Show us your home-brew Petzl Connect-Adjust (or other) setup

Ryan Lynchwrote:

Please keep in mind, I was responding specific to Slim's point about "just don't do anything sketchy", i.e., control all the variables.

McNeely is pretty much the exact example of my point... He wasn't even climbing, and believed he was in a safe situation -- which demonstrates that it's impossible to entirely control any situation, as was suggested we could do.

IIRC, the cause of Osman's death was a broken dynamic rope, which (IIRC) managed to get tangled in itself, in a terrifically unlikely way. It was nigh impossible to anticipate that risk specifically, because I can't think of a single other accident with that same failure mode... Which demonstrates, in contrast to the prior argument, that there are always "Unknown Unknowns" that we can know about, in advance.

Balin Miller was a slightly different example of a failure in the type of thinking Slim was advocating for... If Andy Kirkpatrick's analysis is to be believed, he simply made a mistake -- which demonstrates that it is simply not within the powers of human beings to operate fully according to safe procedure, every time.

And again -- individual judgement alone is insufficient to accurately assess risks, and control all the variables.

So in other words -- I'm not sure who you're arguing with, but it doesn't seem to be *me*.

I'm arguing with how little sense your post makes because of the incredible generality of the examples you chose to use. If Ammon's accident is the perfect example, then the drawn conclusion specific to the topic we are discussing can only be to use whatever you want because completely freak accidents will occur and kill you so there's no sense in trying to assure safety margins of any kind. 

I read Slim's post and it made sense. He was saying control the variables that are known and acknowledged around the risk of using a non-dynamic tether. Your counter to him comes across as "but you have no idea ALL the things that can possibly happen" which to an extent is true, but it doesn't provide any relevant actionable conclusion about whether or not any real risk is being introduced. 

And I would counter your whole assertion that Ammon is your perfect example by stating that he took MANY falls on static tethers over the course of his big wall career, and it wasn't falling while climbing above an anchor onto a static tether that killed him. If anything, that's likely the best real-world evidence relevant to modifying a Connect Adjust that has been brought up. 

Maybe it's my half-person/half-sheep DNA that doesn't allow your point to make sense? 

NateCwrote:

Still not sure who you're arguing with.

Maybe it's my half-person/half-sheep DNA that doesn't allow your point to make sense?

I couldn't say... You'd have to speak to your mom to address any lingering questions about family heritage.

All this talk of controlling variables when no one here has any idea what forces are involved in these falls or the behaviour of their specific ropes and biner in their adjusts. I've played around with lots of different ropes and seen pull testing of various cords. Sometimes the rope shoots off to the side of the adjust, sometimes it slips, and in weak sheaths like the rap line the sheath explodes.

Let's all remember that we are all working under assumptions, that there will be some kind of shock absorption from the human body, and that there will be some degree of slippage from the adjust. Any assertions of assessing risk is nonsense, we can rationalize and justify our choices but no one here actually knows how their adjusts will perform in bad falls let alone weird edge cases. We can look at examples of people taking daisy falls and from that say reasonably confidently, that our pelvis's won't shatter and static cords won't suddenly cause the world to explode, but beyond that, it's all guess work. 

So, let's not kid our selves with talk about assessing risk and use the forum for what it's best used for, discussing ideas. I'll get us back on track. 

I use pur line with an edelrid slider. It just about holds my body weight so in the event of a fall, it should slip and dissipate the force of the fall, I've found grippy ropes and skinny cords seem to reach a peak force then shoot out the side at which point you have no more friction than the cord running over a biner, which in a fall would send you straight to your stopper knot, scary thought. The rap line example that I posted earlier while the sheath is supposed to break in a fall, it did make me think I'd really rather have the most robust sheath possible on my PAS especially as we don't really know how severely the cord is being pinched in the adjust, this steered me away from half's as they tend to have pretty thin sheaths and towards the rather robust all dyneema pur line. 

that guy named sebwrote:

All this talk of controlling variables when no one here has any idea what forces are involved in these falls or the behaviour of their specific ropes and biner in their adjusts. I've played around with lots of different ropes and seen pull testing of various cords. Sometimes the rope shoots off to the side of the adjust, sometimes it slips, and in weak sheaths like the rap line the sheath explodes.

Let's all remember that we are all working under assumptions, that there will be some kind of shock absorption from the human body, and that there will be some degree of slippage from the adjust. Any assertions of assessing risk is nonsense, we can rationalize and justify our choices but no one here actually knows how their adjusts will perform in bad falls let alone weird edge cases. We can look at examples of people taking daisy falls and from that say reasonably confidently, that our pelvis's won't shatter and static cords won't suddenly cause the world to explode, but beyond that, it's all guess work. 

