Plates for Speed?

[fierocious1]

Originally Posted by Hoss

A stiff plate is going to transfer more power to the floor, the less everything under the foot moves the more energy you will put to the floor. But you don't need to have the truck tightened down so far that they don't move. you have to find the happy spot for YOUR trucks to be at, and from experience, that is nearly impossible to get skating on a plastic plate.

I can't for the life of me get my back truck (45) to get my power to the floor like my front truck (5). It just deflects to much and eats my push, but it sure does turn nice on the derby track . this is just my opinion.

Loosen the rear truck or put a softer cushion on it, It lets the truck settle down with less pressure so the tires will bite.

[SwisherTONE]

Originally Posted by Armadillo

If "stiff" makes your wheels come off the floor, then it will not be helping your power.

Tell a pole vaulter that a stiff aluminum pole, compared to a flexible fiberglass one, will give him more power to lift him higher over the bar.

He will be rolling his eyes at you. "Stiff" very often does not transfer power better than "flexible" and "resilient" can.

-Armadillo

'Dillo! My friend that's not correct. You are very wise (I will admit), but that is not a correct response: You can't compare what a Pole Vaulter needs to what a Speed skater needs. They need two very different power transfers. And YES, 'stiffer' ALWAYS transfers power better than 'less stiff' (or flexible)...ALWAYS. It's pure natural physics. it's science 101. A stiff alloy speed plate will always transfer power better than something flexible, like even the best Nylon 66 plates.

[fierocious1]

Originally Posted by Armadillo

You gloss over the key aspect of stability on a skates, regardless of speed.

All speed skaters in motion are continuously adjusting their focus of weight onto their plates, and are typically rolling with only one foot down the majority of the time. Placement of the skaters focus of weight onto the skate needs to be precise in order to follow the optimum track. The better skaters are usually the most accurate at maintaining the proper focus of their weight over their skates and nailing the most efficient track line around the oval, but no one is perfect.

This is where skate stability factors into the equation. Since speed skaters are continuously making slight errors in placement of the focus of their weight onto their skate (plate lean), the plates having the highest level of turn response (like DA45) plates are going to experience the largest amount of path deviation away from the optimum track. Even if the amplitude of this kind of path deviation is slight, it still steals energy.
With a less turn responsive plate setup, the same degree of error in focus of weight placement (plate lean) will not trigger as much path deviation from the optimum line, and thus less energy gets wasted. This is how greater action stability yields a slight speed advantage.

I suspect most speed skaters have never skated on a shallow action speed plate where the action has been tweaked and freed up to the point where there is minimal resistance to truck turning until the widest limit of the truck swing range. Having the shallower action speed plate tuned this way, and I do not mean by making it all wobbly loose near neutral either, makes it very easy to hold the turn arcs without much foot effort at all, just like with a DA45, but without as much tracking errors for the same level of focus of weight errors.

If your steep kingpin plate turns freely throughout the full truck swing range, then a DA45 plate will not yield any significant arc tracking turning advantage at the level of turning sharpness required to negotiate the curves of the speed track oval. The DA45 plate will, however, more greatly amplify your focus of weight errors (plate lean) giving a wider tracking error with detrimental loss of speed.

Small errors being more amplified by a steeper (DA45) action is exactly what what plate twitchiness is all about, and, the faster you go, the further the deviation away from optimum track will be. It remains an issue at slower speeds too, just not as much of one.

-Armadillo

The most important aspect you overlook is that a D/A 45 SG Plate's PIVOT ANGLE IS NOT PERMANENTLY LOCKED INTO PLACE FOREVER! The pivot angle can be changed, far more adjustable and easier to adjust than any other style plates. I do it all the time. It changes the reaction of the plate. If you skated them and tested them to the extent you pretend to know, you would know. D--M! It is becoming apparent not just to me you don't know squat about SG D/A 45 or you would know what you were talking about. You go on and on about anything other than a D/A 45, that is fine with me, but don't talk crap about what you don't understand from lack of experience. Skate'm or quit running them down. Don't think, Do! I bet I can take the old S/A trucks and make them skate just as good as what I have in D/A, just by making a few changes to the truck and to the cushion setup. I have tried your stuff in the past, why is it so hard for you to test and understand about D/A 45? As I said before, the angle can be changed to where the plate will not turn hardly at all or be faster than just about any plate. If you are talking about not doing any tuning then what is the point?

