Stowless magnetic bag

[katzas 0]

Anyone have any experience with the stowless bags that use magnets?
Pros, cons, problems.....anything and everything would be appreciated.

[Genego 2]

Not to belabor the obvious, but a forum search for stowless bag, magnetic bag, or lazy bag returns a huge number of entries. Some of these may help you find the information you need.

gene

I live with fear and terror, but sometimes I leave her and go skydiving.

[degeneration 5]

I had one on my old rig. Loved it. Much easier and quicker to pack than a regular dbag, and a little bit quicker to pack than a semi-stowless dbag.

Preferred it to my current semi-stowless bag.

It is bulkier though due to the magnets. So if you have a canopy in your rig that is a tight fit in a regular dbag, you may struggle to fit it with a magnetic dbag.

Sky Switches - Affordable stills camera tongue switches and conversion adaptors, supporting various brands of camera (Canon, Sony, Nikon, Panasonic).

[Unstable 8]

Quote

Anyone have any experience with the stowless bags that use magnets?

I'm building a few for fun - the prototype worked great. I'll have to load some pics when I get home.

=========Shaun ==========

[DSE 3]

degeneration

It is bulkier though due to the magnets. So if you have a canopy in your rig that is a tight fit in a regular dbag, you may struggle to fit it with a magnetic dbag.

I've found this as well. I like the magnets, but prefer the bulk to Jerry Baumchen or the UPT bags. However, no matter which stowless you end up wth, you'll be happy (or at least, I was).

[lyosha 46]

katzas

Anyone have any experience with the stowless bags that use magnets?
Pros, cons, problems.....anything and everything would be appreciated.

Some designs are more intuitive to use and forgiving of mistakes than others.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NDpCSxErk_E

Packer's fault, but alternate design choices may have had less dire consequences.

[degeneration 5]

DSE

***

It is bulkier though due to the magnets. So if you have a canopy in your rig that is a tight fit in a regular dbag, you may struggle to fit it with a magnetic dbag.

I've found this as well. I like the magnets, but prefer the bulk to Jerry Baumchen or the UPT bags. However, no matter which stowless you end up wth, you'll be happy (or at least, I was).

The extra bulk to the compal lazybag (which is the one I had) worked out perfectly for me with my old rig, as it meant I could fit a main I had downsized to (which was possibly pushing the container regarding acceptable size in the small end of things with a regular dbag) fairly comfortably. Gave me more life out of the container.

So it can be a possible unintended benefit too, as well as a pain in the arse from the if your canopy is tight side of things.

Sky Switches - Affordable stills camera tongue switches and conversion adaptors, supporting various brands of camera (Canon, Sony, Nikon, Panasonic).

[Dutton 0]

There's one thing I wonder about with the particular design I saw in which the closing flap is held shut by overlapping magnets.

Maybe someone who is an engineer can comment on this? With conventional locking stows, when the bag is de-accelerated during deployment, the stow gets tighter due to the inertia of the bagged canopy pushing on the stow. With the design I saw, that doesn't happen, the magnets closing action is stressed by the inertia of the parachute pushing on the closing flap.

Is this a problem?

[virgin-burner 1]

DSE

***

It is bulkier though due to the magnets. So if you have a canopy in your rig that is a tight fit in a regular dbag, you may struggle to fit it with a magnetic dbag.

I've found this as well. I like the magnets, but prefer the bulk to Jerry Baumchen or the UPT bags. However, no matter which stowless you end up wth, you'll be happy (or at least, I was).

so you had a tight fitting canopy in a lazy-bag and liked it more than the UPT or JB's version(s)?

“Some may never live, but the crazy never die.”
-Hunter S. Thompson
"No. Try not. Do... or do not. There is no try."
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[danielcroft 2]

lyosha

Packer's fault, but alternate design choices may have had less dire consequences.

Not saying the packer didn't just outright make a mistake in this case, just wanted to point out that we're ALL responsible for our own gear, regardless of who packs it. If you use a packer, it's on you to make sure they know what your gear is and how it works, particularly when you have odd gear.

Also, everyone knows that a good opening is thanks to your packer and a bad opening or cutaway is caused by bad body position. I think that's on the A license test, isn't it?

[Hellis 0]

Dutton

There's one thing I wonder about with the particular design I saw in which the closing flap is held shut by overlapping magnets.

Maybe someone who is an engineer can comment on this? With conventional locking stows, when the bag is de-accelerated during deployment, the stow gets tighter due to the inertia of the bagged canopy pushing on the stow. With the design I saw, that doesn't happen, the magnets closing action is stressed by the inertia of the parachute pushing on the closing flap.

Is this a problem?

I have a mPod, which I guess is the bag you are talking about.
But I'm not sure I understand the problem you are talking about.

I think I understand your concern but for me it's not an issue.
I would not pack a to large canopy in the bag.