So, let's not kid our selves with talk about assessing risk and use the forum for what it's best used for, discussing ideas. I'll get us back on track. 

I use pur line with an edelrid slider. It just about holds my body weight so in the event of a fall, it should slip and dissipate the force of the fall, I've found grippy ropes and skinny cords seem to reach a peak force then shoot out the side at which point you have no more friction than the cord running over a biner, which in a fall would send you straight to your stopper knot, scary thought. The rap line example that I posted earlier while the sheath is supposed to break in a fall, it did make me think I'd really rather have the most robust sheath possible on my PAS especially as we don't really know how severely the cord is being pinched in the adjust, this steered me away from half's as they tend to have pretty thin sheaths and towards the rather robust all dyneema pur line. 

Are you using the pur line with the new or old adjust? I haven't been able to make the pur line work with the new adjust. Maybe I need to play with more biners.

Erik Jwrote:

Are you using the pur line with the new or old adjust? I haven't been able to make the pur line work with the new adjust. Maybe I need to play with more biners.

I’ve never been drawn to the PUR for this use because it’s so slippery, but obviously many people make it work. In any event, it is indeed finding the right biner that tends to make the difference. CAMP Photons are quite narrow and thus provide a lot of bite. It would be a good place to start. 

An issue with the photon is the gate is incredibly weak. Granted, nothing should be pulling/pressing on the gate of your adjust biner, but I had the weak gate issue on Dyons and so I ditched them for the new bent gate Spirit, still fairly light but also nice and strong. 

for those newer and/or into aiding, if you are jugging a pitch with the Dyon or Photon as your ladder biner and, upon arriving at the anchor you remove the ladder from ascender and clip to anchor (with evolv biners attached to ladder biner for efficiency), then snug up your evolv biner and now your evolv biner is pulling against the gate of the ladder biner, you can/will slip the gate of ladder biner past the nose, on both the Photon and Dyon. Yes, we're talking about the adjust biner in this thread. Nonetheless, when I figured this out (belatedly), I immediately switched *both* my ladder biners and evolv biners out for those new Spirits. 

IMO, I don't need a locker for this (yes, im gonna die) but I really don't want to be concerned about slipping a gate on these, that's silly for just a few grams. The nose of the Dyon is slightly superior to the Spirit and the bite is marginally better on 7mm cord, but the Spirit locks up just fine w/ the evolv and 7mm cord, and has an overall slightly smaller profile for hooking it into pitons and other small openings.

Erik Jwrote:

Are you using the pur line with the new or old adjust? I haven't been able to make the pur line work with the new adjust. Maybe I need to play with more biners.

It's the old adjust, with a first gen pure slider, I used to run a kiwi slider with a 6.9mm half rope but it didn't grab the pure line. It has a very thin cross section but clamping force seemed similar to the SmD when I compared the two. 

For anyone curious about my knock off amazon connect adjust that i posted about….

I paid a visit to Metolius and they were kind enough to pull test it for me. 1st pull broke an aluminum locker at 24kn. Pulled a second time with steel lockers and broke at a whopping 29kn! Obviously use at your own risk. 

Break video link

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GH7TZS5Y?ref_=ppx_hzod_image_mob_b_fed_asin_title_0_0

Max Rwrote:

For anyone curious about my knock off amazon connect adjust that i posted about….

I paid a visit to Metolius and they were kind enough to pull test it for me. 1st pull broke an aluminum locker at 24kn. Pulled a second time with steel lockers and broke at a whopping 29kn! 

Ha! Wild. Thanks for posting. 

I've been using the new gen rap line in a 1st gen connect adjust for around a year and it's been great. I'll be replacing it soon despite regularly swapping ends and re-tying to avoid the hot spots that are known issues with aramids. I'm interested in the failure experienced by Seb's friend in the other post, since that is exactly part of why I am using it. I chose the rap line in part because of the dynamic reserve aspect, where the force is dissipated by the sheath separating from the core rather than by being intrinsically dynamic through the entire load cycle. By my logic, this offers a similar degree of force reduction on the climber as using a twin rope, while maintaining the benefits of a small diameter cord. It does mean that it has to be retired after a catastrophic fall, but I take every measure to not fall on my personal, and I am not using it as a daisy.

Interested in anyone's thoughts or critiques on this.

