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uclajang
Jan 9, 2007, 6:41 AM
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Has anyone heard of or used gear from www.petrenkoworld.com. It's from a Ukrainian company started by the great Petrenko but they do all of their testing in Ukraine, not Europe or the USA. I don't know anyone who has used any of their products. You can get cams and stuff for like 30% of what you pay elsewhere. It seems too good to be true so I'd like more info.
Thanks.
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overlord
Jan 9, 2007, 7:57 AM
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have you SEEN the cams?
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getsomeethics
Jan 9, 2007, 8:29 AM
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i have SEEN the cams. it would explain the 30% less. however i could be jumping to conclusions...
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musicman1586
Jan 9, 2007, 9:58 AM
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I dunno, the cams just look like any other cam out there if you took off all the plastic and instead of anodizing the lobes (a kind of expensive procedure) just painted them.
That being said though, I have no clue if their worth a damn, although I think it's kind of elitist to say that a cam tested in a non-super power country would be any less qualified, however I don't know if you mean the company itself does all the testing or if their's a Ukrainian UIAA/CE equivalent. If there is a national standard (like CE around europe) then it should be beyond a doubt that if their qualified under that national standard that their quality cams, if their only approved through the companies own testing, it's a little more shady, however I still don't think they'd sell an unreliable product like that, as they don't want to face law suits and guilty consciences. If the company was started by a climber, I doubt they would sell something they wouldn't use themselves. It always possible that this wouldn't be true, but rather doubtful. That said, you really can never know, so there's still a dark cloud over the subject.
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overlord
Jan 9, 2007, 10:20 AM
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well, there have been some pics of their gear on ebay and they looked super sketchy. like the cam lobe hole/axe being in the wrong place, stuff like that. search the forum for ebay cam or something like that.
UIAA is the accepted standard for climbing gear in europe (and usually uiaa certified gear gets the CE as well, but i trust it more than CE because UIAA is a specialized standard) and i admit that i dont know if they have it or not.
but still, youre gonna be using the cams for quite a while (unless they get stuck) so you might just bite the bullet and spend some extra $$$ to get someting you KNOW is good.
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musicman1586
Jan 9, 2007, 10:33 AM
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I agree with you, just pointing out that I think it's kind of egotistically american to think that something made under a differnt country's and/or people's standards wouldn't amount to an equally good product. The cams do look cheap though, ridiculously toy-like cheap, no plastic to cover things up, the coloring is cheap, the product as a whole looks cheap, but who says they didn't just cut out the non-functional bullshit to make a cheaper product and the cams work as well as a tech friend or power cam? Doesn't have to be pretty to work as well. However, I believe I remember reading that ebay cam forum now, so eh, we may never know.
I'm sticking with my C4's, so whatever.
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thespider
Jan 9, 2007, 12:41 PM
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uclajang wrote: Has anyone heard of or used gear from www.petrenkoworld.com. It's from a Ukrainian company started by the great Petrenko but they do all of their testing in Ukraine, not Europe or the USA. I don't know anyone who has used any of their products. You can get cams and stuff for like 30% of what you pay elsewhere. It seems too good to be true so I'd like more info. Thanks.
I might trust the nut tool. But thats about it.
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styndall
Jan 9, 2007, 1:54 PM
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overlord wrote: well, there have been some pics of their gear on ebay and they looked super sketchy. like the cam lobe hole/axe being in the wrong place, stuff like that. search the forum for ebay cam or something like that. UIAA is the accepted standard for climbing gear in europe (and usually uiaa certified gear gets the CE as well, but i trust it more than CE because UIAA is a specialized standard) and i admit that i dont know if they have it or not.
I recall the thread you're referring to, but it was only cosmetic issues, like whether the nuts were screwed on the same side of the axle. Aliens were the ones with mis-drilled axle issues.
Someone who posts to both here and supertopo bought one of the petrenko cams and pull-tested it, and it held fine. He posted photos and everything.
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8flood8
Jan 9, 2007, 3:01 PM
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they "look" sketchy...
hehe
but it says they are rated to 15kn.
although i'm not quite sure what they mean by "streight"
hehe
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salamanizer
Jan 9, 2007, 4:12 PM
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musicman1586 wrote: I think it's kind of egotistically american to think that something made under a differnt country's and/or people's standards wouldn't amount to an equally good product.
I don't think it has anything to do with ego, and everything to do with damn good reasons.
Americans are the first to jump in line for a good deal but rarely at the cost of quality.
