cracklover
Mar 25, 2010, 3:49 PM
Views: 12480
Registered: Nov 14, 2002
Posts: 10162
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benmoreite wrote: cracklover wrote: I just tried to replicate this yesterday. I found that when you pull on the brake strand of the rope in addition to pulling on the pull cord, with a full (115 lbs) of force on the rope, the device will invert completely. At that point you must either completely brake with the brake strand, or *release* the brake strand and release the pull cord, otherwise the climber will fall out of control. GO Indeed, when fully weighted, releasing the autoblock turns the whole setup into little more than a redirect, and you must break by pulling the rope in the opposite direction (i.e. up when setup in guide mode), which is incredibly difficult if you have set your anchor high (as is preferable for actually belaying) and you are using your body weight to unlock the device in the first place.
Actually, the interesting thing was that it didn't require me "fully weighting" the release to get this to happen. Basically, once the device started to partially release, a slight tug sideways or upwards on the brake strand caused it to open/release completely. In other words, I initiated the release with the cord, but then pulling on the brake strand of the rope released the block completely. At which point the only way to get the climber back in control was to either pull *harder* on the brake strand (counter-intuitive, as this is what opened the device so much in the first place), or simultaneously fully release both the brake strand of the rope and the pull cord.
GO
(edited to add a word for clarity)
(This post was edited by cracklover on Mar 25, 2010, 3:50 PM)
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