Petzl Pantin Failure

  • Thread starter Thread starter ruel
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ruel

ruel

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So I bought a Petzl Pantin a few years ago. After a bit I nicked the webbing strap with a handsaw and was figuring it would eventually snap. Not the case, kept hanging on for the past year or so. Last week I was doing some view pruning, lots of up and down climbing srt with foot and knee ascender. last tree of the day, about 10 feet up the tree, my right leg just collapsed thru the foot loop on my Pantin. I thought oh, the webbing finally broke, but back on the ground i saw the metal body of the pantin had failed.

Anyone else experience failure in the metal of their foot ascender? I didn't expect this thing to last forever, but the metal breakage has me seriously sketched out. Possible bad casting or something? Just wondering if anyone else has had a similar happen. I know a foot ascender isn't life support, but it was still an unpleasant surprise, which raised some questions about the quality of Petzl's products to me. I'm pretty upset about this, kind of messed up my work plans with my ascent system being off line!

some pics of the pantin
20170501_202006.jpg
20170501_202026.jpg
20170501_202041.jpg
20170501_202058.jpg
 
My ol d panting is still going strong. When they redesigned it, it was thinner in places. 1/2 rope did not fit as well either.
I would not buy one.
I think the CT had issues like that as well early on. Trying to remember.
 
Kong and Petzl don't get my money or trust , though a fine French family name I have gotten rid of all my Petzl gear except a helmet (and one Carabiner I keep around). CMI is how how I roll. If you're screwed I have an extra CMI left ankle I never use if you're in need.
 
Not sure but seems Petzl uses a cheap thin aluminum w stamp mill production ... CMI use thick blocks of aircraft grade and conventionally mills the shape.
 
Possible bad casting or something?
Click to expand...
It's a stamped aluminum plate, so it's usually pretty homogeneous. You don't find the casting defects like bubbles or foreign material inclusions. Both fractures are exactly at the same place, it's very unlikely that could be the case with a casting defect. It would be useful to see the missing part though (possibly first broke / folded in the middle and then teared out the both sides?).

I'd say that's a fatigue cracking where the shearing forces concentrate. Repeated use weakens the weakest points and makes they break well under the usual breaking load. See where it broke (Pic 3), just at the cut's end, where the metal is folded and stretched by the stamping tool to make room for the web strap.
The metal is thiner, elongated, more stretched on the outside of the curve, just at the junction between the full plate and the bridge section. It's a good point to start a fracture. The left broken area shows a slightly darker area on the right, about 1/3 of the surface. This should be the crack's extension for a while before the final rupture. There's one too on the right broken area, top left corner, but it's well less than 10% of the surface. I'd say that the left gave up first and the right followed in a split second as the bridge started to move.


Well, that's some eating time guess, while I don't have enough time to do what I have to.:|:
Let's move !:hammer:
 
  • Thread Starter Thread Starter
  • #11
Cool post, lots of metal knowledge there. The other piece was not bent, almost perfectly fit back, until i dropped it in the leaves.

Imo pantins are too damn expensive to break like that.
 
The CT ones are riveted together and some folks have had them come apart there. . .

I agree Petzl could beef up some of their components. At least for the industrial rope access guys (like us, basically). I get the need to minimize weight, but. . . come on.
 
I do use a zig zag but Petzl has a habit of barely building stuff. I use CT for most of that stuff.
 
I have a green Pantin, had it for years, only really started using it when I switched to SRT, its fine.
I bought a Camp Turbo, used it for a while then went back to my pantin.
 
The older green Pantin certainly is somewhat stouter. But if one hasn't figured out that Petzl will generally go light over sturdy, one has not been paying attention.

Exhibit #1...Piranha descender.
 
I like my Camp Turbo, but I had to secure the foot arch strap. People, Brian comes to mind, used to have issues like that with the Pantin and sew it. I never had that issue.
The CMI is stout and a tab bulky, but never has issues. except one having to unlock it to remove it from the rope. But now days, I lock the turbo with a key chain biner any ways
 
I'm pretty much sold on the CMI over the Pantin, sure enough. But I still use both, since I have them and it allows me to have fully arranged setups for several SRT or foot assisted DRT kits instead of moving bits from here to there.
 
  • Thread Starter Thread Starter
  • #21
Going to give the newish ISC ascender a try instead. Looks like somewhere in between cmi and petzl. Will report back.
 
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