Once word gets out that they are a reliable cheap alternative and develop a reputation, Americans will be buying them like hot cakes and coffee on a cold morning in Touloumne.
(This post was edited by salamanizer on Jan 9, 2007, 4:14 PM)
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moss1956
Jan 9, 2007, 4:21 PM
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I have climbed a bit in Eastern Europe. The typical climbing story
starts, "We only had one friend a hex, and 6 slings, the climb was 6 pitches."
I don't think westerners really appreciate the lack of material wealth
in that part of the world, and the power of the slavic soul to overcome
all obstacles.
Someone probably really appreciates that gear.
My guess is you won't.
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scrapedape
Jan 9, 2007, 4:37 PM
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salamanizer wrote: Americans are the first to jump in line for a good deal but rarely at the cost of quality.
Have you heard about this Wal-Mart place?
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boku
Jan 9, 2007, 5:57 PM
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I bought a KROK Links #3 from Petrenko last year.
I bought the unit directly from PetrenkoWorld through their eBay store. Since PayPal doesn't cover the Ukraine, funds were transferred through 2CheckOut, a similar service. Shipping took about two weeks, and the folks at Petrenko were responsive to email enquiries.
Geometrically, the Links 3 is virtually identical with the Rock Empire Comet #3. Comparing them side by side shows that the cam lobes have virtually the same profile, and about the same spacing along the axle.
As others have already posted (search rc.com on "Petrenko"), the Links units are rather rough-looking units. The cam lobes are press-sheared from plates of aluminum, and it clearly shows. The shearing operation leaves the edges pretty rough. The notches in the cams are applied after the shearing, apparently with a bandsaw or similar tool. That's one slightly odd thing about the Links - the cam lobes are notched much further around their profiles than they need to, to areas that cannot possibly contact rock.
The Links cam does not come with a sling; you must clip directly to its cable loop. On the unit I received, the cable loop was twisted so that the axis of its eye was skewed by about 20 degrees from the axle.
My unit weighed in at 128 grams, 2 grams less than the 130 g weight specification.
The cam axle consisted of an 8mm steel shaft step-turned and threaded at each end for 10-32 (no, not metric) nylon locking nuts. The cam stops consist of 3mm steel pins pressed into the opposing faces of the lobes. The cam stops also serve as the spring anchors.
The trigger pull seemed notchier than other cams I've used, but I didn't consider it objectionable. The worst of the notchiness was caused by the stop pin catching on the spring pigtail at the base of the opposing stop pin at the very start of the pull.
My pull testing suggested that the cam lobes might be softer than the lobes of other similar cams. Pull testing to 1/2 of the strength rating (7.5 kn) in a 1.75" (44.5mm) fixture left small flat spots on the lobes where the aluminum was yielded slightly. Comparison testing on the RE Comet #3 showed similar yielding, but to a smaller degree.
However, the Petrenko did seem to grip the finer-grained of my test fixtures slightly better than the Rock Empire unit. This might be due to the nature of the cam lobe material, or it might be due to the surface left by the shearing operation that forms the lobes.
Pull testing to the 15 kn rated strength of the unit showed nothing remarkable. The unit held solidly with no complaints. The only lasting result of this test was slightly increased flat-spotting of the nature observed in the 7.5kn test.
Pull testing to ultimate failure broke the unit at 16.7 kn, 111% of its rated strength. The failure mode was breakage of the stem cable where it wrapped around the cable thimble at the center of the axle.
Edit add: Some pictures:
Links #3 on the left, Rock Empire Comet #3 on the right.
Links #3 disassembled.
Marks left by pull-test to 7.5 kn.
Unit holding at 15kn. Gauge shows 2930 psi; with a piston area of 1.153 in^2 that's 3378 lbs force or about 15.0 kn.
Unit broken at thimble after application of 16.7 kn.
(This post was edited by boku on Jan 9, 2007, 6:45 PM)
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alpinismo_flujo
Jan 9, 2007, 6:58 PM
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boku - Thanks for taking the time to post .
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sungam
Jan 9, 2007, 7:27 PM
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From what you said about the yielding sounds like it could build up pretty fast with falls, or am I misreading?
-Magnus
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boku
Jan 9, 2007, 8:24 PM
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sungam wrote: From what you said about the yielding sounds like it could build up pretty fast with falls, or am I misreading?
That might be so, but I don't have any long-term experience with the units that bears that out.