Noah Lwrote:

I've been using the new gen rap line in a 1st gen connect adjust for around a year and it's been great. I'll be replacing it soon despite regularly swapping ends and re-tying to avoid the hot spots that are known issues with aramids. I'm interested in the failure experienced by Seb's friend in the other post, since that is exactly part of why I am using it. I chose the rap line in part because of the dynamic reserve aspect, where the force is dissipated by the sheath separating from the core rather than by being intrinsically dynamic through the entire load cycle. By my logic, this offers a similar degree of force reduction on the climber as using a twin rope, while maintaining the benefits of a small diameter cord. It does mean that it has to be retired after a catastrophic fall, but I take every measure to not fall on my personal, and I am not using it as a daisy.

Interested in anyone's thoughts or critiques on this.

I’m very curious about this as it makes sense to me to have a static system that would catch dynamically if needed. Is there a 7 or 8 mil cord with dynamic reserve? I like the warm fuzzy feeling a thicker cord gives.

Noah Lwrote:

I've been using the new gen rap line in a 1st gen connect adjust for around a year and it's been great. I'll be replacing it soon despite regularly swapping ends and re-tying to avoid the hot spots that are known issues with aramids. I'm interested in the failure experienced by Seb's friend in the other post, since that is exactly part of why I am using it. I chose the rap line in part because of the dynamic reserve aspect, where the force is dissipated by the sheath separating from the core rather than by being intrinsically dynamic through the entire load cycle. By my logic, this offers a similar degree of force reduction on the climber as using a twin rope, while maintaining the benefits of a small diameter cord. It does mean that it has to be retired after a catastrophic fall, but I take every measure to not fall on my personal, and I am not using it as a daisy.

Interested in anyone's thoughts or critiques on this.

I’ve been doing this exact set up for ~ 3 years without issue! I’m not too stressed about fatiguing the aramid fibers, since it’s just the sheath and still has 10 full strength core strands.

I don’t know of a similar cord / rope at larger diameter… 

About to get a rope/cord for my (new to me) Connect Adjust metal piece. Should I go with 8.5 mm Opera Unicore or 7mm Armadillo cord? . Not sure how well it would work with the Armadillo.

I want it to not take to much space on the harness but also not slip.

T Duffywrote:

About to get a rope/cord for my (new to me) Connect Adjust metal piece. Should I go with 8.5 mm Opera Unicore or 7mm Armadillo cord? . Not sure how well it would work with the Armadillo.

I want it to not take to much space on the harness but also not slip.

I don’t have a direct answer, but one thing to consider, one is dynamic and one is static, and that may be a personal thing to worry about. If you read back through the previous responses people are split on what they each personally think is the best way to go.

Not to hijack thread, but if anyone wants a connector I have one I’m getting rid of. Not too much wear at all, mostly left in pack as too much faff. It’s the dual with a tether option you have to tie in to. I want one of the new girth hitch ones. Make me an offer and cover shipping and it’s yours.
Edit- text preferred, at four one 3 3 two nine 29 two 7

How are you guys getting skinny ropes to not slip? I bought 8.2 edelrid Starling rope after Avant Gear recommendation and it’s slipping way too much to be reliable. I did use an OG Petzl spirit non locker because I somehow forgot my regular Sm’d but i don’t know what else I would need to get better grip. 

Jon, make sure you have the rope running through in the correct direction, as it will only work in the proper orientation.

Not sure if thats your problem but thats the issue I had when originally setting up mine as i had gotten just metal piece from a friend and had never used one prior!

Jon Rhoderickwrote:

How are you guys getting skinny ropes to not slip? I bought 8.2 edelrid Starling rope after Avant Gear recommendation and it’s slipping way too much to be reliable. I did use an OG Petzl spirit non locker because I somehow forgot my regular Sm’d but i don’t know what else I would need to get better grip. 

I have had the same trouble with 3 sets of units, purchased in Japan. There are different dimensions for different units over the production history. Some will lock off on 5.5mm. Others will slip on supple 9mm! 

If you thread it wrong, there is no friction at all. If it is just creeping and slipping, it is due to the dimensions of the Connect Adjust. 

John Shultzwrote:

I have had the same trouble with 3 sets of units, purchased in Japan. There are different dimensions for different units over the production history. Some will lock off on 5.5mm. Others will slip on supple 9mm! 

If you thread it wrong, there is no friction at all. If it is just creeping and slipping, it is due to the dimensions of the Connect Adjust. 

Perhaps knockoffs?

John Shultzwrote:

I have had the same trouble with 3 sets of units, purchased in Japan. There are different dimensions for different units over the production history. Some will lock off on 5.5mm. Others will slip on supple 9mm! 

If you thread it wrong, there is no friction at all. If it is just creeping and slipping, it is due to the dimensions of the Connect Adjust. 

I'm with the above poster that says you likely threaded wrong. You can thread it 3 ways wrong.