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Edelrid MegaJul Belay Device

Ray Pinpillage · · West Egg · Joined Jul 2010 · Points: 180
rgold wrote: Personally, I wouldn't be in a rush to embrace the MegaJul. As a counterpoint to the raves here, I know a handful of people who have tried them and don't like them. Its performance appears to depend a great deal on rope diameter and the carabiner that is used, so it is a bit hard to know what you are actually getting. It is known to be hard on carabiners, and the earlier models had quality-control problems (these may now have been fixed however). The primary advantages seem to be light weight, small size, and modest price.
Completely agree. The more I use the MegaJul the less I like it. I like the Alpine Smart the most but it has limitations too. In high stress environments I still think the ATC and Reverso are the best. Also, if a climber can't effectively use a tube style device they have no business using any of the "assisted" devices.
Brian · · North Kingstown, RI · Joined Sep 2001 · Points: 804

On climbing forums people commonly post recommendations on gear they have never used and post routes they have never climbed. The point is don't take anything you read on a climbing forum as fact. Test the gear yourself and decide if it fits your own situation. There are lots of self-proclaimed expert engineers and people with 100 years of climbing experience on here that will give you untested opinion which may or may not be relevant for your unique situation.

rgold · · Poughkeepsie, NY · Joined Feb 2008 · Points: 526
Brian wrote: There are lots of self-proclaimed expert engineers and people with 100 years of climbing experience on here that will give you untested opinion which may or may not be relevant for your unique situation.
True enough. Note that I have been very careful to self-proclaim myself a non-expert engineer, in fact not an engineer at all. Jim, on the other hand, is a real engineer who makes climbing equipment and who owns and has tested the MegaJul.

As for the value or lack of value of a combined 100 years of climbing experience, I'd agree it doesn't mean much; the only point was that Jim and I aren't armchair climbers.

Finally, one should add to your comment that there are lots of people who own and use gear and haven't come even close to putting it through the kind of testing that would justify a recommendation one way or the other and who may not, for a host of reasons, be aware of some of the gear's drawbacks (for example, the sensitivity of the MegaJul's performance to the carabiner used).

So at the end of the day, you can either ignore it all and go for the Gear of the Year or try to make some judgements based on the coherence of what folks are actually saying. In my case, I wasn't trying to say not to use the MegaJul, only that opinions about it are not uniformly positive and so it is not necessarily the best thing for RichieRich's purposes.

Getting back to trying to be helpful, I mentioned the sensitivity to carabiner type. You'll probably want to use a carabiner with some kind of auxilliary gate that prevents the carabiner from rotating. The reason: the Mega Jul may not function properly if the narrow end of a pear-shaped biner becomes the rope-bearing surface. Another issue is rappelling. No one seems to like it much as a locking device for rappelling, and in fact Edelrid recommends you turn it around and not use the locking feature, cautioning that if you do the rope and carabiner combinations are critical and must be tested in a safe environment first.
Ray Pinpillage · · West Egg · Joined Jul 2010 · Points: 180
rgold wrote:Another issue is rappelling. No one seems to like it much as a locking device for rappelling, and in fact Edelrid recommends you turn it around and not use the locking feature, cautioning that if you do the rope and carabiner combinations are critical and must be tested in a safe environment first.
I had nothing but problems rapelling with the MegaJul turned around. I have seen it recommended a bunch of times but I did not like it at all. The issue of rapelling is the single reason I gave up on the device. Total pain in the ass; throw in some stress and exhaustion and it only gets worse.

Here's another issue I haven't see mentioned. The plastic thumb loop grip is held in place by the friction over the cable sheath. Mine has slid back and no longer levers the cast metal body of the device. The thumb loop is now basically just the cable.
DrApnea · · Wenatchee, WA · Joined May 2011 · Points: 265

Background: My wife bought me one for my birthday. I was following the old thread where the wire kept pulling out, but was hesitant to get one because of this. It appears quality control in the early batches has been corrected now.

For the first few days climbing with it I carried by trusty Reverso 4 because I didn't trust the new device yet. Multiple days of cragging and multipitch has made me a believer. The device catches falls nearly on its own. In guide mode with my 9.5 or 9.4 it works great. If someone is hang dogging, it locks up and stays right there. The climber doesn't slowly creep down because you moved your hand an inch. On twin ropes (~8.2 I think) it was effortless to belay in regular and guide mode, but still locked up nicely. Flipping it around (non locking mode) works great for faster raps (feels like a normal ATC), but if you are untangling rope that didn't get tossed perfectly, the locking mode is really nice (although a bit jerky for rappel) because you can be a bit more hands free to deal with a cluster (probably should still back up though). It top ropes fine, and lead belay is awesome. Additionally since it is made of steel rather than aluminum it doesn't heat up as much and should last longer than most other devices.

