retracting reels

First message therefore short presentation...
Firstly, I am a french old guy living in Alsace at the border between France and Germany. I am not an arborist but love to climb trees and what I like most is to learn climbing techniques, reason why I spend a lot of time on this forum. I have read thousands of your posts which really got me more and more addicted to knots, gears, ropes etc.. and I am very thankful to you for helping me acquire knowledge.
To get back to this topic, I am a bit confused about the units that Kevin is using in his spreadsheet. From what I understand the second column contains the mass of the different blockers that Kevin measured. If this is true and if the unit is gf, I think the numbers should be a hundred times bigger. Please help me understand.
 
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the units are in kilograms and then times 9.8 to get Newton or gravitational force. I think its right. the third row is the reading on the scale required to lift the ascender up the rope .then time 9.8 and then the last reading is the third row minus the second.
 
Thanks Kevin! I get it now. I got confused with gf instead of N in the 2nd column.
So the 1st and 3rd colums are in Kgf and the 2nd, 4th and 5th in Newton. Super!
This chart is of great help for the choice of the blocker. Some of them are clearly a no go...
 
Petzl Pantin with the 'catch' accessory.
I weighted mine and it is only 58 grams (0.57N)... at least as reported by the kitchen scale.. which I am not allowed to use for measuring anything else but food..
From Kevin's study it appears that the other foot ascenders (the Chinese one excluded) might be satisfactory also but only tests of a complete config would tell. The retracting reels are not very strong, therefore any minor variations of friction in the system might create hiccups.
I think that the Croll, Basic and equivalent ascenders/blockers might probably drag a bit too much for the retracting reel(s).
 
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First message therefore short presentation...
Firstly, I am a french old guy living in Alsace at the border between France and Germany. I am not an arborist but loves to climb trees and what I like most is to learn climbing technics reason why I spend a lot of time on this forum. I have read thousands of your posts which really got me more and more addicted to knots, gears, ropes etc.. and I am very thankful to you for helping me acquire knowledge.
To get back to this topic, I am a bit confused about the units that Kevin is using in his spreadsheet. From what I understand the second column contains the mass of the different blockers that Kevin measured. If this is true and if the unit is gf, I think the numbers should be a hundred times bigger. Please help me understand.
Welcome!
 
The retractable reel is an Almark, Kevin gave a link to it, that I cut the plastic case off and epoxy to an aluminum plate. There are small notches in the 1 3/4" i.d. tube to keep the top and bottom plates from rotating. A hole at the bottom for the string, and two more at the top for the attaching loop. My loop is a little longer because I hook it to a toggle, instead of a snap or small carabiner. The line is the kite harness line that Kevin also provided a link to earlier.

I used what I had, other things like plastic pipe, or copper pipe could be used.
 

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