Hacked discussion of tents? restored

[William Chilton]

Ron, your hooks seem slightly different from this photo from ZPacks. Probably not much difference in practice.

[Gary Pikovsky]

Have the Duplex with new hooks and also surprised no one commented on the new system. In a nutshell – brilliant! By far the lightest and most useful system of any on this thread. I recommended Joe to run for president – he'll out-idea the The Donald.

[Bob Moulder]

I think that perhaps nobody has commented because IMVHO they're not that big of an improvement, even though the overall design of the tent is brilliant. After all, they're still just hooks and an obvious, minor tweak of the design such as some of us have already done. Still much better than the original carabiner, however.

But IMO it would be an improvement to reverse the direction of the LL3 for the door panels such that they are cinched by pulling the cord inward vs outward, making it easier to secure the door panels from the inside. I've had mine set up this way long enough and used it enough times now that for me it is a definite improvement.

However, the LL3s on the ridgeline should be standard; it seems everybody who's done this mod thinks it's an improvement.

[Ron Refsnider]

William: I still can't find a photo of the hooks on the Zpacks web page. But I find your photo to be very interesting in that the hooks are shown to be PERMANENTLY ATTACHED TO THE LL3, and the user hooks/unhooks them to D-rings on the storm doors. On my tent the hooks are oriented in the opposite direction–PERMANENTLY ATTACHED TO THE CORNERS OF THE STORM DOORS and then are hooked/unhooked to a D-ring on the LL3. And, yes, the hooks are different, having the "hook" on the same side as the attachment "loop". Mine have the hook and the loop on opposite sides of the axis.

I've tried to imagine how the hook orientation in your photos would work in practice. I'm having a hard time believing that it could be easily unhooked with just one hand from the inside of the tent, as I can readily do on my Duplex. If someone has used a Duplex with the newer hooks as shown above, I'd like to hear how they are working out.

Overall, I think these hooks are a huge improvement over the minibiner-through-loops design, with which I had some limited experience.

[JCH]

The new arrangement appears to be a decided improvement over the original attachment method, but I'm not convinced that it is as easy/versatile or more effective than the tactoggles or "the Moulder method"…Bob, hope you don't mind me coining that phrase :) Wondering how easy it is to manipulate those tiny hooks with cold fingers or gloves. I also don't see the new method allowing the doors to achieve the minimal gap that other methods do.

As always…lots of different ways to achieve the same goal…choose what works best for you.

Hey All,

I can confirm that ZPacks is now using the lineloc at the apex and using those tiny tiny little clips from dutchwear.

All *Plex shelters being shipped should be expected to have those.

Personally, not sure how those little clips are much of an improvement over the biners, I don't have them on my shelter, thankfully, and would not want them. Put on a pair of thick gloves (the entire reason I started all of this issue about the biners) and it just seems they will be as problematic.

And, we the BPL community should give ourselves a pat on the back, as ZPacks used the idea of having the lineloc at the top. Much better solution.

I put together a short video (~3:30) to show how I ended up having ZPacks build my latest duplex, using the LineLoc 3 WSR Side Release Buckles directly attached to the door ends – an idea I presented in my last two videos, but now finally directly attached.

http://youtu.be/kYj2SI8LXug

[Kenneth Keating]

During high winds, the storm doors tend to flap around quite a bit. But I’ve notice if I grab them about 6 inches above the base of the door, at the center opening, and pull them inward about two to three inches the flapping completely stops. As such I’ve ordered Zpacks Stick-on-Loops to allow me to guy back to the pole base in such conditions to prevent the flapping. Have others had this issue?

[Mark]

Hi Kenneth,

Yep i've had the exact same problem, i asked for suggestions earlier in the thread, i've looked at possibly using velcro and have though about your idea of using loops on the inside of the door.

My new Duplex arrived earlier today so plan on experimenting, please keep us informed if you find a better solution.

This and the fact that you can't have the bathtub floor upright with the tent set really low are my biggest worries with the Duplex.
We had a terrible time in strong winds and torrential rain, the rain would cause the doors to flap or even worse bow out which would then carry the rain in.

All our kit got drenched and there was not much we could do, in the end i positioned my rucksack and waterproof jacket so they were wedged against the hiking/support pole this prevented the worst of the rain getting in, but not all.

If i ever find myeslf in those sorts of conditions again in the Duplex i will stake out each door separately to try and get them tight and with some overlap.

I find it really strange that they've invested time and thought into making a version of the Duplex that's free standing
http://www.zpacks.com/shelter/duplex-flex.shtml

But they've not addressed the 2 major problems with the tent in bad weather.

If they made a version that had doors that could be kept closed by zips or clips and had a bathtub that performed as a bathtub with the tent pitched right down to the ground i'd buy one straight away.

[Kenneth Keating]

Mark:

Yes, in high winds, the outer door catches the wind and bows out. In addition to the stick-on-loops I also ordered the stick on Velcro patches thinking I would apply to the inside of the outer door and the outside of the inner door so they would attach and stay together. The problem with this is on level ground everything lines up. But on uneven ground, which is typical, the tent gets a little skewed, and the Velco pieces may not line up. I'll experiment over the weekend and see how this works out.

[[ Drew ]]

Pretty cool, I hadn't heard anything about this until now:

[Author]

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