Plexamid update (broken / replacement stays)

An utterly and hopelessly biased judgement would be that this is a design fault. I refuse to blame the strut material.

Cheers

Well, Roger, the video showed composite poles that looked like matchsticks compared to the arrow shafts we use.  But you are right about there being no pole sleeves, if that’s what you mean by ‘design fault.’  Want to go halvesies on a pole set to do some break tests?  Hah – didn’t think so.  Bet the carbon poles the hunters use on the Kuiu are much beefier.  No sleeves there either, but at least pole clips.

Hi Sam

‘Matchsticks’ ? Oh dear. Design fault right there, never mind the lack of sleeves.

And I have in fact done some break tests myself, as well as measuring the bending stiffness of a whole range of tubes. Long ago, when I was first designing. There is actually a ‘standard test’ for the stiffness of arrows.

Cheers

Yes it’s called “spine;” but contrary to some beliefs, it has little to do with the break strength or diameter of the shafts..  The quality and type of the layup have more to do with the spine – a measure of deflection of the shaft over a fixed span, while supporting a fixed weight at the span center.  Could dig out the numbers if anyone wants to know.  Easton used to post the numbers on their site, and I’ve got a hard copy buried somewhere.

Anyway, do not think you should be so hard on Joe’s design.  It is a nifty way to make the tent more spacious and unflappable (as well as free-standing – but won’t mention that, Roger), without a lot of hardware and complexity, and without detracting from the stability from use of trekking poles.  But apparently he did not make the tubes beefy enough, or it was just a lemon tube.  If the latter, and I’ve not seen any posts about such breakage elsewhere on BPL, I would think they would give the OP replacement poles.  Forgive me for kidding about the appearance of the poles, but they did look a bit flimsy.