[Armadillo]

Originally Posted by SwisherTONE

'Dillo! My friend that's not correct. You are very wise (I will admit), but that is not a correct response: You can't compare what a Pole Vaulter needs to what a Speed skater needs. They need two very different power transfers. And YES, 'stiffer' ALWAYS transfers power better than 'less stiff' (or flexible)...ALWAYS. It's pure natural physics. it's science 101. A stiff alloy speed plate will always transfer power better than something flexible, like even the best Nylon 66 plates.

Always is a strong word. I wasn't suggesting the analogy translated 100% over to skating, rather that ignoring the WAY that power is getting transferred and just assuming stiffer always works best is inaccurate.
The flex & recoil effect of the pole vaulters fiberglass pole clearly allows him to transfer more of his horizontal energy into vertically lifting his body mass. There are many similar situations where this is true.

The elasticity of muscles and tendons allows running animals to deliver more power with their effort and reach higher speeds, because flexing allows energy to be recycled better than stiff does

What elevates a springboard diver higher? -- bouncing on a stiff diving board or a flexible one.

Old people use golf clubs that flex more, because the flex helps the their slower swings still deliver more energy to the ball than a stiff club does.

So, in these cases at least, your hypothesis is proven wrong.

-Armadillo

[SwisherTONE]

We're talking about Speed Skating.. lol. Stiffer ALWAYS transfers energy faster more directly, and more efficiently. We're not talking about comfort or how relaxing a skate can feel, we're discussing energy transfer. I didn't make up the laws of Physics... not my fault. hehehehe

[Hoss]

Yes I agree with Dillo, the rebound of objects helps to conserve energy, but that's what trucks are for right? they move and rebound more or less depending on how tight they are. The plate is there to keep the trucks supported and stable.

Plastic flexes VERY well but has little resistance. Nylon is in the middle between plastic and aluminum. flex and reactivity seem to go hand in hand. plastic returns to its original shape slowly compared to aluminum. and with the amount of force put down into a particular step by a larger individual a stronger material is needed for efficient energy transfer. When you're speed skating you don't have time for your plate to keep up with you.

Oh and I have tried many different configurations with those DA45 trucks and no matter what I do, (harder/ softer cushions, tighter/looser trucks) I can't get comfortable on them at speed.

Basically all this mumbo jumbo comes down to what YOU like as a skater.

[Armadillo]

Originally Posted by fierocious1

The most important aspect you overlook is that a D/A 45 SG Plate's PIVOT ANGLE IS NOT PERMANENTLY LOCKED INTO PLACE FOREVER! The pivot angle can be changed, far more adjustable and easier to adjust than any other style plates. I do it all the time. It changes the reaction of the plate. If you skated them and tested them to the extent you pretend to know, you would know. D--M! It is becoming apparent not just to me you don't know squat about SG D/A 45 or you would know what you were talking about. You go on and on about anything other than a D/A 45, that is fine with me, but don't talk crap about what you don't understand from lack of experience. Skate'm or quit running them down. Don't think, Do! I bet I can take the old S/A trucks and make them skate just as good as what I have in D/A, just by making a few changes to the truck and to the cushion setup. I have tried your stuff in the past, why is it so hard for you to test and understand about D/A 45? As I said before, the angle can be changed to where the plate will not turn hardly at all or be faster than just about any plate. If you are talking about not doing any tuning then what is the point?

The limited adjustment of the DA45 pivot pin cannot alter the tucks swing angle very much. Measure the amount of angle change you can get. Post PICs. This truck swing angle can change only a very small amount at best. This adjustment is certainly not going to shift the plates action angle GEOMETRY anywhere close to the shallow action angle of a good 5-10-15 degree kingpin speed plate.