I didn't pay for it but would gladly buy another.
Also people keep comparing it to a GriGri. It is nothing like a GriGri. It is cheaper, allows you to rappel on it, weighs less, and has no moving parts to get stuck. Teach your girlfriend to belay with an ATC and you will be happier in the long run, but this will be a nice assist device to help her catch your whippers. IMO

coppolillo · · Unknown Hometown · Joined Sep 2009 · Points: 70

couple quick points...at a rock gym here in boulder, every single (as of a couple years back) groundfall they'd had, had been with a GriGri...just fyi.

the wire issue has indeed been fixed on the megajul.

flip the unit around when rappelling (thumb loop/wire facing you, instead of away, as when lead-belaying) and it rappels just fine. i've used everything from 8.7 single to 10.0....

as for using skinnier ropes when belaying a second to avoid "belayer's elbow," be extremely careful when using skinnier cords. under the right (wrong) circumstances, the rope can flip (meaning the climber's strand ends up on the bottom, not the top) and then things get interesting quick. now--a GiGi or even ATC/Reverso can do the same thing, so it's not a design flaw, but rather an issue one should be aware of when belaying a single follower.

more on this, including video and input from an IFMGA guide here:

elevationoutdoors.com/blogs…

and lastly, i'd agree with the poster regarding more time spent coaching/practicing, too. technique is key; the megajul a nice backup in things go sideways, for whatever reason.

i personally like the megajul, my only gripe being autoblocking/belaying a single follower issue (see above link)......

good luck!

rgold · · Poughkeepsie, NY · Joined Feb 2008 · Points: 526
Jim Titt wrote: The initial self-locking (for want of a better word) disguises an essentially weak belay device and it´s a geometrical feature of these designs that the more vigorous the self locking the weaker the plate must be...It looks like as you increase the hand force the effect is greater but I´ve got some more testing to do on that and also where the break-point is between the initial power advantage and the drop-off in power. Quite where the Alpine Up is going to fit in is hard to say as there is a subtle trick that might do the job, as I haven´t got one I can´t say.
It would be my luck to be an Alpine Up user. I'm just about ready to buy you one for testing. Please keep us, or if the "armchair engineer" static gets too great, at least me, updated on these very interesting and rather worrying results.
Jim Titt · · Germany · Joined Nov 2009 · Points: 490
rgold wrote: It would be my luck to be an Alpine Up user. I'm just about ready to buy you one for testing. Please keep us, or if the "armchair engineer" static gets to great, at least me, updated on these very interesting and rather worrying results.
I´ll see if I can get one from the CT guys at the trade show next month, it might be in their interests!
It´s interesting really, none of the manufacturers actually claim the devices are more powerful than anything else (apart from the usual vague `massive braking power´ and such like) but everyone has assumed they are and that the locking assistance carries on increasing up through the loads.
Because the journos,gear testers and most climbers are reporting on their eperiences holding falls down the local gym or sport crag so low-factor and high friction they are working in a region where the assistance is greatest, if the esteemable and hard working members of the press would actually man up and take the 20m factor 1.9´s we might hear different stories.
Brian · · North Kingstown, RI · Joined Sep 2001 · Points: 804
Ray Pinpillage wrote: I had nothing but problems rapelling with the MegaJul turned around. I have seen it recommended a bunch of times but I did not like it at all. The issue of rapelling is the single reason I gave up on the device. Total pain in the ass; throw in some stress and exhaustion and it only gets worse...
Here is another reason to test using it yourself. I have no problems whatsoever using it to rappel turned around in "regular tuber" mode. I've used in in free-hanging rappels and on slabs. It works great for me. BTW, I've been climbing for 30 years and started with a Sticht plate so I've had experience with belay devices. (But that by no means makes me an expert. Just another opinion.)
rgold · · Poughkeepsie, NY · Joined Feb 2008 · Points: 526
Jim Titt wrote: ...it´s a geometrical feature of these designs that the more vigorous the self locking the weaker the plate must be...
This is, to me, a fascinating statement I'd really like to understand. Are you making an observation based on your data here, or do you have a mathematics/physics argument for why the geometry of these devices has to give rise to decreased high-end performance? If the latter, I'm especially interested in how that works.
Jim Titt · · Germany · Joined Nov 2009 · Points: 490

