products without necessarily understanding, on an "engineering level", why it works. Vikings build ridiculously efficient ships which it took about 1000 years to really understand why that shape is so well suited for ships. I doubt the Vikings had come to that design by doing the math etc. - they rather found it through experience and luck. Still - you would like to believe it would be beneficial to have a mix when developing products in 2021.

Makes me think that there really is an opportunity for someone to do things a bit differently. And that is not to say I believe a brand would completely capture the market by being better at communicating the "engineering" (that is never true for any consumer product I would argue), but I do believe they might be able to carve out a nice little niche for themselves with kiters who do find the "nerdy" part interesting.

A Musk/Branson-kite would be nice.


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