I realize that you can alter the DA45 turning response a small amount by doing what you are suggesting, but this kind of tweak does not make a DA45 have a turn response that is anything even close to a shallow action angle DA5-10-15 true speed plate.

It is you that does not understand the concept of turning response -- the ratio of the plate lean angle to the amount of truck swing angle that results from that amount of plate lean.
This has little to do with how hard or easy you adjust the suspension or how much you choose tweak the pivot pin & cushion stack height .

You can only go so far skewing the truck platform away from 90 degrees to the kingpin, and only so far with shifting the truck hole away from being centered on the kingpin. So give me a break with all the magic pivot pin adjustment hype, as if it can be used to produce a total plate makeover. It can't

I have been doing these exact same kinds of pivot pin tweaks with Chicago Panther trucks for over five years already, and trying them on a wide variety of different style plates too. No doubt I have tried using them with more frakenplate testing setups than just about anyone. So I do get the picture of what you are up to with your DA45 pivot tweaks.

Just because I am not as impressed as you are with the limited level of performance alteration that this approach can accomplish, is no reason to assume I don't understand the process.

Anyone can stiffen up or free up most suspensions, but even fiddling with the pivot pin is still not going to allow you to convert a DA45 action geometry into a DA5-10-15 action geometry. You are dreaming if you think this is possible.

The freedom of the action can be messed with quite a bit on any style of plate, but the GEOMETRY of the action can only be marginally altered.

I am stating flatly that it is the GEOMETRY of the shallower action for the DA5-10-15 style plates enables them to work better for speed skaters than the GEOMETRY of the steeper action DA45 style plates, and NEITHER style plate's action GEOMETRY can be significantly altered by mere cushion or pivot adjustments.

Totally changing a plate's trucks to ones with a much different shape CAN significantly alter the plate's action angle by shifting the height on the kingpin where the truck hole crosses it, but even this radical approach has narrow limits as to how much change can be produced.

I have built, tested, and skated enough on DA45 plates to know what they can do, and to know how well and how poorly they fulfill various skate performance requirements. I think they make a great skates for derby and session, and if I skated derby or sessions seriously, I would no doubt prefer the DA45 for that type of skating.

What I skating I do take seriously is speed skating, and for me The semi-DA15 Laser Slider setup is what I prefer. At some point I will spend some more time rolling on a DA45 setup, but I do not expect to be that surprised or thrilled by anything they do performance wise for which I am not already familiar.


-Armadillo

[fierocious1]

What I skating I do take seriously is speed skating, and for me The semi-DA15 Laser Slider setup is what I prefer. At some point I will spend some more time rolling on a DA45 setup, but I do not expect to be that surprised or thrilled by anything they do performance wise for which I am not already familiar.


-Armadillo[/QUOTE]

LOL! Finally! You may not be surprised but you will be enlightened. Speculation is not fact. Photos will not show everything. A few thousands of an inch will not be caught on camera.

[fierocious1]

I am stating flatly that it is the GEOMETRY of the shallower action for the DA5-10-15 style plates enables them to work better for speed skaters than the GEOMETRY of the steeper action DA45 style plates, and NEITHER style plate's action GEOMETRY can be significantly altered by mere cushion or pivot adjustments.

-Armadillo[/QUOTE]o

BS, The geometry can be changed. That is the point you don't get, You are so used to the non-D/A 45 not lending itself to adjustability. It doesn't take much change on the D/A 45 to see the difference, that it can be altered.
Don't believe it, fine by me. But don't claim things to be fact when you haven't explored it.
Speculation is usually before testing, an unknown. Cushions themselves can be changed to affect the pivot angle thus changing the mechanical response of the plate, making the trucks turn more or less with X(same) input angle.

I have been doing these exact same kinds of pivot pin tweaks with Chicago Panther trucks for over five years already, and trying them on a wide variety of different style plates too. No doubt I have tried using them with more frakenplate testing setups than just about anyone. So I do get the picture of what you are up to with your DA45 pivot tweaks.

