Field of -the invention

The present invention generally relates to a safety system with two carabiners to be hung to a belay element and in particular to carabiners for such a system.

Summary

It is the object of the invention to provide a carabiner for a safety system with two carabiners to be hung to a belay element for climbing purposes, in so-called adventure parks or in general, but not only, works on civil structures or works requiring usually safety ropes, wherein one of the carabiners cannot be opened and disengaged from the belay element if the second carabiner is not closed on a belay element, in order to prevent both carabiners from being disengaged simultaneously from a belay element, thereby the user of the system might for whatever reason to get detached from a belay element and fall down.

The safety system, which foresees the use of carabiners to be hung to a belay element in various uses, substantially comprises two carabiners, in accordance with the present invention, connected to each other by a short length of an inextensible cable such that the open part or mouth of a carabiner to disengage it from a belay element causes the other carabiner to be surely closed, so that there will be a carabiner always hung to the belay element, such as, for example, a piton secured to a face to be climbed, to a fixed cord of an iron way or a route with facilities in an adventure park, or an any fixed element of a scaffolding or the like, all as generally defined in claim 1 and in further details in the dependent claims thereon.

The invention will be disclosed hereinafter in detail in respect to an exemplary, but not limitative, embodiment, referring to the attached drawings, wherein:

Figure 1 is a perspective view of a single carabiner according to the present invention, the second carabiner being almost the same as the first one;

Figure 2 is an elevation side and partially in cross-section view of a pair of carabiners, one carabiner being open and the other carabiner being closed, connected to each other by an inextensible cable inserted in a dimensionally unchangeable sheath, all of which seated in a connection yoke to be hung to the personal safety belt of the user;

Figure 3 is a side view, partially in cross- section, of the same pair of carabiners in a first starting condition wherein both carabiners are closed;

Figure 4 is a side view, partially in cross- section, of the same pair of carabiners in a second condition wherein the first carabiner is open and the second is closed;

Figure 5 shows a side view, partially in cross- section, of the same pair of carabiners in a third condition wherein the first carabiner is closed and the second is open.

Referring to the several Figures, the structure of each of the two carabiners, denoted by A and B, will be now disclosed. Each carabiner is made of a C- shaped body 6. According to the invention, the two carabiners are supplemented by a L-shaped balancing lever 3, pivoted at 8, adapted to close the open part or mouth of the carabiner. Just above the end of the longer arm 3" of the balancing arm 3 at a basically vertical position (carabiner A in Fig. 3) a L-shaped turnstile 5 pivoted at 21 is angularly rotatable in two positions at 90° to each other. The turnstile 5 is kept in each of the two positions, acting as a mechanical memory, by a resilient dragging blade 17 sliding, with a frictional action on the turnstile 5, at an elbow formed by the junction of the two arms 5', 5" thereof, and it lies within one of the two notches or flats 18 provided in said two possible operative positions.

In the lower part of the C-shaped body 6 a hole 7 is provided for coupling to arms 20' and 20" of a connection element 20 of the two carabiners which is in turn connectable to the personal safety belt worn by a user. Inside said connection element 20 there is a dimensionally unchangeable tubular sheath 4 in which an inextensible element is seated and slides, such as a cable 4', preferably of metal, of the kind used for example for bicycle brakes. Both the sheath 4 and the cable 4 ' connect the two carabiners A, B to each other so that both the carabiners are prevented from being simultaneously at an opening position.

The balancing lever 3 of each carabiner is pivoted at 8 on the enlarged lower part of the body 6 of each of the two carabiners A, B at the joint point of the two arms 3', 3" thereof so that it may swing from an open position to a closed position of the carabiner and vice versa. The external end of the shorter arm 3' of the balancing lever 3 of each of the carabiners A and B is connected to said cable 4 ¹ , which connects the balancing levers 3 of the two carabiners A and B to each other.

At the lower part of the body of each of the carabiners an open downwardly cavity 11 is formed, said cavity being closed by a bored cap 14 screwed in the thread 15. Through the hole of said bored caps 14 the metal cable 4' can slide.

Only in one of said carabiners, for example the carabiner B in Figure 3, said cavity houses a cylindrical compression spring 10 which presses, on the top, against the shoulder 16 formed by the top external end of said cavity 11 and, on the bottom, by a vertically reciprocating bored piston 9, said compression spring 10 being wound around the stem 9' of piston 9. said cable 4' passes through said piston 9 and its stem 9'. In the other carabiner, for example, the carabiner A, neither the spring 10 nor the piston 9, 9' are provided.

One end of the dimensionally unchangeable sheath 4 is rigidly attached to the cap 14 of a carabiner, for example carabiner A, and the other end is connected to the piston 9 of the other carabiner, for example carabiner B.