Well I prised myself out of my armchair a few years ago and built maybe 50 different prototypes of this kind of plate, in the end we made an adjustable jig so we could move the two rope contact points about and vary the wedging ange of the karabiner. I never got better results than a conventional plate so we shelved the idea when I ran off the development budget.
The problem here is it´s a very fine balance how far onto the bottom contact point the karabiner goes as naturally the rope tries to force it back and the only force available is from the position of the top contact point and the angle of the wedging face. Basically the karabiner has to end up half-way on top of the lower entry radius and so compared with a conventional plate or tube type device the karabiner has to be much further into the device so the rope bends around the karabiner and the plate entry exit are considerably smaller. Since most of the braking power comes from the bends the power is lost.
For an ATC XP the entry angle is around 90°, the karabiner wrap 140° and the exit angle 45°, for the MegaJul the numbers are approximately 30°, 100° and 20°and with a thinner rope and under full tension probably lower still, I shall have to measure this more exactly sometime.
Camp tried to increase the pressure between the karabiner and the bottom pin by adding a Vee slot to the upper exit when they made the YoYo but whether it worked I´ve no idea!
The Alpine Up has a little nose that drives under the karabiner which is a good idea EXCEPT it makes releasing under tension even harder, a handling balancing act all this type have anyway, ten years ago nobody would have accepted a belay device where you need to use a karabiner to lever it open to lower or abseil and many of us still don´t feel this is progress.
It´s the sheer depth of things like the ATC XP which makes them work so well and why tube type devices are so good, the Reverso³ ought to be better looking at the slot design but shaving the height makes it actually a worse performer.

Brian · · North Kingstown, RI · Joined Sep 2001 · Points: 804

This is exactly the theoretical mathematical bullshit I'm talking about. Go out to your local sport crag where your partner is going to fall a lot and actually use a MegaJul. It will autolock and catch your falling leader every time. I've actually used the device for a couple of months now and that is my real life experience with the device. I don't know the exit or entry angle. I don't really care. It caught the leader every time on some pretty big whippers. That is what you should care about. Is it fool-proof? No. No device is but if your belayer is inattentive or gets hit in the head with a rock it is a nice to have an auto-locking/assisted-locking device instead of the rope screaming uncontrolled through the ATC.

Jim Titt wrote:Well I prised myself out of my armchair a few years ago and built maybe 50 different prototypes of this kind of plate, in the end we made an adjustable jig so we could move the two rope contact points about and vary the wedging ange of the karabiner. I never got better results than a conventional plate so we shelved the idea when I ran off the development budget. The problem here is it´s a very fine balance how far onto the bottom contact point the karabiner goes as naturally the rope tries to force it back and the only force available is from the position of the top contact point and the angle of the wedging face. Basically the karabiner has to end up half-way on top of the lower entry radius and so compared with a conventional plate or tube type device the karabiner has to be much further into the device so the rope bends around the karabiner and the plate entry exit are considerably smaller. Since most of the braking power comes from the bends the power is lost. For an ATC XP the entry angle is around 90°, the karabiner wrap 140° and the exit angle 45°, for the MegaJul the numbers are approximately 30°, 100° and 20°and with a thinner rope and under full tension probably lower still, I shall have to measure this more exactly sometime. Camp tried to increase the pressure between the karabiner and the bottom pin by adding a Vee slot to the upper exit when they made the YoYo but whether it worked I´ve no idea! The Alpine Up has a little nose that drives under the karabiner which is a good idea EXCEPT it makes releasing under tension even harder, a handling balancing act all this type have anyway, ten years ago nobody would have accepted a belay device where you need to use a karabiner to lever it open to lower or abseil and many of us still don´t feel this is progress. It´s the sheer depth of things like the ATC XP which makes them work so well and why tube type devices are so good, the Reverso³ ought to be better looking at the slot design but shaving the height makes it actually a worse performer.
reboot · · . · Joined Jul 2006 · Points: 125

I want to see an old man cage fight to settle this...

