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#1
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Using Plasma Rope For Winch Tows
We recently converted from 3/16 7x9 cable to 3/16 plasma rope on our winch.
"Plasma", made from Honeywell "Spectra" fiber, seems to have some real advantages over wire or cable. Some benifits include light weight, 11.48lbs per thousand, (that's not much even converted to metric!!), hollow braid (no twisting), 5000 lb breaking strength (that a lot even converted to metric!!), 25% increase in launch heights. We operate from asphalt and it seems to be holding up wery well. Expensive? Yes! However in our environment it promises to far outlast steel which would make it cheaper in the long run plus the added benifits. Sorry this sounds like a commerical I was just so tired of that !@#$@#%%^# wire. If anyone else has any experience with this stuff is there anything we should be looking out for? Happy Winching, Craig- |
#2
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"Craig Freeman" wrote in message ... We recently converted from 3/16 7x9 cable to 3/16 plasma rope on our winch. "Plasma", made from Honeywell "Spectra" fiber, seems to have some real advantages over wire or cable. Some benifits include light weight, 11.48lbs per thousand, (that's not much even converted to metric!!), hollow braid (no twisting), 5000 lb breaking strength (that a lot even converted to metric!!), 25% increase in launch heights. We operate from asphalt and it seems to be holding up wery well. Expensive? Yes! However in our environment it promises to far outlast steel which would make it cheaper in the long run plus the added benifits. Sorry this sounds like a commerical I was just so tired of that !@#$@#%%^# wire. If anyone else has any experience with this stuff is there anything we should be looking out for? Happy Winching, Craig- You should be looking out for: 1. A lot of fun not interrupted by wire tangles. 2. A lot more soaring from the higher release heights. 3. A lot more soaring from the lower costs of the launch. 4. A lot fewer band-aids consumed due to fewer wire cuts on your hands. 5. No wire failures due to rust. The stuff gets ugly and fuzzy as it wears out so you have a lot of visual warning long before it gets too weak to use. BTW, I think washing it occasionally might extend the usable life - you'll have to figure out how to do that. I just checked (again) the maximum safe working load of 3/16" 7x7 steel. It's about 900 pounds if there are no dynamic loads. Spectra is WAY stronger than that and it doesn't seem to be as sensitive to dynamic loads. Thanks for the report. Bill Daniels |
#3
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This is very interesting to me - I am building a winch, and have been
thinking (agonizing) over the best cable to buy. Can you provide a reference where I can find more information, and also tell me where you bought yours? Thanks |
#4
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How does one splice it you get a cable break or a birds
nest on the winch drum and need to cut it to untangle? At 22:54 28 July 2003, Bill Daniels wrote: 'Craig Freeman' wrote in message m... We recently converted from 3/16 7x9 cable to 3/16 plasma rope on our winch. 'Plasma', made from Honeywell 'Spectra' fiber, seems to have some real advantages over wire or cable. Some benifits include light weight, 11.48lbs per thousand, (that's not much even converted to metric!!), hollow braid (no twisting), 5000 lb breaking strength (that a lot even converted to metric!!), 25% increase in launch heights. We operate from asphalt and it seems to be holding up wery well. Expensive? Yes! However in our environment it promises to far outlast steel which would make it cheaper in the long run plus the added benifits. Sorry this sounds like a commerical I was just so tired of that !@#$@#^# wire. If anyone else has any experience with this stuff is there anything we should be looking out for? Happy Winching, Craig- You should be looking out for: 1. A lot of fun not interrupted by wire tangles. 2. A lot more soaring from the higher release heights. 3. A lot more soaring from the lower costs of the launch. 4. A lot fewer band-aids consumed due to fewer wire cuts on your hands. 5. No wire failures due to rust. The stuff gets ugly and fuzzy as it wears out so you have a lot of visual warning long before it gets too weak to use. BTW, I think washing it occasionally might extend the usable life - you'll have to figure out how to do that. I just checked (again) the maximum safe working load of 3/16' 7x7 steel. It's about 900 pounds if there are no dynamic loads. Spectra is WAY stronger than that and it doesn't seem to be as sensitive to dynamic loads. Thanks for the report. Bill Daniels |
#5
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At Auckland gliding club we are using plain standard rope (aerotow)and find
this works just as well as the more expensive spectra and others like it.The only difference is in the initial lift off the ground and rotation .The rope is more elastic and if you do not get load on the cable quickly and maintain it, an oscillation can start between glider and winch. result: slow fast slow fast etc launch. The main advantage is its cheap and available everywhere. Splicing is the same as aero tow ropes but double the length. We use the correct weak link for the a/c type We have found the increase in height is roughly the same as spectra and others like it. gary "Craig Freeman" wrote in message ... We recently converted from 3/16 7x9 cable to 3/16 plasma rope on our winch. "Plasma", made from Honeywell "Spectra" fiber, seems to have some real advantages over wire or cable. Some benifits include light weight, 11.48lbs per thousand, (that's not much even converted to metric!!), hollow braid (no twisting), 5000 lb breaking strength (that a lot even converted to metric!!), 25% increase in launch heights. We operate from asphalt and it seems to be holding up wery well. Expensive? Yes! However in our environment it promises to far outlast steel which would make it cheaper in the long run plus the added benifits. Sorry this sounds like a commerical I was just so tired of that !@#$@#%%^# wire. If anyone else has any experience with this stuff is there anything we should be looking out for? Happy Winching, Craig- |
#6
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Do you have any idea how it stacks up cost wise compared
to wire rope? i.e. twice, three. four times as expensive?? Thanks. At 22:36 28 July 2003, Craig Freeman wrote: We recently converted from 3/16 7x9 cable to 3/16 plasma rope on our winch. 'Plasma', made from Honeywell 'Spectra' fiber, seems to have some real advantages over wire or cable. Some benifits include light weight, 11.48lbs per thousand, (that's not much even converted to metric!!), hollow braid (no twisting), 5000 lb breaking strength (that a lot even converted to metric!!), 25% increase in launch heights. We operate from asphalt and it seems to be holding up wery well. Expensive? Yes! However in our environment it promises to far outlast steel which would make it cheaper in the long run plus the added benifits. Sorry this sounds like a commerical I was just so tired of that !@#$@#^# wire. If anyone else has any experience with this stuff is there anything we should be looking out for? Happy Winching, Craig- |
#7
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"Plasma Rope"
Brand name? Mfr.? Source? Thanks. Cheers! |
#8
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#9
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Simon Walker wrote in message ...
