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PHD “Wafer” super-ultralight down gear
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Home › Forums › Gear Forums › Gear (General) › PHD “Wafer” super-ultralight down gear
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Apr 29, 2013 at 7:57 pm #1302362
Just got the PHD newsletter in my email and it seems they have adopted a new 10d fabric along with 900 (EU) FP down to make some pretty ridiculously light clothing. A full body suit including a hood and booties would weigh under 500g in fact.
Some more info here http://www.phdesigns.co.uk/waferdowngear.php and here http://www.outdoorsmagic.com/gear-news/phd-launching-new-ultra-light-down/10874.html
Strange though, they haven't posted temperature ratings for this stuff, like they do with all their other clothing and bags. My question would be how useful this gear actually is. Sure it's lighter than a fleece but it can't replace your 150g+ fill jacket. I suppose if you were hiking in mild climates (like 10C+) you could take these as your primary warm at half the weight of even PHD's own ultra pullover, but without temperature specs it's hard to know what they compare to.
Apr 30, 2013 at 5:07 am #1981856Hi,
yeah got the same newsletter as well but still not disclosure from PHD on the amount of down
used in all of the above new down garments!
Still keeping it as a secret:).Cheers
Apr 30, 2013 at 5:55 am #1981865Phd only advertise how much down they put in there sleeping bags.
Apr 30, 2013 at 7:23 am #1981884But they usually have a temp rating for their clothing which is absent from this Wafer stuff.
Apr 30, 2013 at 7:39 am #1981886lol. It's always great to see people walking around camp in a fully matching down suit and booties. People laugh, until they have to climb out of their warm sleeping bag and scurry around in the cold to answer the call of nature. Forget silver jumpsuits. Mark my words; in the future people will almost certainly be running around wearing silver cuben fibre down filled bodysuits.
Anyways, that is a really light jacket for sure especially considering it has two zippered hand warmer pockets and with a hood would be only 7.4oz. Really awesome that it is made in the UK too. Personally though, I tend to avoid jackets with a fill rating higher than 800. I have found that down of 800+ rating does not seem as resilient to moisture, humidity and repeated compression (depends on your local climate though). I assume that is european as opposed to american fill power rating? I'm also a bit surprised they don't mention anything about a dwr coating or fill weight.
Apr 30, 2013 at 11:20 am #1981969strange there is no rating.on them.
May 4, 2013 at 12:53 am #1983076It would be good to see some temp ratings. But based on the discription of being "spring/autumn" gear I'd guess that the rating is no lower than zero Centigrade, but until they tell us who knows for sure.
They would go well with a minim ultra/minimus by the sound of it though.
May 4, 2013 at 7:38 am #1983102Looks very comparable to the Montbell ExLite which I find good down to zero C
May 6, 2013 at 12:12 am #1983645Hey Greg,
That looks like a pretty comparable jacket (lighter, even). I thought PHD was pushing boundaries but it looks like Montbell beat them to it.
Actually that also gives a good idea of the fill weight, 1.8oz/50g in size M for the Montbell, I'm guessing slightly more in the PHD, maybe 70-80g, based on the Crux Pico, which I also forgot existed: http://www.crux.uk.com/en/down-clothing.php?range=16&product=34
May 8, 2013 at 11:56 am #1984454I was interested in this jacket, so I asked them if they could give a temperature rating
"Thank-you for contacting PHD, it is hard to give a typical operating temperature for the wafer range as the jacket in particular has been designed to replace a pullover or fleece layer. It is not as warm as the Ultra pullover as it contains less down but will be a fantastic addition to a layering system."
Not very helpful IMO. Maybe it would be warm enough for me, maybe it won't. I'm not going to pay $300+ just to find out.
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