But the magnets hold very well in my opinion, with my 10 sqf smaller canopy than the bag is sized for.

[JWest 0]

Dutton

There's one thing I wonder about with the particular design I saw in which the closing flap is held shut by overlapping magnets.

Maybe someone who is an engineer can comment on this? With conventional locking stows, when the bag is de-accelerated during deployment, the stow gets tighter due to the inertia of the bagged canopy pushing on the stow. With the design I saw, that doesn't happen, the magnets closing action is stressed by the inertia of the parachute pushing on the closing flap.

Is this a problem?

Not totally sure what you're asking but I'll try and clarify. The only stows that would be affected are the ones used to close the bag. As long as the magnets create an equal or greater amount of force as the stow bands before line stretch, it wouldn't matter.

[Dutton 0]

Well if the magnets can hold the bag as tightly closed as conventional stows, then you answered my question!

[JerryBaumchen 1,047]

Hi katzas,

Quote

Pros, cons

Thought I might add my $0.02 on this.

First, there are two types of 'stowless' bags. Those that are truly a completely stowless bag. These use no locking stows to close up any portion of the bag. Then there are the semi-stowless. These usually use rubber bands to secure the canopy into the bag itself & some other method to secure the lines into a line pouch.

I only know of two truly magnetic stowless bags. One is made in Europe and another is made is the midwestern USA. I had some communication with the builder some time back but do not remember his name.

Holding the line pouch closed with magnets is fairly simple. There are some long-term maintenance issues but that is about that. Other than IMO they are a pain is the a** to make and to close. I've had more than one blood-blister due to working with magnets.

Holding the actual canopy into the bag with magnets is another matter. I think that it is fairly easy to contain the canopy into the bag for terminal deployments; but as has been mentioned, the larger the canopy, the more difficult that it is.

The downside of holding the canopy into the bag with magnets is when you want to make a hop'n'pop jump. Here the magnets have to release at low speed or you will experience a bag lock.

Last year I visited Sandy Reid at Rigging Innovations. I had heard that he was working on a magnetic stowless bag. He showed me one of his prototypes; he had about three of them being jumped at that time. We talked about this problem of containing the canopy during terminal deployments and releasing the canopy during slow speed deployments. He now offers his MagLock bag that uses two rubber band stows to hold the canopy into the bag and magnets to hold the lines in their pouch.

Holding the lines in a line pouch is really easy, whether the line pouch is on top of the bag ( the UPT version ) or on the underside of the bag ( almost all other versions ). You can use magnets ( I have in the past ), you can use tucktabs ( this is what my NoStoBag uses ), or you can use Velcro. All will work just fine.

Just my thoughts on this,

Jerry Baumchen

PS) The long-term maintenance issues with magnets is that they have to rub against each other during release. This wears out the fabric/webbing that is used to hold the magnets. One mfr built a couple of prototypes & found that the magnets eventually fell out during deployment due to wear. Tuck tabs & Velcro line pouch closure methods do not suffer this problem.

[Omni 0]

Seamless Rigging on Facebook is a manufacturer.


https://www.facebook.com/SeamlessRigging?fref=pb&hc_location=profile_browser

[JerryBaumchen 1,047]

Hi Omni,

Quote

Seamless Rigging on Facebook is a manufacturer.

That's him; thanks,

Jerry Baumchen

[daffes 4]

JerryBaumchen

The downside of holding the canopy into the bag with magnets is when you want to make a hop'n'pop jump. Here the magnets have to release at low speed or you will experience a bag lock.

Jerry, can you elaborate more on this? I don't understand that if the magnets have the same releasing force as the suggested locking stows with rubber bands, why does the fact of being a magnet changes anything?

As I see, the force on the magnets is at least more constant, and I'd like to believe that it was measured by the manufacturer (5 pounds?)

Every time you do a rubber band stow, there are many more random factors can make it tighter or looser.

EDIT: After writing this I thought better about the mechanics and the fact that the rubber bands go through the grommets on the locking stows which is hard to emulate with the magnets. Anyway, seems like this problem was figured out according to this video https://vimeo.com/120294419

[JWest 0]

daffes

***
The downside of holding the canopy into the bag with magnets is when you want to make a hop'n'pop jump. Here the magnets have to release at low speed or you will experience a bag lock.

Jerry, can you elaborate more on this? I don't understand that if the magnets have the same releasing force as the suggested locking stows with rubber bands, why does the fact of being a magnet changes anything?

As I see, the force on the magnets is at least more constant, and I'd like to believe that it was measured by the manufacturer (5 pounds?)

Every time you do a rubber band stow, there are many more random factors can make it tighter or looser.

EDIT: After writing this I thought better about the mechanics and the fact that the rubber bands go through the grommets on the locking stows which is hard to emulate with the magnets. Anyway, seems like this problem was figured out according to this video https://vimeo.com/120294419

An easier way to think about it is if the rubber bands had to break in order to release the canopy. At lower speeds there is less energy being developed to extract the canopy. It would be more difficult to break the rubber band.

