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Stupid Half-x Broken Arm So Now Hoarding.. Spring/storage Question

Michael Idengren

Oakley Beginner
1
51
So, the dreaded half-x spring-to-pivot connection point broke.. this weird situation where the arm just 'falls off' one day with zero stress or truma to the glasses.

So, I bought two pairs of Oakley Half-X's off ebay (from authenticoakleyframes, maybe you guys know him). My question it this:

I believe the arms on these glasses are under static load all the time when idle. This design obviously shortens the life span of the glasses, and eventually starting with dynamic load (wearing daily) makes it worse. This is evidenced because removal of the arm reveals that the screw-hole has to be pulled out a couple millimeters to get the hole to line up for the arm to be attached ; this is indicative that when the screw is inserted, the arm assembly must be under a little bit of spring-load pressure ALL the time.

So, should I remove the arms for storage, so there is zero static load?
 
Let me preempt my post by noting that I do not own a pair of Half Xs (yet!), nor have I seen the failure. I am speaking from a point of understanding and experience of types of failures. I normally deal with much larger components (and stresses and forces).

Even if the arms are under continuous static load, I expect that the failure is in fatigue. If the failure was from the static load, it would likely fail upon first assembly. The stress caused by opening and closing the arms and/or putting them on and off would create a small crack which propagates until catastrophic failure. Some materials (aluminum being the most common) always have a finite fatigue life. So no matter how small the force, if it is applied and removed enough times, the item will always fail. For most of the components in the x metal line, I would expect that the number of cycles (at a typical applied force) required to cause failure is so large that if will never happen in our lifetime or the next.

If you have close up pictures of the failure it could help confirm if it is fatigue or not.

The other factor I can think of is temperature change. Temperature change could cause the materials to expand and contract, which could increase or reduce the amount of stress on the components causing loading cycles (yes, even if the temperature change caused the static load to decrease or disappear, this would be equivalent to the same increase).

Hope that helps.
 
That frame was a total miscarriage. Oakley offered a frame that was flawed, sold it for a premium price, then left us all hanging when they finally broke on us.
 

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