Possible problems with the B-52 Belay Device

[snoboy]

I was playing around with the B-52 today, and may have discovered a bad design flaw that could allow you to drop a second when using the autoblock mode. We are going to investigate further, including some body weight tests, and video/pics if required.

 

Basically the problem is that the braking biner can get stuck above the "bump" on the bottom of the unit, and fail to lock. We were able to reliably duplicate this behaviour with a couple different ropes, and biners, but only while pulling on the rope, ie, not with full weight. There was still enough friction that you would probably be able to stop a person if you were holding the brake end of the rope