News – Page 7 – Factor 55

NEW PRODUCT- LDP- Load Distribution Plate

Monday, 12 November 2018 by Factor 55

Here is the first in a series of product test videos we will be sharing in the weeks to come. Please be patient as we interpret the data that was accumulated. We performed dozens of pull tests, from simple proof loading for measuring possible permanent deformation, to ultimate failure testing. This video is one of three samples of the LDP pear hole to pear hole in line axis tests for material yielding at 10,000 pounds, 20,000 pounds and finally the ultimate failure test. We observed no permanent deformation at the 10,000 and 20,000 pound proof loads. Ultimate breaking strength of 51,000 pounds. Yes, the soft shackle was damaged in this test and was not used any further. We also performed additional LDP test pulls using the shackle pin holes as well as an off-axis pin hole to pear hole pull. We will share these videos as they are completed.

Engineered, Tested, and Made In The USA.

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SEMA 2018- 3 NEW PRODUCT AWARDS

Monday, 12 November 2018 by Factor 55

Thanks again to everyone who voted for Factor 55 this year at The SEMA Show. We are honored to receive another 3 Awards for Best Innovative Product in the off-road industry. Here’s a look at the first new product, the Load Distribution Plate- LDP. This plate will allow you to pull from multiple directions distributing those loads across the plane of the plate instead of through the body of a common screw pin shackle. More details to follow.

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Closed System Winching™

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Factor 55 Product Ideas are derived from Collaborative Efforts

Tuesday, 11 September 2018 by Factor 55

Did you know that many of the Factor 55 product ideas are derived from collaborative efforts between our engineers and other industry experts? To get products into our customer’s hands faster, we have discovered that continuous feedback from the end user during the development phase can actually accelerate the product development cycle. It also mitigates developing a product that does not fulfill it’s useful purpose.

Take a look at our two Bridle winch shackle mounts derived from collaborations from the tow truck industry, fire departments, offroad trainers, racers, and military organizations. Although most of us may never need to recover a vehicle with multiple winches or multiple pull angles, the ProLink Bridle and FlatLink Multimount products allow the user to distribute the multi-directional loads across the plane of the shackle pin mounts (Similar to tow plates for ships). The center pin mount also allows for conventional single direction pulling.

So for those of you that have been part of our principled product development approach, we thank you and look forward to future collaborations.

Designed, Engineered, and Made In The USA

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Is your Factor 55 Product Stronger with a Rope Guard?

Tuesday, 04 September 2018 by Factor 55

For those of you that are curious as to whether the addition of a Rope Guard product will add any overall strength to a FlatLink E winch shackle mount, well we tested this and there is an approximate gain in strength of 2-3000 pounds. At 42,000 pounds, the breaking strength of the FlatLink E is already overkill for winches up to 16K capacities, but for the curious, the breaking strength will approach 45,000 pounds when equipped with a riveted on Rope Guard. Compare this to a common steel hook average breaking strength in the 18-22K range and you can see that the FlatLink E is already extremely strong.

So why does the addition of the Rope Guard add strength?

The Rope Guard adds resistance to the legs of the FlatLink from splaying under extreme loading. The resistance is attributable to the added shear strength of the 4 machine posts and 4 drive rivets. Of course the real benefit of the Rope Guard is to protect the ends of synthetic winch ropes from damaging UV light and abrasion, but it’s comforting to know that the overall breaking strength also benefits from this addition. Check out the video of the destructive testing of a Rope Guard equipped FlatLink E.

Designed, Tested, and Made In The USA.

Hope everyone had a safe and adventurous Labor Day Weekend!

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Field Splice Broken Steel Winch Cable

Tuesday, 19 June 2018 by Factor 55

Here is a flashback video from our friend Keller McCowen demonstrating how to field splice a loop into the end of a broken steel cable. When most of us break a steel winch cable, we either clamp (If we have cable clamps) the end into a loop or just call it a day for the winch. Kellen shows us just how simple field splicing a steel cable can be. This is not intended to be a permanent fix for your winch cable. Like many off-road field repairs, this type of knowledge can get your winch back to being functional and your rig off of the trail.

Some call this type of cable splice a Molly Hogan, Flemish Eye, Farmer’s Eye, Maori Splice etc.. It’s clear that people call this splice method by many different names. Depending upon the industry as well as the region of the world, it may be called something different in your region.

Definitely a useful tip that could help you get off the trail.

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Closed System Winching™ Training 101st WMD Civil Support Team

Tuesday, 05 June 2018 by Factor 55

Special thanks to U.S. Army Sergeant First Class Jarrod Bunker for arranging a Closed System Winching™ training session with the National Guard’s 101st WMD (Weapons of Mass Destruction Civil Support Team). These specialized men and women of our Armed Forces (Army/Airforce) are trained to respond to any type of chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear incident – think terrorist hot zones like bomb making chemicals and materials etc..

Factor 55 was invited to explain the Closed System Winching™ technique to the group. All of their vehicles are equipped with recovery winches with capacities ranging from 16.5K to the smaller UTV 3.5K winches.

After a classroom and Q&A session, we outfitted one of their response vehicles with an UltraHook for field evaluation.

Again, thank you to all of the men and women of our Armed Forces that attended the meeting and thank you for your service. All of our communities are safer because of highly trained service members like these.