-Armadillo[/QUOTE]

Pivot angle is not a fixed value in 99% of all skates, if you don't understand that you have serious problems grasping what is fact. The only plate out there that I know of that the angle cannot be changed in is the Micro Star(maybe a couple more I don't know of), it is absolutely fixed. Testing is what you need and lots of it, outside the box testing....

[fierocious1]

As long as you make absolute statements about things that you haven't thoroughly proven up on, I am personally going to call you hand on it. You may back up your claims on non D/A45 stuff if you like, whatever.... But you have not backed up D/A45 claims thoroughly enough to be an authority on the subject, your claims above reflect this. I am sure I am not the only person here that sees the discrepancies in your claims. Talk about what you know, not an opinion based on ideas only. I will call you on it every time this comes up , you can count on it. Certain staements you keep making , nullify the knowledge you claim to possess

[Armadillo]

Armadillo said:
... "What I skating I do take seriously is speed skating, and for me The semi-DA15 Laser Slider setup is what I prefer. At some point I will spend some more time rolling on a DA45 setup, but I do not expect to be that surprised or thrilled by anything they do performance wise for which I am not already familiar."

Originally Posted by fierocious1

LOL! Finally! You may not be surprised but you will be enlightened. Speculation is not fact. Photos will not show everything. A few thousands of an inch will not be caught on camera.

No point even taking the PIC when your pivot pin tweaks can only shift things around by such small amounts measured in the .001" unit. This tiny degree of truck shifting cannot produce major effects on altering the turning response of plates. To alter setups enough to produce major effects on plate turning response, you can visibly see and measure the resulting truck swing angle changes.

It is great that you are a sufficiently perceptive and skilled enough skater to be able to register the effects of these fine tuning tweaks, but they do not qualify as major turn response makeovers.

-Armadillo

[fierocious1]

Originally Posted by Armadillo

Armadillo said:
... "What I skating I do take seriously is speed skating, and for me The semi-DA15 Laser Slider setup is what I prefer. At some point I will spend some more time rolling on a DA45 setup, but I do not expect to be that surprised or thrilled by anything they do performance wise for which I am not already familiar."




No point even taking the PIC when your pivot pin tweaks can only shift things around by such small amounts measured in the .001" unit. This tiny degree of truck shifting cannot produce major effects on altering the turning response of plates. To alter setups enough to produce major effects on plate turning response, you can visibly see and measure the resulting truck swing angle changes.

It is great that you are a sufficiently perceptive and skilled enough skater to be able to register the effects of these fine tuning tweaks, but they do not qualify as major turn response makeovers.

-Armadillo

same pics I always post, Gluemeister. The pins arn't giving as they are Glued in place.... I did try something you use. Glue. I can bend a kingpin as good as you can.... So try again.
Take out your upper cushions and put in 1 cushion of your choice, D/A only sized, fill the rest of the space with nylon washers. Minus about .015 of total cushion height, then tell me you haven't made a change that is significant, depleting some of your "kickback"......
So you can stand back three feet away and see .015 difference with the naked eye?
The measurement is the shim thickness added or removed, measurable. One revolution on the adjustment nut moves the truck more than.001....

[Armadillo]

-Armadillo said:
"...I am stating flatly that it is the GEOMETRY of the shallower action for the DA5-10-15 style plates enables them to work better for speed skaters than the GEOMETRY of the steeper action DA45 style plates, and NEITHER style plate's action GEOMETRY can be significantly altered by mere cushion or pivot adjustments... "

Originally Posted by fierocious1

BS, The geometry can be changed. That is the point you don't get, You are so used to the non-D/A 45 not lending itself to adjustability. It doesn't take much change on the D/A 45 to see the difference, that it can be altered.
Don't believe it, fine by me. But don't claim things to be fact when you haven't explored it.
Speculation is usually before testing, an unknown. Cushions themselves can be changed to affect the pivot angle thus changing the mechanical response of the plate, making the trucks turn more or less with X(same) input angle.

This argument is not about whether the action's pivoting angle can change, it is about the limits on the degree of change possible.

