Couple of videos of the Eddy on different ropes

R

Ron

Location
Chattanooga
This is a follow-up post to:
"A comparison of the Eddy and the Grigri (video)"
http://www.treebuzz.com/forum/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=219419&an=0&page=0#219419


There are two short videos, one on Lava rope - a supple arborist rope, about 12mm in diameter, which is out of spec for the Eddy (9mm - 11mm) but the Eddy works really well on Lava.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G7ug7gqnHpk&feature=related

The next video is the Eddy on Sterling HTP 10mm rope - a smaller, stiffer rope with almost no stretch to it. It is a dream to climb on. It works great with an 8mm BeeLine split-tail for DdRT, but won't do a trad Blake's. Weeeeell that's not 100% true, I have done a trad on HTP, but it just seems to bend the fibers excessively, but of course so does a knot!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3RBDwyJo3_o

It took me a while to warm up to the Eddy, not sure why but it did. The Eddy does have some nice features - like the panic or overpull lock-out. To take up slack, you can push the cam up to pull the rope freely through the Eddy, and then pull the cam back down to lock it in place.

I like it; it has really grown on me.
 
Was the Eddy a better perfomance unit than the Grigi. Or not much differance?
I have not used either. I'm looking to purchase a belay\ascender soon. Do more SRT this season.
Tom D made mention of some climbers using a ushba basic. Haven't seen many report of use of this style unit?
 
Ron, good vids, I was wondering how the Eddy worked.

I'm assuming you know that IF you fall on HTP it will isolate almost all the shock to your body. I love HTP for access but I'm kinda leery of using it for DdRT.
 
Thanks Kevin!

Saw Dust,
Maybe. Performance is a difficult thing to pin down. To me, I see little if any difference in function either in the ascend or descend mode as far as effort/efficiency goes.

They both hold position quite effectively, but the Eddy holds better on 'hard' 9mm rope than the Grigri, although the Grigri just barely moves if at all when you're stopped on small rope. Then again, how often are you going to be on hard 9mm rope - never.

The Eddy has some features that the Grigri doesn't. One is the over-pull or panic lock-out. The first time that happened with me, as I mentioned in the video with the Lava rope, I thought that I could do without that feature, but it's proably not a bad thing to have on a descender.

A really good feature for an Eddy-like device is a manual lock-off like an I'D has and the newer, slightly smaller version, the Rig. There's just something comforting about pulling that handle down and 'locking off'. But that's (the Rig) yet another story. In fact, I went by On Rope just day before yesterday to buy a Rig and it's just so big.............and expensive - $150. I left without it for the second time.
 
[ QUOTE ]
Ron, good vids, I was wondering how the Eddy worked.

I'm assuming you know that IF you fall on HTP it will isolate almost all the shock to your body. I love HTP for access but I'm kinda leery of using it for DdRT.

[/ QUOTE ]
Thanks Blinky!

Do I ever know that - and I've got a video to prove it! The 'event' occurs right about the 8:55 mark, you can actually hear me groan:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHJmoZgzBF4

It's kinda hard to see what happened, but I started out about 96' up, rappeling on a micro rack backed up with a BeeLine autoblock (the true autoblock). If you watch carefully at about 8:55 mark, you'll notice my feet kick up a bit. I decided that since I was clear of limbs, I'd test the autoblock. I simply released the autoblock and it locked up instantly. Even with about 40' of HTP between me and the TIP, it snapped my back pretty good - and that's just from rappel speed, not fall speed. It was like stopping on a cable.

That kinda changed my mind about HTP for a while. It climbs wonderfully, but you don't want to fall or stop abruptly on it. So I stopped climbing on it for quite a while. Then a friend Joe (CC) asked me how the Cinch does on HTP so I did a climb on it to see and the ole flame rekindled. I like HTP - I just don't want to fall on it.

I'm not sure DRT would be any worse than SRT - no stretch multiplied by two (strands) is still no stretch.
tongue.gif
 
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