Brian wrote:Go out to your local sport crag where your partner is going to fall a lot and actually use a MegaJul.
At my local sport crags, you'd be laughed out for bringing a Mega Jul. But at my local sport crags (and probably yours), you are also not going to see beyond factor 1 falls, so there is that.
Brian · · North Kingstown, RI · Joined Sep 2001 · Points: 804
reboot wrote:I want to see an old man cage fight to settle this... At my local sport crags, you'd be laughed out for bringing a Mega Jul. But at my local sport crags (and probably yours), you are also not going to see beyond factor 1 falls, so there is that.
So are you saying that an ATC is going to hold a factor 2 fall any better than a MegaJul? Especially without gloves on the belayer? Have you actually used a MegaJul or are you theorizing too?
RyanO · · sunshine · Joined Jun 2009 · Points: 145

I didn't read this whole thread, but just in case the OP didn't see this, there is some useful information, cheers!!

elena_review

Greg D · · Here · Joined Apr 2006 · Points: 883

Jim,

I'm wondering if you have data that can correlate effectiveness of the "locking assist" vs fall factors. And how does this data compare to ATC Guide and Reverso 3? I think this may be valuable. Yes, high fall factor falls do happen. But, how does this device perform for climbers that understand and are able to practically eliminate high fall factors. Also, any device that slips, negates the theoretic fall factor 2. Perhaps this slippage leads to a 1.9 or 1.8 or lower. I can't say for sure, which is still a very high fall factor.

reboot · · . · Joined Jul 2006 · Points: 125
Jim Titt wrote:Buy a GriGri.
The thread should've settled after that.

Brian wrote: So are you saying that an ATC is going to hold a factor 2 fall any better than a MegaJul? Especially without gloves on the belayer? Have you actually used a MegaJul or are you theorizing too?
So do you know it does or doesn't? It's funny climbers think their experience is all that matters. So you've owned the Mega Jul for a few months? I once owned a Cinch for much longer than that before I've discovered how dangerous it is. Of course, I still had a hard time convincing a buddy of mine to ditch it for good. FWIW, for sport project belaying, these devices are all inferior to GriGri for the ease of feeding & reeling in a small amount of rope, especially under tension, regardless of how well it may catch a fall hands free.
Brian · · North Kingstown, RI · Joined Sep 2001 · Points: 804
reboot wrote: The thread should've settled after that. So do you know it does or doesn't? It's funny climbers think their experience is all that matters. So you've owned the Mega Jul for a few months? I once owned a Cinch for much longer than that before I've discovered how dangerous it is. Of course, I still had a hard time convincing a buddy of mine to ditch it for good. FWIW, for sport project belaying, these devices are all inferior to GriGri for the ease of feeding & reeling in a small amount of rope, especially under tension, regardless of how well it may catch a fall hands free.
Well again it all depends... I found that I can feed and reel in rope a lot easier and faster with the MegaJul than with a GriGri. And try going trad climbing with double ropes with a GriGri. A GriGri is a one trick pony. And what do they weigh 50 lbs? ;-)

How about we establish a new rule on Mountain Project?

You can not comment on any gear unless you have actually used it.
You can not enter a route unless you have actually climbed it.

(I'm not delusional enough to think this would ever really be followed as it would cut the number of posts in half.)
Patrick Mulligan · · Reno, NV · Joined Oct 2011 · Points: 995

RichieRich. If you're speaking only of single pitch climbing, a GriGri is probably a far better alternative. I actually use a GriGri for all of my cragging and sport climbing. For multi-pitch climbing though the MegaJul is hard to beat. Its light. It has never failed to lock for me(with ropes from 8m doubles and 9.3 - 9.8 singles). Using it in guide mode with ropes 9.8 and under is really not much different than an ATC or similar. Last but not least, using it in Tuber mode has always worked perfectly for me on multiple rappels. I'm using it with a BD Mini-Pearbiner.

rgold · · Poughkeepsie, NY · Joined Feb 2008 · Points: 526
Brian wrote:This is exactly the theoretical mathematical bullshit I'm talking about...
No, it is precisely the kind of discussion and testing that goes into the production of the devices you use, given by someone who is in the business, who was responding to an explicit request (from me) for that level of information.

You are evidently blissfully unaware of these design processes, and you may not understand any of it, but you benefit from the fact that someone is doing it, and when you go out to the sport crag and catch a factor 0.1 fall with your device and proclaim that's all the testing anyone needs, you had better be grateful that someone has put more thought into it than that, engaging in precisely the "bullshit" you're ranting about.

Jim's only sin is that he was willing to take the time to pull back the veil and give us some insight into how he arrived at his statements. He only did so because I asked him if he would. In some other places, the "bullshit" he provides is called a rational explanation for observed phenomena.

You get a guy who is an expert in the field willing to take the time to explain how certain things work---that's a privilege. Let's drive him away with cries of "bullshit" so we can go back to the process of obtaining real understanding from our highly sophisticated and fully comprehensive testing at the sport crag with a tiny leader fall or two.

In any case, Jim's post isn't required reading---you are free to skip it and use the time saved to eliminate the general level of bullshit by promulgating more arbitrary posting restrictions.
Guideline #1: Don't be a jerk.

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