New tent by Locus Gear

[Giddy_up]

New tent based on the Bibler design, weighing in at under 900gms. Reported to be made out of breathable Cuben!




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[andrewa]

I realise that this is a very functional design from the point of view of wind, but the lack of door covering is a real "downer" for me...I know that this one has a token cover, but I'd rather have a proper vestibule and another 300g.

Interesting to see whether breathable cuben works like this, or whether it has the same issue as goretex, if there isn't enough heat gradient across it to allow the vapour through ( which I suspect may be the issue). I have a breathable cuben jacket from Z packs which is great, but I'm now starting to understand the design basis for Z packs cuben hexamids with mesh floor - the condensation runs down the inside, and out through the mesh, rather than onto the sewn in floor.

I'm thinking that ultimate winter tent for me might be a bomb proof cuben outer, with vestibule, and allowance for condensation to leave around the lower edges.

A

[Giddy_up]

I have a Solplex and the moisture does the same, down the walls and out through the mesh. I so want a Cuben free standing tent and I agree about the vestibule. We need someone to work out a way to do a Hilleberg Soulo type tent in Cuben and get the weight down under a kilogram, preferably under 500gms


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[GPSGuided]

That silvery bit above the entrance seemed to be the start of something. An extendable vestibule?

[davidf]

Whats the linkto the tent, it is not on the site. How much?

[Giddy_up]

No price yet, still in testing phase. Here are some details:

Djedi Dome
Length 230 cm
Width 130 cm
Height 105 cm
Weight 850 gms (with Easton carbon poles)
2 person 4 season
Fully bonded construction with no seams except around the zipper.


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[Giddy_up]

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[Franco]

As mentioned by Giddy up, the tent is pretty much a copy of the original Todd Bibler I tent.
(I for Impotent a play on the Nicolai designed Omnipotent...)
The original I tent had a closeable side tunnel vent .
(Todd Tex (Gore Tex) was also meant to be breathable..)
Looked like the Integral Design version :

except the vent was on the left panel .

It was designed to give climbers an alternative to a bivy NOT as a backpacking tent.
(one of the reasons why the poles are on the inside. Drop the tent, get inside out of the weather , put the poles in place...)
BTW, just as I don't get why people use this kind of tent for 3 season backpacking I also don't get using a bivy for the same purpose...

[Orion]

I thought ToddTex was distinct from Goretex?

I have several tents in this design (original Bibler, North Face and Black Diamond) and use them for both summer and winter travel. I think it's a great design. A friend of mine also has several and swears by them.

Last winter ski trip:


That tent opens on the side but otherwise it's the same single-wall, internal two-pole design. It's very roomy for it's size and small footprint. My wife and I did a 3 week backpack trip with that tent. It's our first choice for summer backpacking in California (not in Tasmania).

The lack of a vestibule can be an issue sometimes. Although it is possible to simply close it up for cooking it can be problematic getting in and out if there is precipitation. In California that's less of an issue but it can still be a problem.

On some trips we take a clip-on vestibule. You can buy them for the Black Diamond/Bibler tents but they're kind of overkill. I sewed my own and it weighs ~200g. Here's a shot I took of it (opened up so it's kind of slack) when I got out one night for a pee during a late season hail/snow storm:



The original Black Diamond Firstlight (circa 2007?) weighed about 1500g so a 900g tent is a big weight savings. Durability of the Cuben is of course a question. The original Epic fabric of the Firstlight (and Lighthouse tent in the photo above) had some detractors. BD has since switched to the somewhat heavier NanoShield fabric) but we've had no issues with our tent. But it is obviously fragile and requires some care. I would suspect that a Cuben tent would be fragile as well -- maybe more so?

It's part of the current trend though: lighter, more expensive and shorter product life.

[Franco]

I thought ToddTex was distinct from Goretex?
It was just another play on words by Todd Bibler (Gore Tex = Todd Tex)
The Todd Tex fabric was identical to the one previously used by Early Winters ,first in the Light Dimension from 1976.
I am not sure if the Early Winters ones had the fuzzy coating underneath (by Nextec) but otherwise if you Google "Early Winters tents" you will see the same yellow and green fabric used by Bibler (as well as a blue one)

[Orion]

I googled a bit. Here's what I read:

"ToddTex is a proprietary membrane like Gore-Tex that was originally developed by Todd Bibler"
"Bibler did his own propriortary laminate very similar to Gore-Tex"

That sounds like it isn't exactly the same as GoreTex just very much like GoreTex. That could mean slightly different properties. The anecdotal reports I remember were that ToddTex single wall tents were more breathable than GoreTex ones. I don't know if that's really true; I never owned a GoreTex tent myself. Maybe the difference was just in name and where it was manufactured despite the consensus of opinions.