By just placing your weight on your skate you will change the action's pivoting angle. It will become shallower as the truck tilts upward a bit from your weight load on it. No big deal though, and not going to alter the skates performance profile noticeably.

You can even stretch your DA45 adjustable pivot pin out to the max, and place the necessary taller cushion (or spacer) above the truck. If the truck's cushion platform remains near 90 degrees to the kingpin, and the truck hole stays near to centered around the kingpin, then the trucks pivoting angle is not going to be altered very much at all.

You will certainly raise the deck height significantly, which can be a good thing to resolve wheel bite, but there is no way you can consider this pivot tweaking to be a major alteration of the plate action's pivoting angle -- it remains effectively a DA45, or a DA 44.5 or a DA 46 or a DA44.....

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

-Armadillo said:
"...I have been doing these exact same kinds of pivot pin tweaks with Chicago Panther trucks for over five years already, and trying them on a wide variety of different style plates too. No doubt I have tried using them with more frakenplate testing setups than just about anyone. So I do get the picture of what you are up to with your DA45 pivot tweaks..."

Originally Posted by fierocious1

Pivot angle is not a fixed value in 99% of all skates, if you don't understand that you have serious problems grasping what is fact. The only plate out there that I know of that the angle cannot be changed in is the Micro Star(maybe a couple more I don't know of), it is absolutely fixed. Testing is what you need and lots of it, outside the box testing....

Nothing in the universe is "fixed" in the way you imply, and everything vibrates and flexes to some extent.

That being said, you need to realize that when a plate is designed and the choices for the plates style of action geometry are made, this absolutely does make the action's pivoting angle "fixed" ==> FIXED WITHIN NARROW LIMITS

I am not denying that you have the ability to play around within this available, but limited, range of DA45 suspension tweaking wiggle room, but I suggest you going way overboard in exaggerating the degree of DA45 plate performance changing results that can be accomplished within the DA45 design imposed physical limits of this range.

The trucks' cushion platforms need to be maintained at near 90 degrees to the kingpins. How far from this optimum setup are you willing to skew the cushion platform?
This requirement, combined with the limited amount of pivot pin extension, is what what dictates the "fixed" limits for your range of tweaking the DA45 pivoting angle.
Skewing the cushion platform away from 90 degrees by more than 2 or, at the extreme, 3 degree starts to have a detrimental effect on action smoothness. How few pivot pin threads are you willing to leave engaged in the truck as you extend it out to the max?

So, let's assume that with a max of about 2.5 degree of shift of the trucks pivoting angle you have the ability to alter the performance of the plates to reach. a 42.5 degree pivoting angle. This only brings you roughly 10-12% of the way toward matching the pivoting angle of what a DA10 true speed plate has for a pivoting angle.

This is certainly a detectable difference, but it still leaves the DA45 plate performance a being 88-90% matching the DA45 action that it retains, and only 10-12% shifted in the direction of how a shallower action DA10 performs.

Bottom Line: Using skewing of the truck cushion platform as a way to gain significant changes in a plates turning response profile, is only going to alter plate performance by a limited amount.

-Armadillo

[Armadillo]

Originally Posted by fierocious1

As long as you make absolute statements about things that you haven't thoroughly proven up on, I am personally going to call you hand on it. You may back up your claims on non D/A45 stuff if you like, whatever.... But you have not backed up D/A45 claims thoroughly enough to be an authority on the subject, your claims above reflect this. I am sure I am not the only person here that sees the discrepancies in your claims. Talk about what you know, not an opinion based on ideas only. I will call you on it every time this comes up , you can count on it. Certain staements you keep making , nullify the knowledge you claim to possess

Hey, I will bow to Doc Sk8's assessment of this issue.
If he thinks that the turning response (ratio of plate lean to resulting truck swing), can be significantly changed one way or the other by suspension tuning, then I will retreat from my argument with you.

The geometry numbers do not add up for supporting what you suggest is possible, at least not the way I tally them up.

So far most of what I have seen coming from you on this topic are primarily just based on on your very subjective skating experiences as you make these DA45 suspension tweaks. Not suggesting they aren't valid reflections of your experience, just that they are too subjective.

