Front	Rear	Top
Left	Right	Bottom

Technical Details

I acquired my Tupa from giraffewb-5 in 2021.

The Tupa is a notched belay tube. It is forged from aluminum alloy and soft anodized. It has 2 slots with ribbed v-grooves and a plastic-covered cable keeper. Mine is 54 mm. long, 45 mm. wide, 30 mm. high, and weighs 68 g. The slots are 35 mm. long and 16 mm. wide. The top of the Omega oval carabiner that I use for comparing belay tubes sits 17 mm. below the ends of the slots.

One side is printed with the Tupa logo, "TUPA," and "expand climbing." The other side is printed with a climber illustration, "1218," and a hand-holding-a-rope illustration.

Comments

The Tupa is one of the following essentially identical notched belay tubes:

Image Device Base Brasovia Notched Flat Climb Axe V-LOK Recessed Climb Tech Flat Cypher XF Flat Elliot Flat Epic Peak Flat	Image Device Base Fusion Neo-Sat Flat Geelife Flat Good Makings Notched Flat Kong Chuy #940000 Flat GM Climbing Flat Lixada Flat	Image Device Base NAT Flat NTR Flat Stubai BC PRO Flat Triwonder Flat Tupa Flat Yoke Flat

Each of these is 54±1 mm. long and 45±1 mm. wide, and has a weight in the 60±7 g. range. Their slots are all 35 mm. long and 16 mm. wide.

The shallow V-notches used in this design do not seem to be very effective at increasing the braking force. The notches do not have the narrow angle found on the Trango Jaws and its equivalents, so they do not create the same wedging action. Spreading the friction helps with heat dissipation, but like all belay tubes, these can get quite hot when used for rappelling.