Whatever WPB laminate (I forget what it was called) North Face used in their 1990s single wall tents seemed less breathable to me (more condensation than in my Bibler).

[Stew63]

I've got 2 new very similar shaped pop-up tents albeit in a cheap chinese nylon from alibaba just for summer/beach use for the kids in a caravan park.
The problem lies with the shape and design of the sloping sides/door and will be the same problem with any other fabric.
Providing there's no precipitation at all it will be fine however as soon as there's any rain/snow on the fabric of the door (either static or dynamic) - on opening the door -
all the water is immediately chanelled/pours into the tent - worse when it's a small tent with sleeping mats/bags/packs/shoes close to the entrance!
If there is a substantial vestibule/beak this shouldn't be an issue.

[Franco]

As I stated the Green and Yellow GoreTex Early Winters colours are identical to the Green and Yellow ToddTex ones.
Could be a coincidence...

[Orion]

Could be a coincidence...

Yeah, it could be... or maybe they were the same. Who knows? Somebody, but not us.

Just an interesting historical tidbit.

[Mark F]

Occasionally the same proprietary fabric appears with multiple names. This may be to:
1. Differentiate a manufacturers product from other manufacturers using the same fabric. Eg Terra Nova has a different name for Cuben.
2. By renaming the fabric the product performance liability held by the manufacturer of the fabric becomes the responsibility of the manufacturer of the product but the fabric is considerably cheaper. Think goretex who have a product performance guarantee that must be quite costly to operate.

[Orion]

Mark, I understand that. But it doesn't answer the question.

From what I've read at some point Gore stopped licensing their GoreTex for tents because of the fire retardant laws for tents that began popping up in a number of the U.S. states in the 1970s. Whether Bibler then used an unbranded GoreTex, made their own functionally identical version or made their own version that was measurably different in performance -- that's the question.

So complicating the issue is the timeline. Early Winters may have used "Gore" GoreTex in their early tents. Maybe Bibler did too. But at some point they couldn't do it anymore. So out came ToddTex which is either unbranded GoreTex or something like GoreTex.

What does Black Diamond sell today? They still call it ToddTex:

ToddTex is totally waterproof, windproof, and the most breathable of all
waterproof/breathable fabrics—far more breathable than other companies’
single-wall tent fabrics, while also being more waterproof.

link

You'd think that if Gore was selling unbranded GoreTex to Black Diamond they might sell it to other tent manufacturers as well.

Our Bibler was purchased as used gear so no issue with the law. My North Face tent I bought from the manufacturer so it must be treated with fire retardant. My Black Diamond Lighthouse is Epic fabric and not treated. When I bought it in 2008 it wasn't possible to order it from Black Diamond and have it shipped to California. Local retailers couldn't sell it to me either. So I bought one from a store in Nevada on the long drive home from a climbing trip to Utah. When I got home I discovered it was missing poles and had clearly been used before! So I returned it to a local branch of that store chain. Then I found out I could order one from an out of state third party retailer. A loophole in the system.

Does Australia have similarly retarded retardant laws for tents?

[Franco]

Does Australia have similarly retarded retardant laws for tents?
Not that I know of.
When Paddy Pallin (a local chain store) were selling Bibler and Black Diamond I am pretty sure they were not fire retardant treated.

[Stew63]

Got an email from Yuki yesterday. They have now added the option of red in cubenfibre - although it cones out as looking more like a pink. So they now have the choice of white, black (grey), red (pink).

[mtrain]

Re the Todd tex. when I worked in paddy pallin I asked the gore rep about the difference between Todd tex and gore tex and he said that Todd tex was the same materials as the first gen gore product namely Ptfe laminated to face fabric. He claimed the ten year patent had run out and gore weren't interested as they had newer better products. He claimed that gore had improved the bonding technique whic made the newer generations of gore tex more breathable.
The fuzzy nexus lining helps with condensation issues by trapping air next to the fabric therefore spreading the temperature differential between inside and out a little bit. It also soaks up a bit of the condensation so it doesn't run down the walls.
Some of the early gen Goretex had similar linings.
Just as an aside gore is a huge company and Goretex is a small percentage of their business. The Teflon product gets use in medical technology as replacement veins etc. also in electronic cables and lots of other mainstream products.