Kite: Slingshot style active stopper ball by berryd

Last crawled date: 3 years ago

This is a stopper ball which resembles the Slingshot brand unit but has larger line holes for older bars such as the lock n load. This is esentially "cruise control" for a kite. IF IT WORKS, it will alow the user to pull the ball down and set the sheeting so that arm muscle isn't needed to keep the kite parked.
This piece is untested (I haven't even printed it yet). I don't know how well PLA will work for this, but please, do not try to use this if you are a novice, because if it fails, it could cause your safety equipment to fail. I will test it, and perhaps come up with other designs for this, but I will probably use nylon when I get that far (meaning when it gets warm enough).
Update: I did print it and it came out quite nice. I'll take a picture next time I pull my bar out. It works--too well I might add. It does not self release. Once the bar is sheeted and the ball is pulled down it will not let go without pulling the bar in a smidge first and manually pushing the ball up the line. This makes it extremely difficult to quickly sheet out the bar to handle gusts.