Engineered, Tested, and Made In The USA

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U.S. Army | US Airforce | U.S. Marine Corps | U.S. Navy | U.S. Coast Guard

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Factor 55 Rope Guards

Friday, 25 May 2018 by Factor 55

From our friends at GenRight Off Road. Between the Ultra4 Racing circuit and hard core trail wheeling, the guys at GenRight certainly put offroad parts to the ultimate test. Take a look at their FlatLink E with Rope Guard on the front of the Terremoto JK. This is a great example of how the Rope Guard is supposed to function. As you can see, although the Rope Guard is scraped up from impacts, the synthetic rope thimble and rope is completely protected behind the Rope Guard. Think of the Rope Guard as a consumable skid plate for the front of your winch line. It will protect the end of your synthetic line not only from offroad impacts, but also from oncoming freeway road debris and damaging UV light (Yes the drum of rope should also be covered when the winch is not in use).

For you rock crawlers, if you ever wear the Rope Guard thin, simply drill out the rivets and install another one.

This brings us to the subject of available colors for the Rope Guard. Some of you have asked why we don’t offer the Rope Guard product in various colors. Well this picture explains this well. A skid plate designed for scraping is best left to the color of the underlying material. In this case aluminum.

As an employer of Veterans and manufacturer of USA Made products we salute all soldiers past and present, thank you for your service and sacrifice. For all of you wheeling this weekend, have a safe and enjoyable Memorial Day weekend and remember those who gave all for our freedoms.

Products derived from science and facts.

Designed, Tested, and Made in The USA.

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Synthetic Rope Breakage

Monday, 23 April 2018 by Factor 55

TBT to synthetic rope breakage. MYTH: Synthetic winch rope falls to the ground when it breaks. Well, the truth is, sometimes it does and sometimes it doesn’t. This video was sent to us from our friend and GenRight Off Road Ambassador Jeff Perkins. In this particular case, the synthetic winch rope broke suddenly without warning and the recoil was significant. Sure, there is less energy stored when compared to a steel cable, but you still would not want get hit with this rope.

The mode of synthetic winch rope failure is uncertain. At times it can fail by sequential strand failures. In a sequential failure, as each one of the individual strand fails, a small portion of the overall stored energy is released from the system. As this type of failure mode continues, energy is released in steps over time until there is little energy stored in the system and the final strand finally fails and the rope drops to the ground. The problem is that there is no way to predict that this mode of rope failure will occur versus a more dangerous sudden catastrophic rope failure.

A sudden winch rope failure is quite possible, especially if the winch line is either shock loaded, or in this case the rope may have been overstressed by an undersized corner radius on the fairlead, or the rope possibly contacted a small burr on the fairlead. Regardless of the cause, it’s important to play it safe and plan for the sudden failure and recoil of the rope. What’s the take away here? Be cautious and don’t count on a sequential rope fiber failure, use a rope damper, and stay away from the recoil danger zone.

So do any of you have any experience with winch rope failure? Sequential or sudden?

Engineering Facts Matter

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How strong is the steel cable (wire rope) that comes with your winch?

Wednesday, 11 April 2018 by Factor 55

How strong is the steel cable (wire rope) that comes with your winch?… Not very.

It turns out that there is little margin of safety with steel cable equipped winches. Why is this? Unlike the lifting industry, the recreational pulling industry is unregulated, consequently winch manufacturers typically equip winches with steel cables with minimum breaking strengths that are very close to the max winch capacities. The lifting industry requires a 5:1 safety factor due to the overhead dangers. The pulling industry does not. In fact many steel equipped winches possess a safety factor of less than 1.5!

Take for instance common 5/16 steel cable supplied on most winches up to 10K capacities. The working load limit (WLL) on common 5/16 steel cable is only 2000 pounds. The minimum breaking strength is approximately 10K pounds. So in many cases a 10K winch can be supplied with a steel cable with a minimum breaking strength of 10K. Take a look at the steel cable writeup from our friend Tyler at Roundforge (Roundforge.com) for more comprehensive data on steel cable types and classes.

One of the reasons that cable failures are relatively infrequent is mostly due to vehicle recoveries being in the 4-5k pulling load range, well below the cable breaking strength. Also, often times steel cables can possess ultimate strengths above the minimum breaking loads. So what’s the takeaway here? Due to the little margin of safety in steel cables, make sure you properly maintain the cable and be on the lookout for weakening factors like kinks, broken wires etc., and when possible use a snatch block to reduce the cable load.

Yes, we often end up breaking wire rope slings during the pull testing of our products.

Picture supplied by our friend James Pickard. James snapped his steel cable while using the UltraHook. The UltraHook possesses a breaking strength of 31,000 pounds(hook opening) to 48,000 pounds(shackle pin mount). Engineering facts matter.

Factor 55 – Engineered, Tested, and Made in USA

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EMC Line Up at King of the Hammers 2018

Tuesday, 06 March 2018 by Factor 55

Are Factor 55 parts really tested and evaluated in racing applications? You bet. And we are not just talking about 1 or 2 sample parts. Take a look at the short video we shot of the front of race cars while walking through the starting lineup of the 4500 and 4800 class at the recent King of The Hammers race.

This year we simply couldn’t keep count of all of the race cars running our safer Closed System winch hardware. We knew the drop off at Back Door could pose serious damage to the exposed ends of synthetic winch ropes so we attempted to install as many Rope Guards as possible but we unfortunately missed out on many of the race cars.

We mentioned this before, nobody abuses winch hardware as much as Ultra4 racers do. If it can survive Ultra4, it can certainly survive anything that a weekend warrior can dish out.#aluminumandtitaniumforthewin #Engineeringfactsmatter

Factor 55 – Engineered and Made In The USA

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