The swinging movement of the balancing lever 3 between its two opening and closing positions is achieved due to the fact that each carabiner is provided with a actuation handle 1, pivoted on the carabiner body, which is susceptible of an angular swinging movement. Such a handle 1 is provided of a pin 2 suitable to slide within a guiding slit 13 formed in the carabiner body. When the handle 1 of one of the carabiners, for example carabiner A, is clasped in the hand of the user, causing a partial penetration thereof into the carabiner body, the pin 2 moves upwards and rightwards in the inclined guiding slit 14, as shown in Figure 4, and such a movement of the pin 2 causes the respective balancing lever 3 to rotate in anti-clockwise direction, causing the opening of the carabiner A and a drawing action upwards of the cable 4 ' within the body of such carabiner so that the cable 4' slides within the sheath 4. Since the sheath 4 has one of its ends fixedly locked at the cap 14 of carabiner A, consequently the other end thereof, coupled to the piston 9 of carabiner B, will move upwards within the body of carabiner B, i.e. within cavity 11, in order to accommodate the movement of cable 4 ' within the carabiner A and keep the respective lengths of both the cable 4 ¹ and the sheath 4 unchanged, thereby the spring 10 of carabiner B is compressed. These movements invert when the handle 1 of the carabiner B is clasped.

In the several views, by C a safety cord or any other safety belay element, such as pitons, rings, rails and the like, is denoted.

The operation of such a safety system is as follows .

STEP 1 (Figure 3)

Let's assume both carabiners are hung on a safety cord C. Under such a condition, in both carabiners A and B the pins 2 are in a lowered position, the balancing levers 3 close the carabiners, and the spring 10 of carabiner B is in an expanded condition. The resilient dragging blade 17, resting in one of its notches 18, will keep the turnstile 5 in the position it has assumed.

STEP 2 (Figure 4)

The subsequent operation to be carried out will be the detaching of the carabiner A from the belay element C. To do this, a clamping action (as it happens when actuating pliers are actuated) is performed on the handle 1 of carabiner A, thereby the respective pin 2 moves upwards and rightwards, causing the balancing lever 3 to rotate anticlockwise in the opening position. By keeping the handle 1 of carabiner A clasped, the carabiner A is lifted upwards so the safety cord C presses downwards on the arm 5" of turnstile 5 which rotates clockwise, bringing the arm 5' into a horizontal position and the arm 5" into a vertical position with the coming of cord C out of carabiner A. The upper end 19 of the balancing lever is slightly concave, so it carefully engages the rounded part of hub 22 of turnstile 5, thereby locking the balancing lever 3 in the opening position since the turnstile 17 is retained in the reached position by the resilient dragging blade 17 engaging one of the notches 18 offset by 90° in respect to each other.

Carabiner B remains closed, since the revolving movement of the balancing lever 3 of carabiner A has caused the sheath 4 to move up again within the housing cavity of piston 9 with a resulting compression of the spring 10.

STEP 3 (Figure 4)

At this point the carabiner A is open, detached from the safety cord C and ready to be hung to the latter in a subsequent point whereas the carabiner B is still hung on the safety cord C (fig. 4) . Therefore, during the carabiner A re-hanging step, the open part or mouth of carabiner A is brought in front of the safety cord C and then it is lowered. This causes the turnstile 5 to be rotated anticlockwise, whereby its arm 5' is brought into a vertical position whereas its arm 5" is brought into a horizontal position, disengaging the arm 3" of the balancing lever 3, as it can be seen in Figure 3. The balancing lever 3 of the carabiner A reaches a closing position and the handle 1 automatically snaps in the released position (Figure 3) .

STEP 4 (Figure 5)

At this point, with the carabiners A and B

(Figure 3) hung on the safety cord, the carabiner B may be opened in order to displace it at another position (Figure 5) . In order to do this, the handle 1 of carabiner B is clasped, consequently its pin 2 moves upwards and rightwards in the guiding slit 13, the balancing lever 3 angularly rotates anticlockwise thus causing the opening of the carabiner B. Consequently a traction is performed by the shorter arm 3' of its balancing lever 4' so that the sheath 4 moves up within the cavity 11 of carabiner B and its spring 10 is compressed. Under this condition, still with the carabiner A hung to the safety cord, the open carabiner B may be detached from the safety cord C and hung to another engagement point on the safety cord C with the turnstile 5 rotating anti-clockwise as previously explained in respect to the carabiner A. As a result the balancing lever of the carabiner B rotates clockwise to the closing position, the handle 1 automatically moves to the releasing position, with consequent moving downwards and leftwards of the pin 2 within the guiding slit 13, expansion of the spring 10, lowering of the piston 9, elimination of the tension on the cable 4 ¹ and returning to the condition illustrated in Figure 3.

These operations are repeated to disengage and re-engage the two carabiners, being sure that a carabiner is always hung to the safety cord or any other safety element at any time.

It is intended that since an exemplary, but not limitative, embodiment has been herein disclosed, the present invention may be undergone to a number of modifications and variants, all of which fall within the inventive concept expressed in the appended claims, whereas the technical details may vary according to particular needs and the state of the art .