-Armadillo

[cojaco61]

it is about who is at the end of the line first.

And what is the most common question asked before and after a race?

What wheels are you using or did use.

Very rarely do people attribute peoples success to the plates they are running.

They attribute other peoples success to their fitness, strength, form and then to wheel selection.

People say, "wow that guy/gal is fit."

"he/she is a strong skater"

"gee, they have nice form/style"

""man those wheels roll"

So just get out there and skate guys.

[Armadillo]

Originally Posted by cojaco61

it is about who is at the end of the line first.

And what is the most common question asked before and after a race?

What wheels are you using or did use.

Very rarely do people attribute peoples success to the plates they are running.

They attribute other peoples success to their fitness, strength, form and then to wheel selection.

People say, "wow that guy/gal is fit."

"he/she is a strong skater"

"gee, they have nice form/style"

""man those wheels roll"

So just get out there and skate guys.

Good points you raise here. However, were you to show up at a race rolling with a set of DA45 plates, and then proceed to have an obviously sub-par (for you) race result, I suspect your buddies would be more focused on the "what's up with his plates" question than anything else.

-Armadillo

[fierocious1]

Originally Posted by Armadillo

Hey, I will bow to Doc Sk8's assessment of this issue.
If he thinks that the turning response (ratio of plate lean to resulting truck swing), can be significantly changed one way or the other by suspension tuning, then I will retreat from my argument with you.

The geometry numbers do not add up for supporting what you suggest is possible, at least not the way I tally them up.

So far most of what I have seen coming from you on this topic are primarily just based on on your very subjective skating experiences as you make these DA45 suspension tweaks. Not suggesting they aren't valid reflections of your experience, just that they are too subjective.

-Armadillo

Not once in this conversation did I say anything about pivot pin adjustment, only about pivot angle. You love the other plates...Cool, great! Just dont run down things without sufficient cause. That is all I ask. The changes I make are small steps toward a goal, each one specific. That is why when I test or set up my quads it may take several sessions to get to my goal. Not giant leaps leaving you wondering if you went too far or not. I always have my primary skates to use for comparison. Small i steps, takes longer but accurate in the end. And yes .015 can make a difference at the cushions, you just keep falling back to the other plates way of thinking, they are not to be tuned quite the same way.

[fierocious1]

Originally Posted by Armadillo

The limited adjustment of the DA45 pivot pin cannot alter the tucks swing angle very much. Measure the amount of angle change you can get. Post PICs. This truck swing angle can change only a very small amount at best. This adjustment is certainly not going to shift the plates action angle GEOMETRY anywhere close to the shallow action angle of a good 5-10-15 degree kingpin speed plate.

I realize that you can alter the DA45 turning response a small amount by doing what you are suggesting, but this kind of tweak does not make a DA45 have a turn response that is anything even close to a shallow action angle DA5-10-15 true speed plate.

It is you that does not understand the concept of turning response -- the ratio of the plate lean angle to the amount of truck swing angle that results from that amount of plate lean.
This has little to do how hard or easy you adjust the suspension or how much you choose tweak the pivot pin height.

You can only go so far skewing the truck platform away from 90 degrees to the kingpin, and only so far with shifting the truck hole away from being centered on the kingpin. So give me a break with all the magic pivot pin adjustment hype, as if it can be used to produce a total plate makeover. It can't

I have been doing these exact same kinds of pivot pin tweaks with Chicago Panther trucks for over five years already, and trying them on a wide variety of different style plates too. No doubt I have tried using them with more frakenplate testing setups than just about anyone. So I do get the picture of what you are up to with your DA45 pivot tweaks.

Just because I am not as impressed as you are with the limited level of performance alteration that this approach can accomplish, is no reason to assume I don't understand the process.

Anyone can stiffen up or free up most suspensions, but even fiddling with the pivot pin is still not going to allow you to convert a DA45 action geometry into a DA5-10-15 action geometry. You are dreaming if you think this is possible.

The freedom of the action can be messed with quite a bit on any style of plate, but the GEOMETRY of the action can only be marginally altered.