Do you have any idea how it stacks up cost wise compared to wire rope? i.e. twice, three. four times as expensive?? Thanks. Its three to four times as much. However, after having experienced the frustrastions associated with wire for the last two years, this is like heaven. We pull on a paved runway. Any wire splice or small kink wears at an extrodinary rate. Plasma rope lays flat and does not kink, the light wieght reduces effect of friction on the pull and allows for the rope to become airborn much quicker all reducing the wear factor. In the long run Plasma may be cost effective even without the added benifits of ease of use, added launch hieght ect. . Plasma has a very small tendency to "birds nest" as it has very little stretch so no recoil if released under tension. Also it is relaxed on the spool so it does not try to grow if the speed suddenly slows on the pull out. Our winch has a 48" drum and no level wind. Plasma does not self level as well as wire did however it is satisfactory. More info on Plasma here www.thecortlandcompanies.com/psrope/ . Craig- |
#10
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Wallace you did a great job on this write up . Sorry I have not post
for a long time, I was tired of getting all the porn after my address was mined out of the archives (I just figured out why some of the regulars put "DELETE" in their address line, I will see how well it works) Again Wallace did such a good job there is not much for me to add. We have now been operating it each weekend,but due to the treelines we can only pull 3600' of PLASMA not SPECTRA we went with the more expensive stuff but I think the SPECTRA will work as well. I thought we would have done a more accurate comparision of steel vs. Plasma but no one will pull the steel out anymore. So we have a two drum winch and we operate it as if it had only one, I can hardly wait for us to budget the funds to buy rope for the one. We have not had any launches with strong headwinds in fact there has been little or no wind at all. The steel launches we made were 700'-900' then the Plasma were 1000'-1200' I wish we could pull out 1500' more rope maybe someday. There are a couple of note Wallace did not mention. 1. Winch drive cannot read cable tention by observation of the droupe THERE IS NO DROUPE!!! It looks like the glider is being shot in the belley by a Purple laser beam. 2. One man can pull extra slack if the strope is too short for a hookup. 3. No snags or injurys BTW Dick Kilburn at PSROPE.COM is the salesman that handles our account, he has been waiting a long time for us to move to our new gliderport so we could operate the winch. We have about 100 launches on the rope to date and it shows no sign of wear. Mark Well, I was waiting for someone from the Memphis club to post. However, no one has so far, so I'll have a go. The Memphis club purchased Glen Lawler's winch a few months ago. My club, Southern Eagles, used this winch with excellent results for a couple of years. We only stopped using the winch when we moved to an airport with crossing runways where we had marginal room for the cable. A couple of weeks ago, Glen Klingshirn and I had the good fortune to be invited up to Memphis to train their guys on winch launching. Just as an aside, I have to say that you won't find a better bunch of folks to fly with. The hospitality and fellowship was superb. They are also making the ultimate contribution to the future of soaring in the U.S.: The Memphis Soaring Society has established their own field at Cherry Valley, Arkansas. They are doing it right with a huge field, immense hangar and a beautiful clubhouse under construction. Anyway, the MSS has equipped one drum on the (two drum) winch with Spectra. The original wire rope is on the other drum. After a few launches with the cable, we switched to the Spectra and didn't look back. The Spectra seems to give higher launches although we didn't do enough launches with the wire to make a valid comparison. The Spectra had no more noticeable stretch than the cable so we didn't have any "bungee" dynamics to work around. To me the biggest, and unexpected, advantage of the Spectra was that it did not have enough mass to throw itself into a tangle. During training of new winch drivers, we had a few incidents which would have put a tangle in wire rope, but with the Spectra, there was never a tangle of any kind. The Spectra also seemed to be holding up well through 30 launches or so. The only minor problem with the Spectra is that it has so little mass that the cable end strop would fall through the chute unless the winch driver got the power back on quickly after the glider released. This was just a problem with winch driver trainees and resolved after each driver got more experience. It may be that exotic stuff like Spectra is not needed for a winch. The dacron rope that we have used for auto launch is very similar in appearance and has almost no stretch like the Spectra. It is also abrasion resistant. It is not as strong as Spectra but is plenty strong enough. It may do as well as Spectra on a winch and is cheaper. Wallace (help stamp out winchophobia) Berry |
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