Originally Posted by
davidad
Too much tension will warp the rim, but not cause the spokes to pull through, if the rim is of reasonable quality.
Unless they are of poor quality undertensioned spokes will break due to fatigue.
Define "too much". I've pulled spokes through DT Swiss RR415 (no surprise there) and RR465 rims on my PowerTap wheel. I didn't want the NDS spoke tension too low, so to get a proper dish I had to bring the DS tension up to 140+ kgf. Any less than that and the NDS spoke tension just seemed WAY too low.
I wasn't really surprised when about three spokes pulled through the RR415 rim - that was an experiment I was trying to see if I could get the PT wheel weight down somewhat. The RR415 rim lasted about three months. But I was kind of annoyed when I noted cracks around the nipples on the replacement RR465 rim a few weeks ago. I got about 6 months on the RR465.
This time I rebuilt it with an RR585. And cut the DS spoke tension down to 100 kgf or so - per Psimet reco on another thread.