Well this fits the catagory, but I'm feelin a little low-tech here...
I had bought a 6-bar BMS descending Rack. It's made of stainless steel, is tested at 2,000 lbs, and the frame strength is in excess of 20,000 lbs. Works with two ropes. Dimensions: Length 13"; Width 5"; Depth 3/4". Made by Bassett Metal Studios. Nice thing is it's got a double hyper-bar on it, allowing for really easy tie-off of one or two ropes. I'm still stuck with groundies who I don't trust to touch ropes yet, so for many contracts I still do the rigging, the cutting, and control the lowering; and they just unclip it at the bottom. (some I have convinced that they're lucky they get to do that.... and haven't figured out that *without* them doin that I'd be royally screwed. Not so bright huh? Yeah, its scary.)
Up until now I've been using a rescue-sized figure 8...lol... Just doin what I was used to. Got sick of it twisting my ropes, etc. So the new Rack shows up, and I take it out for its first run. 80ft Pine TD, simple stuff. Got everything all set up, took some special precautions since it was a new piece and I was unfamiliar with it, and rushed right into attempting to drop a 15 foot piece with it..... I goofed, my fault, got hasty, gotta learn to calm down. It jammed up tight, no budging. I accidentally put the load on the "top" side of the rope instead of from the bottom. Mostly an innocent mistake, though I couldn't claim to have ever seen one used before. (doh!) Had to flip back down to below where it was clipped in and cut the bottom of the branch off. Got it down to a workable 75 pound chunk that I was able to unweight using a second anchor point, and my anti-return pulley ( Petzl Minitraxion).
What a mess! I planned for possible problems, got one, solved it, and lost only my time. But learned a valuable lesson about rigging with that device.
Does anyone else use these?
http://us.st11.yimg.com/us.st.yimg.c..._1973_59716829