My guess is that the KROKs are only slightly softer than other comparable cams, and that if you keep an eye on their condition you'll see it before it becomes a problem.
Furthermore, my test suggests (but certainly doesn't prove!) that the yielding may actually be an advantage on smooth, polished rock.
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robbovius
Jan 9, 2007, 8:53 PM
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Boku, EXCELLENT INFO. I bought a KROK Links #1 a whiel ago and haven't had a chance to get out for any serious leading, though I played around with the cam several times. seeing your pictures and reading your results, I wouldn't hesitate to climb above that cam now, or buy a couple others. thanks for taking the time and effort to perform those tests.
unless I am mistaken, a fall that would break the cam, would also rip my body in two, at the harness, right? ;-)
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salamanizer
Jan 9, 2007, 9:19 PM
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scrapedape wrote: salamanizer wrote: Americans are the first to jump in line for a good deal but rarely at the cost of quality. Hahahahahahhaaaahahahhahahhhahaaa Have you heard about this Wal-Mart place?
Yeah, a pair of Carhartts for 15 bucks, a 6 mega pixl Cannon digital camera for 220. Its a steal.
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basilisk
Jan 9, 2007, 9:45 PM
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i'm pretty sure i've made this same post at least 10 times, but i'll go again.
straight from their website just two seconds ago, this is the photo of the 2 axle cams
look at the blue cam. hint: something about it is different from the others.
my conclusion: if their quality control doesn't catch something in the publicity photos, i don't trust anything.
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boku
Jan 9, 2007, 10:10 PM
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robbovius wrote: unless I am mistaken, a fall that would break the cam, would also rip my body in two, at the harness, right? ;-)
Well, not necessarily. If you think of the biner at the top piece as a pulley (close enough), the top piece is subjected to twice the load your fall applies to the rope. For example, if you take a fall that applies (let's say) 6 kn to the rope, there's 6 kn in your side of the rope going up to the piece, and 6 kn on the other side of the rope going down to the belay. The piece is subjected to the sum of the two tensions, so it's actually being loaded to 12 kn in that fall.
Of course, that's just a made-up example to illustrate the general concepts. In the real world, the angles between the two sides of the rope might not be 180 degrees, the applied forces are affected by friction and rope drag, and there's no simple way of knowing how much force your fall applies to the rope. But I think the general idea holds.
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jbarn02
Jan 10, 2007, 12:55 AM
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basilisk wrote: i'm pretty sure i've made this same post at least 10 times, but i'll go again. straight from their website just two seconds ago, this is the photo of the 2 axle cams [image]http://www.petrenkoworld.com/shop/images/large/KROK/2N1234-3_LRG.JPG[/image] look at the blue cam. hint: something about it is different from the others. my conclusion: if their quality control doesn't catch something in the publicity photos, i don't trust anything.
Also their Ice Climbing Crampons look like shit also. The QC for this company must not be good at all.
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mtnfr34k
Jan 10, 2007, 6:00 AM
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basilisk wrote: i'm pretty sure i've made this same post at least 10 times, but i'll go again. straight from their website just two seconds ago, this is the photo of the 2 axle cams [image]http://www.petrenkoworld.com/shop/images/large/KROK/2N1234-3_LRG.JPG[/image] look at the blue cam. hint: something about it is different from the others. my conclusion: if their quality control doesn't catch something in the publicity photos, i don't trust anything.
FWIW I looked at every picture of the Blue #2 cam - and the piece different from the #3 and #4 seems to be intentional (the #1 also uses a differently tooled piece).
I know that CE and ISO are great things, and I have no reason to run out and buy these cams, but I'm just reminded that for years cams were produced in England and North America without testing and we didn't suffer from a sudden loss of climbers when these pieces were used as needed.
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basilisk
Jan 10, 2007, 6:39 AM
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mtnfr34k wrote: [ FWIW I looked at every picture of the Blue #2 cam - and the piece different from the #3 and #4 seems to be intentional (the #1 also uses a differently tooled piece). I know that CE and ISO are great things, and I have no reason to run out and buy these cams, but I'm just reminded that for years cams were produced in England and North America without testing and we didn't suffer from a sudden loss of climbers when these pieces were used as needed.
if i had i guess, i'd say it's not so much intentional, as they just used the same piece for every picture. that's just speculation, but i can't think of any logical reason for the the blue to follow a different pattern
as for climbing without CE etc, very true. but a little more piece of mind is worth 30 dollars in my world
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