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Pin Lock

Paragliding carabiner with force-fit and form-fit lock

   Features:
  • Working load limit (air sports): 140 DaN* per carabiner
  • Drop-forged from Titanal, 80 g
  • Breaking load: 2 500 DaN
  • Inside height: 40 mm
  • Suitable for harness belt widths up to 44 mm, paraglider risers up to 25 mm (adapters available for narrower risers)

    * 1 daN (decanewton) = 10 N (newton)  ≈ 1 kg
  • 8 years replacement interval for paragliding mono use and 5 years replacement interval for paragliding tandem use with unlimited flight hours.
    For the Pin Lock carabiner, fatigue strength is not an issue, as its closure is form-fit. In the test, the Pin Lock withstood 5 000 000 load cycles with an upper load of 425 DaN without damage.
  • Lightweight and safe:
    Pin Lock carabiners are drop-forged instead of bent which results in increased material strength. The material of bent carabiners, in contrast, is weakened by inner tensions in the bended areas. However, the Pin Lock weighs a mere 80 g, i.e. only approx. half the weight of a steel carabiner.
  • Separate strap chambers
    Separate strap chambers prevent the carabiner from twisting.  
  • Handling:
    The risers are attached to the Pin Lock in a similar way as to conventional carabiners. The Quickpin lock features an automatic locking mechanism. It is designed in such a way that two different hand movements are required to unlock the carabiner: Pushing the release button and pulling out the bolt in the opposite direction.

    Releasing the risers after landing is easier with Pin Locks than with snap hook carabiners. To ensure the proper connection between risers and carabiners in extremely strong wind conditions, the glider has to be attached to the carabiners before putting on the harness. This applies to both conventional carabiners and Pin Lock carabiners.

    When used according to the instruction manual, icing problems can be reliably prevented even in extreme winter conditions.

pinlock detail   1. Quickpin
Self-locking ball lock pins are being used in aircraft construction already for many years. Several hang glider manufacturers incorporate our Quickpins into their A-frame corners and pilot hang-ins. In rehab technology, more than 1 m of our ball lock pins are in trouble-free operation.

2. Carabiner body
Unlike conventional carabiners, Pin Locks are drop-forged from Titanal instead of bent from round steel rods and subsequently embossed. While bending tends to weaken the carabiner material, drop forging results in significantly improved material hardness. The strength level of the Titanal used is comparable to that of high quality stainless steel. However, at only about one third the weight! Titanal is also used for highly stressed aircraft and rocket components.
 3. Safety cord

The safety cord of the Quickpin ist made of high-performance nylon developed by DuPont for deep sea fishing. The safety cord is replaceable and lasts for years when installed and operated properly.

 

Art.Nr. Article Breaking load (daN in ~kg) Weight (g) Price (€/pc.)
HKar3 Pin Lock carabiner 2.500 80,0 38,00


Manual:

» Instruction manual Pin Lock karabiner

 

More information on the fatigue endurance of air sports carabiners...
Paragliding carabiners are subject to permanent load changes during flight. Measurements by the DHV show that they can amount to between 10 and 110 kg and more, depending on pilot weight, pilot flight behavior and thermals, and that they can occur up to 26 times per second. Given the carabiners' high breaking load (at least 1.500 kg), such load changes should generally be unproblematic. However, conventional carabiners exhibit a construction-related peculiarity: their play in the gate. This play is necessary for the snap hook to open and close frictionless. However, the snap hook is force-locked only at weights of 30-120 kg (depending on the amount of play in the gate). As a result the pilot flies as if the carabiner lock was open within the range of the play in the gate. Since the carabiner construction - as practice and dynamic fatigue tests show - is not designed for such load cases, already the relatively low operating load during normal flight operations can lead to breakages due to material fatigue. As the play in the gate cannot be reliably limited and as it is difficult to control, we have constructed the Snaplock in such a way that it is fatigue endurable also within the range of the play in the gate. Please note: Not all carabiners are tested for fatigue endurance. Special caution is required when the carabiner manufacturer does not give information about the replacement interval.

Steel is good ?
The fatigue endurance of carabiners is not a question of material but a question of design! In dynamic fatigue tests, some aluminum carabiners exhibited substantially higher fatigue endurance levels than steel carabiners. Although stainless steel is generally more fatigue endurable, harder and more resistant to corrosion, the difference in strength can easily be outweighed by a larger width of the aluminum component. Due to the better strength-to-weight ratio, high-quality aluminum alloys are the standard in aircraft construction.

karbruchThe crack in the steel carabiner on the left occurred after 1.739.700 load changes between 5 and 50 daN. The steel carabiner on the right broke after 287.000 load changes between 7 and 70 daN. For comparison: Titanal Pin Lock carabiners withstood 5.000.000 load changes between 40 and 400 daN without failure.
* 1 DaN (Dekanewton) = 10 N (Newton) ≈ 1 kg

  

 

White Paper: Risk of material fatigue in air sports carabiners with conventional snap gate