[Hellis 0]

JWest

******
The downside of holding the canopy into the bag with magnets is when you want to make a hop'n'pop jump. Here the magnets have to release at low speed or you will experience a bag lock.

Jerry, can you elaborate more on this? I don't understand that if the magnets have the same releasing force as the suggested locking stows with rubber bands, why does the fact of being a magnet changes anything?

As I see, the force on the magnets is at least more constant, and I'd like to believe that it was measured by the manufacturer (5 pounds?)

Every time you do a rubber band stow, there are many more random factors can make it tighter or looser.

EDIT: After writing this I thought better about the mechanics and the fact that the rubber bands go through the grommets on the locking stows which is hard to emulate with the magnets. Anyway, seems like this problem was figured out according to this video https://vimeo.com/120294419

An easier way to think about it is if the rubber bands had to break in order to release the canopy. At lower speeds there is less energy being developed to extract the canopy. It would be more difficult to break the rubber band.

Can anyone of you define "low speed" as you used it here in this thread?
In my opinion a hop n' pop is still from an airplane flying at around 80-100 mph.
A PC at 80-100 mph is most likely pulling at it's max force, at least from what I have read from charts.
So what is different?

Or are you all talking about low speed as hop n' pop from an hot air baloon?

[gowlerk 1,903]

Quote

Can anyone of you define "low speed" as you used it here in this thread?
In my opinion a hop n' pop is still from an airplane flying at around 80-100 mph.
A PC at 80-100 mph is most likely pulling at it's max force, at least from what I have read from charts.
So what is different?

You don't actually deploy at those speeds on a normal hop and pop. Generally you take a short delay during which you begin to lose the forward speed of the aircraft and begin to accelerate toward the planet. A two second delay will give you a total velocity well below 80 mph.

Always remember the brave children who died defending your right to bear arms. Freedom is not free.

[riggerrob 558]

gowlerk

Quote

Can anyone of you define "low speed" as you used it here in this thread?
In my opinion a hop n' pop is still from an airplane flying at around 80-100 mph.
A PC at 80-100 mph is most likely pulling at it's max force, at least from what I have read from charts.
So what is different?

You don't actually deploy at those speeds on a normal hop and pop. Generally you take a short delay during which you begin to lose the forward speed of the aircraft and begin to accelerate toward the planet. A two second delay will give you a total velocity well below 80 mph.

...........................................

Agreed Mr. Gowlerk,

Most Cessnas are only flying 80 knots on jump run, so you decelerate for the first few seconds.
Helicopters often fly jump run at 40 knots.
Wing-suites routinely deploy at 80 knots or slower.

Remember that wind energy increases with the SQUARE of the velocity, so that at 40 knots, a pilot-chute is pulling 1/4 (25 percent) as hard as it pulls at 80 knots.

Also remember that a line stow pocket does not have to open (Velcro, tuck-tabs or magnets) to neatly deploy lines. Lines only have to slip out the small opening in the middle of the mouth of the pocket.

Only the large mouth of the deployment bag has to open at a precise pull force (Newtons). That precise pull force varies widely with airspeed and canopy weight.

[JerryBaumchen 1,047]

Hi Rob,

Well put. You explained it better than I did.

Jerry Baumchen

[nigel99 143]

katzas

Anyone have any experience with the stowless bags that use magnets?
Pros, cons, problems.....anything and everything would be appreciated.

Just started using an AXE bag from downward trend. Very happy with it and I've noticed deployments are much smoother.

Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

[jurgencamps 0]

JerryBaumchen

...
I only know of two truly magnetic stowless bags. One is made in Europe and another is made is the midwestern USA....
The downside of holding the canopy into the bag with magnets is when you want to make a hop'n'pop jump. Here the magnets have to release at low speed or you will experience a bag lock.
...

I only can talk about the mpod (the one made in Europe). Never heard of a problem during hop'n'pops from the guys who uses them (me included) even with RDS and competition swooping.

However it is not a good idea to put a bigger canopy in the mpod than the canopy it was intended for.

[NickyCal 17]

I use the bag made by Seamless Rigging, completely stowless, and have had absolutely no issues with deployment, either from full altitude or on hop n' pops. in fact, last weekend we did a cross country, and so I pulled literally right off the step, and it was a beautiful smooth opening. The only thing that I am less fond of in the fully stowless bag is that you can't really muscle the canopy into submission and then rubberband it tight (packing a brand new canopy at the moment!). You actually do need to pack it properly, because the bag will only contain the pack job that you slide into it. If you are used to making a mess of it and squeezing it in with the help of the rubber bands, a stowless bag is not for you! I am s-folding my brand new canopy properly now, instead of being lazy, so it's all good.