New chest ascender

[Simon Wilson]

I thought the TurboChest was OK at first but now I think it just isn't up caving use. The rollers have gradually become increasingly less free running and there is now a flat on the top roller which is so big that the body is starting to wear.

I'm sure you would trash a Turbochest in no time. They are beautifully engineered but can't take mud and grit.

I disagree. I utterly abuse my kit in wet, ochre, fines with suspended sharps, it gets used on really grotty ropes, dirty ropes and the thing gets the worst beating imaginable. Mine has not been maintained at all and has not missed a beat. The only problem I've had with a turbochest was it slipping. It turns out the whole thing was gummed up with hard clay from a previous trip. When I cleaned it, it worked fine. Never had the rollers not being rollery. I'm a 110kg gorilla and I also use a pantin.

Can I just ask, Mark Wright, are you a petzl shill? You seem to be bigging them up in a religious fashion.

https://youtu.be/iNfnbLKFLSk

Mr. Cornwall, from the way you describe your use of your Turbochest I would expect you to have flats on the rollers. Please take a look at the video and then give your Turbochest a close inspection. Are you certain there are no flats on the rollers and how many metres has it done?

 

[Simon Wilson]

http://youtu.be/iNfnbLKFLSk

I have met one other person using a Turbochest underground. I immediately looked at their rollers and they had flats on just like in the video.

 

[Disgusted from Cornwall.]

Wow!

 

[Alex]

I bought and tried one of the roller chest jammers this weekend. The actual prussicing itself is great but getting on and off the rope and passing re-belays with it does seem to be more difficult as the rope seems to get caught when taking it out and of course the mechanism itself I think is harder to use though that could just be I have not got used to it.

 

[droid]

Wow!

Quite.

As long as the 'rollers still roller' does it matter?

 

[MarkS]

As long as the 'rollers still roller' does it matter?

My thought exactly. There's a small amount of visible wear, but that could be said for any piece of used caving kit.

 

[andrewmcleod]

If a roller has a flat, then it is not rolling - maybe not all the time, but at least some of the time.

 

[Simon Wilson]

The problem is that flats develop, the biggest flat is favoured and gets bigger until the rope starts rubbing on the frame. As soon as that happened I stopped using the device because it was very easy to see that it was beyond this obvious retirement criterion.

I've written some lengthy posts about this back up the thread.

Here are some photos that show another aspect of the wear. There is a washer between the end of the roller and the frame which will be intended to reduce friction.

There is friction between the bearing surfaces of the washer, the roller and the frame and a recess has been worn in the frame.

I simple modification to the washer would reduce the fiction quite a lot.

 

[Andyj23UK]

HI -  i feel compelled to quote this to put some tonext to the service life of mr wilsons equipment :

I bought in at the start of January..............................

< the above is refering to his puchase of aa new ascender >

During the same period I have also worn out a Simple bottom bobbin. ......................

as i have not seen any critcism of the durability of petzl simple bobbins over the decades they have been in use .

its my opinion that simon is simply wearing his gear out at an " alarming rate " simply by virtye of the frequency and tempo of the trips he is doing - in challenging conditions with heavy loads

bottom line simon - man up and accept that the level of caving you are doing is going to eat kit

having said all of that - i stand in agreement with him over the durability of the new croll - the wear on the INOX insert cannot be checked without a micromieter - and tooth wear on the cam is not garunteed to mirror wear of the plate - so infered inspection of " the cam is still servicable - so i will assume the plate is " - is simply not acceptable - given that the plate failure can cut the rope mide pitch

lastly - we should keep each argument about each peice of kit seperate - as they are seperate issues - or in some cases - none issues

 

[droid]

In Simon's defence (yes, really), the bobbins are a known wear item and easily replaceable. Not sure you can say that about the Turbochest...

 

[Simon Wilson]

In Simon's defence (yes, really), the bobbins are a known wear item and easily replaceable. Not sure you can say that about the Turbochest...

I don't need defending. Andy misunderstood why I mentioned the bottom bobbin. I've been wearing bottom bobbins out for forty years, the design of them hasn't changed in all that time and I have no complaints with them. The reason I mentioned wearing out a bottom bobbin was simply to give a rough indication of the amount of use I gave the gear using a gauge that people would be familiar with. The Turbochest wore out with somewhere near the same amount of use as a bottom bobbin. I don't think the Turbochest is complete bobbins though. It wouldn't take much to modify it so that it could cope with cave conditions but Camp aren't interested.

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=bobbins