Comments on: ATLAS powered rope ascender gen 3

By: kepa

kepa — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 15:42:18 +0000

I am really interesting in this product for sale in west Europe, but i cant contact with Atlas Dev.
Please contact to kepa.iber@euskalnet.net about this modell or similars.Thanks

By: John Boom

John Boom — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 21:26:30 +0000

Mythbusters made a smaller more practical one in a day. Of course those guys have more than 30 years experiance in the F/X field. I wonder why they are not working for the army? We would be unstoppable with Jamie and Adam making stuff for the soldiers.

By: Paul

Paul — Sun, 02 Sep 2007 19:17:21 +0000

@mythbusters et al.
yes their device was smaller but a couple of questions/problems
1. Battery life and size, is it really smaller if we figure battery life and move the power from the belt to the device
2. How much bigger will it be with a reverse and/or braking system?
3. You are limited by the amount of line that will wrap around the spool, by letting the rope play through the device you are only limited by battery life not battery life and spool capacity.

By: TandemFixation

TandemFixation — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 00:37:56 +0000

Ooops, Forgot to confirm lol. and the Dog? I think you mean Pawl. Which is the catch I am Talking about.

By: Wolf

Wolf — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 23:55:41 +0000

Did anyone else see the the recent mythbusters episode where they built similar device? Their’s actually seamed more practical (it was quite a bit smaller), even if it was slower.

By: shadymilkman

shadymilkman — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 22:19:53 +0000

anyone watch mythbusters last night? superhero myths and they had a rope climber that was smaller than this.

By: Adam345

Adam345 — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 16:08:01 +0000

Mythbusters just had a show on last night where they actually made one of these, it’s their superhero episode where they were trying to make a grappling hook like batman’s. Jamie made the winch part and it worked pretty well, it was really simple and he made it in like a day, it shouldn’t be too hard to at least replicate his.

By: Tim

Tim — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 05:22:49 +0000

Not so much a worm gear as a worm guide as the spiral part does not move. It is really just a winch with the spiral guide allowing the rope to feed in on one side and off on the other.

By: RusH

RusH — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 21:29:35 +0000

so the mechanism is a worm gear with rope in it after all :)
looks like the drum has some sort of one way anti-slip coating

By: sackofcatfood

sackofcatfood — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 18:32:56 +0000

“and if you look at these two pages, you can see that it is simply a guide to keep the rope on a shaft. The shaft spins and you “roll” up the rope”

That is so brilliant.

They shoudl actually use pinch rollers, though, or something similar, to feed out the rope. In the videos it seems that the user has to manually take up slack from the device.

By: Tim

Tim — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 15:06:19 +0000

If you look here you can see the rope wound around that mechanism.
http://www.rocketboom.org/AtlasBG.jpg

and if you look at these two pages, you can see that it is simply a guide to keep the rope on a shaft. The shaft spins and you "roll" up the rope.
http://anticipatethis.wordpress.com/2007/02/23/holy-invention-batman/
http://tinyurl.com/yobheb (patent application)

and why has it taken 3 tries to get this comment posted?

By: RusH

RusH — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 05:49:04 +0000

I just made up the term "snail gear" because I didn't know the proper one (English second language, its snail gear in Polish) so no problem.

pinch rollers? made from rubber? wouldn't that be too weak for 600 pounds?

Like I said you can see 'worm gear' with rope in it in the first video
http://www.atlasdevices.com/ATLAS_Rope_Ascender.wmv
but i highly doubt that's the only thing pulling it

ps: and what is a releasable dog? :)

By: Josh Carmack

Josh Carmack — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 03:22:49 +0000

@ 12 while i’m not trying to be rude or anything as it seems lots of people like to do on teh internets the gear in the picture you are referring to is typically called a worm gear. A worm gear allows you to get a very large speed decrease, and a large torque increase without the bulk and weight involved with convention gears. It most likely uses pinch rollers and a releasable dog in the case of a slip or other failure

By: TandemFixation

TandemFixation — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 01:49:09 +0000

The name is worm gear ;) Those are good at handling Torque but are very slow. so you would have to find a good balance :) Keep in mind though, if either gear breaks the rider will take a fall, So make sure the gears are strong and there is a safety latch to hold the gear.

By: ateamrocks

ateamrocks — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 00:49:03 +0000

Awsome. But i think i will stick to elevators and ladders!!

-jz