The Akimbo 2

snunyabizness said:
cut a small piece of worn big shot tubing, perfect diameter.
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Tried DMM Grommet (Wallace?) (After checking - thanks DSMc- this first iteration was a Prestin) and rubber tubing I had around. The AK2 hole is just too large and it eventually wiggles down when tending (at least without a lot of tail in the rope as above).
I'd going to try cutting a piece of thick rubber and fashion a gasket or washer style of thingy - that with the DMM biner "horn" might stop the wiggling on the AK2 and act as a retainer for MRS ascent. For descent the biner rig seems fine.
Of note I also did find a slight difference in performance between two KM III 11's that I have - the old washed multiple times one worked fine - the new one did slip a lot more and I had to clamp down the friction settings. New one probably still has mfg's coating on it if any maybe?
Have fun playin' around with this new shiny thingy.

Addenda: What you have up top as friction (as noted above) seems to make a big difference in the settings/ friction on the AK2. The note above about the difference between the two KM III's isn't quite scientific (blush) because the friction in trial 1 (way up the thread) was in fact on the center hole of a DMM rigging hub. Trial number 2 (just above here) was with rope over a pipe about the diameter of a 1 1/2" PVC plumbing drain line. Again, the top in MRS (pulley, leather friction saver etc.) may make a big difference, not just the rope, settings and climber weight, etc. I am reminded of an old prof in the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine who was adamant about - "In good science, you document and measure all the possible variables" - or some such.

Addenda II: I keep having the change the spelling of "biner" back from "liner"- apparently spool cheque likes liner better - from here on in you know what I mean . . . .

Addenda III: Another iteration using an ISC wide top HMS biner I had kickin around and two DMM spacers. Lose the wire eye capture but this kinda works . . .

Trial Number II - again works - sorta . . . .

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I have the hard DMM grommet in my original RE Akimbo. It works perfectly in retaining carabiner position. The opening on the Akimbo 2 is larger so the bushing fits too loose. I know I can find something that would fit perfectly but in the meantime I just glued in a DMM bushing with Shoe Goo. It has been working great and will be easy to remove if needed at a later date.
 
I guess I went down the easily removable route to be able to take the AK2 off the biner easily and fiddle settings (that and my wife won't let me buy more than one . . . and of course she's right). I did find the DMM grommets to stick real tight on some of my gear, maybe after months. I won't be keeping MRS all the time. But love the shoe goo idea.
It is kinda funny - make one change (to the hole size for additional tending point) and cause other things to change (floppyness) down the road.
 
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So at conclusion of today's experimentation I offer the following - taking up on DSMc's recommendation of the DMM Grommet, I tried four different HMS type locking biners for the AK2 in MRS. The first was the DMM Ceros "horned" biner with wire keeper (which I liked) but it was a bear to get in and out of the Grommet (still unglued into the AK2) if you wanted to change friction settings up in the air (likely with me). Second easiest to remove was the ISC HMS which was pretty flat topped but still gave a struggle. Next was a silver NFPA HMS biner which went in yet easier but the shape kind of skewed the AK2 and spliced leg into a bit of an angle (i.e. not parallel to each other). Lastly was an old Petzl HMS design which had a thinner top than the DMM Ceros making for easiest removal and install and it had a flatter top giving parallel rope to AK2 in MRS config (pictures below). While it still didn't have a wire keeper at the bottom with rubber tubing on the long side, there really wasn't as much flopping around of the AK2 anymore when tending or pulling on the leg above the AK2. All the scenarios tried still used a DMM Rigging Pulley Spacer between the AK2 and the splliced end of the MRS system. It seemed to work quite OK'ly. Thanks for the tip about the DMM Grommet - had forgotten about these in the sands of time somewhere.
I didn't find a Rock Exotica Pirate Wire-Eye to try out
Cheers all

Trial III - Seems to work but is still kinda "inelegant"?

