Petzl Duo Repair

[Getwet]

I have a Petzl Duo which has had a couple of years regular use. It has developed a loose connection where the lead enter/exits the battery pack, very annoying and now getting dangerous, mid pitch black outs until I waggle the wires a bit!!

There appears to be no easy way of getting to the connector to change the lead without destroying the battery pack.

Has anyone come across this before and found a solution???

 

[underground]

Think yourself lucky, I shelled out a fortune on an FX-ION for that particular 'feature'.....

 

[cucc Paul]

Nope destruction is inevitable. You can use a drill to drill out the plastic rivety/melted sploges that hold the circuitry bit at the bottom lose and then re  solder.

Alternatively cut the wire and get a new battery pack such as the ones used for flat packs and use a flat pack.

 

[Alan Brentnall]

Happened to me with my first Duo - I ended up swiping an old Petzl Zoom pack and buying a cage to put the AAs in. Still going strong - although I relented and bought a new Duo when I needed a new helmet and the brighter LEDs came on the market.

 

[mountaingoat]

It has developed a loose connection

Unfortunately this is the usual failure for a Duo. I have a less than 50% success rate fixing it. That means, in most cases I damage the Duo.

 

[workshopmonkey]

Same thing happened to my original Duo, I bought a new one which has weathered better. The new pack has stainless connectiones to the wiring which is a vast improvement and there's no sign of the blues coming back. I have managed to dismantle the old model, stripping out the connections, replacing the wires etc. It's very possible, the only bugger is getting the bulb holder etc back into the lamp body. It all goes in but patience was in short supply getting the on/off lever to engage properly. It's plastic cam that has to thread between two contacts for the halogen and two more for the secondary light source. Whilst in bits I put in the 5 halogen upgrade which apart from price was a good upgrade. getting back the nuts and bolts of the how to the wee plastic lugs which hold the connector plates etc just come away if you use a needle nose pair of pliers to gradually tease the black plastic up towards the neck of the batt box. Only other bugger was getting cable of correct gauge to fit, the points where the wire connects are self cutting V's and are very narrow. This means finding an external gauge sleeve leaves you with much thicker wires than the contacts can take. I cheated and stripped an old zoom which worked nicely and saved several packs of fags and foul wordage

 

[Getwet]

Thanks for the comments and advice, at least when I attacked the battery box with a drill I had the conviction that I was doing the right thing!

I managed to drill out the yellow plastic holding the connectors in place and successfully removed the connectors after cutting the wire where it entered the box

I then considered two quick fix options. Firstly simply extending the original cable with connectors and leaving the battery box at the rear of the helmet

Instead,I went for the option of just using the shorter original cable and mounting the battery pack inside the helmet above the head cradle, plenty of space, held in place with a couple of pieces of elastic. This will also make the helmet more streamlined with less annoyance of hitting the battery box on obstacles etc. However I suppose there is a theoretical chance of reduced helmet protection in a big fall, also the battery's are slightly harder to access.

Anyway, looks like the need to dip into the wallet has been successfully delayed

 

[francis]

Isn't the space above the cradle there for a reason? - to allow the helmet to deform when impacted by something without braining you?

Francis

 

[Cave_Troll]

umm yes it is.
some manufacturers insert blocks of polystirene in that gap.
you might get away with one of the small survival bags but keys, spare maillons and battery packs will all make a nice indentation in your skull when the helmet deforms.

 

[Getwet]

Isn't the main reason for wearing a helmet to protect against the minor scrapes and knocks ( and something to mount your torch onto!).

Any impact heavy enough to actually deform the helmet to such an extent is probably going to cause so many other injuries that its not worth worrying about anyway

 

[paul]

Isn't the main reason for wearing a helmet to protect against the minor scrapes and knocks ( and something to mount your torch onto!).

Any impact heavy enough to actually deform the helmet to such an extent is probably going to cause so many other injuries that its not worth worrying about anyway

A common misconception.

Paramedics treat a fall from as little as 2 metres as life threatening... mainly due to possible head injuries. It is entirely possible to have a life-threatening head injury prevented by wearing a decent helmet (with a suitable harness so it doesn't fall off at the first opportunity) yet suffer no other major injuries.

I was climbing in the Alps some years ago and there was some rockfall (quelle surprise!). A girl in my party had a rock clout her on the head which formed a whole about the size of a 50 pence piece in her fibreglass climbing helmet. She was fine - but obviously shocked (in the "surprised" sense not the medical sense). If she hadn't been wearing that helmet or had a hard object inside it she would have been very dead.

There are probably many climbers, cyclists, canoeists, motor cyclists, rally drivers, etc. etc. and cavers, who have been saved from life-threatening injury simply because they were wearing a decent helmet despite the amount if damage to the helmet.

 

[nickwilliams]

The purpose of the space is to permit deformation of the shell so as to absorb impact energy rather than transmit it to the wearer's head. More specifically, one of the tests on the helmets standard (EN 12492) is to drop a pointed weight onto the crown of the helmet. The point is permitted to penetrate the shell but must not enter the head cradle space.

It's true that a very severe impact may overwhelm the energy absorption capability of the helmet, but the range of possible impacts includes plenty of possibilities where the presence of a helmet as an energy absorber may make the difference between a severe head injury and just a bad case of neck ache. A rigging spanner or a karabiner dropped 50m might not cause a life threatening injury if the energy of its fall is absorbed by a helmet shell, but it could well cause a fractured skull if that energy is passed directly to the wearer's head by a hard object in the head cradle - shell space.

Every individual is free to make their own choices about what they think the most likely cause and effect of an accident will be, and therefore what are the appropriate measures to protect against it. Personally, I don't fill the gap in the top of my helmet with anything.

Nick.

 

[paul]

And it's worth having a look at the last posing and photos on http://ukcaving.com/board/index.php/topic,100.msg355.html#msg355.

I believe Johnny is still around to tell the tale!

 

[Getwet]

Some good advice I suspect!! thanks

I have decided to revert to option 1,i.e. extend the cable

 

[graham]

There are probably many climbers, cyclists, canoeists, motor cyclists, rally drivers, etc. etc. and cavers, who have been saved from life-threatening injury simply because they were wearing a decent helmet despite the amount if damage to the helmet.

Yup; if my head had looked anything like my motorcycle helmet did after a looooooooong slide down the road, I'd have been very unhappy instead of just pissed off over the condition of my bike.

 

[potholer]

If I hadn't been wearing a decent cycle helmet when I had a front-wheel lock-up when racing flat-out, ending up sitting completely unmarked 20+ft in front of the bike after an upside-down head-slide along the tarmac, I'd probably have ended up with more than a rather stiff neck and back for a couple of days.

 

[workshopmonkey]

keep lid undodified defo, also correctly adjusted. Unless you want a doozy of a scar, if only common sense had kicked in that day