Small TCUs for free climbing protection

JJ Brunner wrote:Hey! I want some opinions on my last post!

This is where I got my info myoan.net/climbart/climbfor…
I do not know how far off it is. A lot of people don't seem to agree with it but I have not found any thing better. Any thoughts.

I can't find the source for the life of me, i think it's buried somewhere in this blog: web3.bdel.com/scene/beta/qc…, but most whips are about 2-4 kilonewtons, and if a proper belay is given they should always be on the lower end of that.

brownI wrote: This is where I got my info myoan.net/climbart/climbfor… I do not know how far off it is. A lot of people don't seem to agree with it but I have not found any thing better. Any thoughts.

That link definitely overestimates everything in comparison to what I've heard and seen. However, it is better to expect exaggerated high forces than expect a low force and create a high force...
If you're climbing something that you know has placements that will only have good placements with small, offset tcu's, bring them. In some situations any placement is better than no placement, but if something else works, go with the better option.
That's just my 2 cents, but be warned, I'm a relative noob. My opinions are compilations of stuff I've read and been told by more experienced climbers.

if i remember correctly duane raleigh did an article, maybe for climbing magazine, several years back. they used a load cell to measure forces during top-rope falls. again, if i remember correctly, the forces were somewhere around 1000 lbs (ie 4 to 5 kN). i can't remember how much the guys weighed, but they were probably average sized male climbers. using a simple rule of thumb that the lowest force the anchor would see is twice the sum of the 2 climbers (say they were 150 lb climbers, this would result in an anchor load of approximately 600 lbs), the 1000lb load seems reasonable for "unexpected" toprope falls.

hopefully this info is useful for defining a lower end boundary. maybe brenta will post, he usually has some good points to make.