How to identify a 10sp-specific hub body?

Lumen

I just fitted a 10sp Ultegra cassette to a HED Sonic hub body.

I used the spacer, which is not required for 10sp-specific hub bodies.

I assumed it was not a 10sp-specific hub, but I actually have no idea how to identify such a thing. Presumably the splines are different?

The hub looks like this:



Was I right to use the spacer? It went on OK.

Chips Lovell

I think the 10 speed only hubs have deeper splines. That doesn't look like one, so you were probably right.

blorg

Yes, 10 speed-only has deeper splines, deeper than in that picture. Same pattern otherwise.

niceonetom

There are DA only freebubs too aren't there? With deep splines that won't accept sram cassettes? What's the deal with that?

Chips Lovell

niceonetom wrote: »

There are DA only freebubs too aren't there? With deep splines that won't accept sram cassettes? What's the deal with that?

They are the same ones as far as I know.

blorg

niceonetom wrote: »

There are DA only freebubs too aren't there? With deep splines that won't accept sram cassettes? What's the deal with that?

Yes, that is otherwise known as a "10 speed only" freehub, they will take any Shimano 10 speed cassette.

The other place you see "Dura Ace only" mentioned is where you have the shallower spline design where non-DA cassettes would eat into the freehub. Technically here anything that puts enough of the individual sprockets on a carrier is fine so many SRAM cassettes.

All a bit of a mess really, Campagnolo just moved to a more sensible spline pattern while Shimano seemed hung up on backwards compatibility.

Chips Lovell

Shimano have ditched that hub now though haven't they and gone back to the backwards compatible design?

niceonetom

blorg wrote: »

Yes, that is otherwise known as a "10 speed only" freehub, they will take any Shimano 10 speed cassette.

But only shimano 10 speed, right? Not SRAM?

Did the introduce the deeper slplines and then give up on them? I think the 6600 wheels were "duraace only" but the 6700 aren't... but I don't know.

Tis a mess.

Chips Lovell

I think the deeper splines were introduced to stop cassettes gouging aluminium freehub bodies. With 7900, the freehub is now titanium.

blorg

el tonto wrote: »

I think the deeper splines were introduced to stop cassettes gouging aluminium freehub bodies. With 7900, the freehub is now titanium.

That was the reason all right. The 7850 freehubs are also titanium but the problem is now there are a host of wheel makers making aluminium freehubs with the shallow spline pattern which suffer from gouging. DT 240S and Easton R4 are among two that I own myself.

niceonetom

so have they gone back to the shallow splines on the 7900 and 7850, but now they're Ti? Or are they both deep and Ti?

blorg

niceonetom wrote: »

so have they gone back to the shallow splines on the 7900 and 7850, but now they're Ti? Or are they both deep and Ti?

Shallow Ti AFAIK. Shallow works fine in steel or Ti but not in aluminium if using a cassette made up of individual sprockets.

niceonetom

Right, that's grand. I'm glad they gave up on the deep splines as it's good to have SRAM there as a cassette option (though they would, no doubt, have followed suit).

Sorry for tangentting* the thread, Lumen.

*if door can be a verb so can tangent.

blorg

I'm not so glad myself. It is a fundamentally flawed design, effectively ruling out aluminium freehub bodies- but loads of people still making these and effectively saying "you can't run most normal cassettes on these" to get off the hook.