Front View | Rear View | Left Side View | Right Side View |
Front View: Open for Rigging | Rear View: Open for Rigging |
I acquired this S.E.Peak SE-218 from Amazon.com in 2023.
My S.E.Peak SE-218 is 230 mm. tall, 60 mm. wide, 32 mm. thick, and weighs 425 g.
The upper bollard is bolted through its center to the fixed side plate, with a roll pin provided to prevent rotation. The aluminum upper bollard is 45 mm. in diameter and 13 mm. thick, with a 9.7 mm. wide, rounded V-shaped groove turned to give an inner diameter of 36 mm. The forged aluminum lower bollard is skeletonized. Its shape resembles a 50 mm. in diameter cylinder with two segments removed. The circular periphery has a shallow U-shaped groove giving a 45 mm. inner diameter. Two chords reduce the lower bollard to a wedge shape. The upper cut is 40 mm. long, the lower 34 mm., and the angle between the cuts is about 25 degrees. The lower bollard rotates on a custom axle bolt riveted to the fixed side plate. A handle assembly mounted on the outside of the fixed side plate rotates on the shoulder nut attached to this bolt. A pin extending from the lower bollard engages a hole in the handle, causing the two to move together. The handle grip is molded black plastic.
A rivet connects the handle to a connecting arm. The other end of the connecting arm is riveted to the forged autostop cam. Friction from the passage of the main rope causes the lower bollard to rotate, rotating the handle and pulling the connecting rod down. This pulls the autostop cam against the rope above the upper bollard, thus ideally arresting the descent. The handle is used to keep the cam disengaged during normal descent. The autostop cam works in both directions, to stop if the rappeller lets go or squeezes the handle too tightly.
The attachment point is a 16 by 26.5 mm. round-cornered-rectangular hole near the bottom of the two side plates. The hole on the pivoting side plate is cut away to form a hook, and a spring-loaded stamped gate is fixed to the side plate.
The front of the pivoting plate the S.E.Peak logo with "S.E.Peak," "SE-218," a rigging illustration, "Loading 30-150kgs," "EN341/A," "Max 200m," "EN12841/C, and "Ø10mm-13mm." The connecting link is printed with "ANTI PANIC."
The S.E.Peak is one of the following group of similar double-stop bobbins:
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These descenders clearly "borrow" the autostop concept from Kong and in particular from the King Indy.
These each have a lever at the top that provides both a release-stop and a panic-stop feature. Unlike the Petzl Stop design, the stop design developed by Kong-Bonaiti and copied on these ascenders has never worked well for me. It simply does not provide enough stopping force to hold me in position, let alone arrest a rapid descent. I've been able to complete rappels on these bobbins without touching the handle, a situation that should not allow me to move.
As for the panic stop feature, squeezing the handle hard enough will slow the descent. Depending on the rope in use, this may occur whn one is tring to hold the handle in the middle position for a normal descent. I've never fully understood why people promote panicing as desirable behavior, and I find double-acting levers designed to address this questionable behavior maddening. You may like them, but if this is because you like to panic, I suggest you fullly dispense with that behaviour first and then move on to single-acting devices.
This autostop design adds unnecessary length and width to the descender. It is too complicated for my taste, with too many pivoting joints that may fail. I cannot recommend this type of stop (let alone double-stop) feature over the Petzl Stop design.
The S.E.Peak is the only one of these that has a 200 m. maximum descent marking. I do not recommend bobbins as the best device for such long descents. I suspect that the 200 m. marking merely reflects the rope length used in the EN 341 descent energy test.
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