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Two rope legs come out pretty well parallel with this flatter topped Petzl biner (this ensures that rope doesn't ride the AK2's side plates more than normal when loaded):

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Nice write up and pictures! There could be some confusion on which DMM grommet configuration to use. The Wallis is their split bushing while the solid stiff grommet that I used and you did also, is just called a grommet.
 
What did you do for MRS on the first generation... attachment was pretty similar, right?

Thanks for the writeups @DSMc and @ghostice

One might could be in my near future. I like my Unicender and still want v 2 of that...but if that's not gonna come, maybe I need to look at other upgrades.

Akimbo 2 seems better than Buckingham thing. Smaller than the Blackbird.
 
DSMc said:
Nice write up and pictures! There could be some confusion on which DMM grommet configuration to use. The Wallis is their split bushing while the solid stiff grommet that I used and you did also, is just called a grommet.
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I did find it confusing but "DMM Prest-in Wallis Grommet" was what was on the packging. Was trying to be careful :-) . It's the doughnut one! The Grommet on the DMM website. Other thing is this Grommet is more like hard-ish rubber but still rubber. It fits in the AK2 snugly but still will just rotate. Cheers and thanks

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Beat me to the experimentation! I didn’t have the DMM grommet but I did have the grommet inserts from my Gyro 3, however they’re slightly undersized so I used one of the rubber locks from a DMM wire gate tool carrier to keep it from sliding down the spine. I’ll give it an official run tomorrow but it’s pretty slick.
 

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Petzl has those clear molded covers for their rope splices that hold biner orientation in the rope eye in eg their zillon lanyard. When the rope wears out keep the covers for repurposing.

I've retyped a lot of finer to biner ;)

"I won't be keeping MRS all the time." I'd be careful about this plan - she married you!
 
Acerxharlowii said:
Has anyone used it on a 11.1mm rope yet? Like km3 max?
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See post #4 above. I used it on KM III (not Max which I think has a smoother cover) old rope and also later now, a new one - the new was more slippy but still worked OK. It's unbelievable with a CRIC! Cheers

BTW Wesspur has a good AK2 video and there's now Perry Trees too.

Perry Trees video makes comment that the RE's stated min rope diameter for the AK2 is 11.5 mm though - something to consider if you're using it in somewhere that's subject to H&S regulation/ worksite policy.
 
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ghostice said:
See post #4 above. I used it on KM III (not Max which I think has a smoother cover) old rope and also later now, a new one - the new was more slippy but still worked OK. It's unbelievable with a CRIC! Cheers

BTW Wesspur has a good AK2 video and there's now Perry Trees too.

Perry Trees video makes comment that the RE's stated min rope diameter for the AK2 is 11.5 mm though - something to consider if you're using it in somewhere that's subject to H&S regulation/ worksite policy.
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Yeah I e watched all of those, Perry trees actually mentioned it ran good in 11 mm but the manual states 11.5 min. I love my km3max and akimbo1 runs great on it. Bummer
 
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Only rope I’ve ran so far that I personally didn’t like it with is the Marlow Maverick, the rope runs hot for whatever reason even flaking it fast into the bag the rope gets hot in the hand. It tends to creep on me if I run it and if I bump the friction up it’s too stiff but that’s just my experience. Drenaline flows really well, cousin Black widow works well, tachyon I have no complaints with, I haven’t ran it on the 11.5 blue 32 yet but will report back, I’ve heard it’s workable with kalimba as well.
 
Not a fan of 11.5 blue32 for SRS with this device, had to bump to almost max settings and it was either full speed or nothing. Ran beautiful MRS though.
 
I have had some time now to use the Akimbo 2 in the MRS configuration and it does indeed work just fine, as I expected. However, doing so has also reminded me of why I no longer use MRS as my primary system. For me and my climbing style, there is just no comparison to the efficiency and simplicity of an SRS system, which the Akimbo 2 excells at.
 
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