I am stating flatly that it is the GEOMETRY of the shallower action for the DA5-10-15 style plates enables them to work better for speed skaters than the GEOMETRY of the steeper action DA45 style plates, and NEITHER style plate's action GEOMETRY can be significantly altered by mere cushion or pivot adjustments.

Totally changing a plate's trucks to ones with a much different shape CAN significantly alter the plate's action angle by shifting the height on the kingpin where the truck hole crosses it, but even this radical approach has narrow limits as to how much change can be produced.

I have built, tested, and skated enough on DA45 plates to know what they can do, and to know how well and how poorly they fulfill various skate performance requirements. I think they make a great skates for derby and session, and if I skated derby or sessions seriously, I would no doubt prefer the DA45 for that type of skating.

What I skating I do take seriously is speed skating, and for me The semi-DA15 Laser Slider setup is what I prefer. At some point I will spend some more time rolling on a DA45 setup, but I do not expect to be that surprised or thrilled by anything they do performance wise for which I am not already familiar.


-Armadillo

Cell phones do not do the forum justice. Now home on the computer.
A lot of the stuff you mention above, I didn't imply, like changing the geometry from one to another. Pivot angle is another subject, and it does have drastic affects and can be manipulated with skate gear that lends itself to the mods. Ther is one very obvious property of the D/A setup that you overlook.
The one statement you should make, you don't. Not anywhere is the statement I am looking for from you. So you don't know as much as you claim. Understanding plate lean angle is the most important part of what I tune for.... Sorry you didn't get that either( I have repeated it numerous times in our discussions. And no I'm not giving you a clue. Doc knows, I didn't get it from him either, I figured it out on my own. As long as you aren't testing it you will not know.

[SwisherTONE]

I've never heard anyone witness a bad race performance and wonder about the plates the racer was using. lol

[Armadillo]

Originally Posted by fierocious1

Not once in this conversation did I say anything about pivot pin adjustment, only about pivot angle. You love the other plates...Cool, great! Just dont run down things without sufficient cause. That is all I ask. The changes I make are small steps toward a goal, each one specific. That is why when I test or set up my quads it may take several sessions to get to my goal. Not giant leaps leaving you wondering if you went too far or not. I always have my primary skates to use for comparison. Small i steps, takes longer but accurate in the end. And yes .015 can make a difference at the cushions, you just keep falling back to the other plates way of thinking, they are not to be tuned quite the same way.

Well if you really didn't "say anything about pivot pin adjustment" you certainly implied that this was included in your tweaking process. It is certainly required.
You cannot keep the truck hole properly centered on the kingpin while simultaneously altering the truck's pivoting angle, from changing the height of stuff that is stacked up on the kingpin (nuts, washers, retainers, truck, cushions...), without also adjusting the pivot pin to match the amount that the truck has been shifted.

If the truck's pivoting angle gets significantly changed by altering the stack height, then the truck must also end up being significantly shifted in its position relative to the plate. Any time the truck significantly shifts its position relative to the plate, the pivot pin needs to be adjusted. If you skip this step the pivot ball will either be jammed to tight, or rattling around, inside the pivot cup.

Chicago Panther DA10 plates with fully adjustable pivot pin trucks are just as tunable for their action pivoting angle as your DA45 plates are.
I have lots of cushions to play around with. I have lots of sizes and thicknesses of retainers, washers and spacers to alter the cushion platform height, which also alters the truck pivoting angle. I can make custom height cushions to control the exact place, heightwise, that the truck sits on the kingpin relative to the plate.

I know very well what can, and what cannot, be accomplished within the constraints of this kind of action tweaking. My approach it to max out these changes to the two opposite and extreme ends of the tweak range, to see what is possible, and then after seeing what things feel like at both ends of this range limit., only then do I start targeting the for sweet spot, which I seem to find faster this way.

The turning response profile of any plate can only be marginally altered by this approach of stacking more or less stuff above the kingpin (and resetting the adjustable pivot pin to match this change of the truck's location).

-Armadillo