Factor 55 Blog

There are no shortcuts to proper product development; the new Load Distribution Plate product is a good example. Although we lab and field tested our products ourselves, we also rely on trained professionals to test and provide feedback on product performance. Our product design usually requires 3 interations:  1. ENGINEERING PROTOTYPE – followed by testing, data interpretation, and design improvements. 2. PREPRODUCTION PROTOTYPE – followed by smaller iterative changes as well as further internal and field testing and data interpretation. 3. PRODUCTION – followed by QA and test/performance validation. Test, retest, test again. Many of us may never need to...

Some of you have recently asked how to tell what force your winch is actually applying to your rigging and vehicle. The truth is it’s hard to tell without the correct measurement instruments. Usually we can simply estimate the loads based on your winch capacity, what layer of rope you are on etc.. It’s best to be conservative by estimating the load on the high side of your approximation. However, when we are out field testing, we need a more accurate method to measure the actual loads on our recovery gear. We use a rechargeable load cell (or strain gauge)...

Thanks for your patience on this. Here is the video of our soft shackle knot position test that many of you asked for. As mentioned before, we take the average breakage data from many sample tests completed. This video is typical of a single sample test. The first test is of our 10 inch soft shackle with the knot positioned in the middle of the span and the second test is with the knot positioned against the rigging, in this case the oversized test bed steel hook.   In the first part of the video you will begin to notice...

A little Friday reminder for those of you that would like to eliminate the traditional steel tube thimble on the end of your winch line and run a “soft loop” termination instead. We manufacture billet aluminum load spools for this purpose. The load spools simply fit over the titanium shear pins on our winch line shackle mount products and provide the minimum bend radius dictated by the Cordage Institute (CI 1500). Take a look at some of the IRT workshop presentation slides and note that to properly tensile test rope eyes, the standards dictate minimum D/d ratios from 1.5 -2. If...