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CarolinaBlue

How to remove Cypres and Reserve

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I have a Odyssey J3K equipped with a Cypres 2 and Tempo 150. The rig has RSL. I have sold the Cypres to one person and the reserve to someone else. how do i remove it the "correct" way? i have removed mains before and it is pretty straight forward, but I have never messed with the other "half" of my rig. i am sure I can figure it out, but don't want to damage anything. so before I start poking around, i was wondering if someone could give me a quick run through, although it would be cool to explore......


Edited to add:
the closest rigger is 2.5 hours away and i have to ship in the next day or two.

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DON'T DO ANYTHING UNTIL A RIGGER HAS REPLIED!!!!

I remember not to long ago that someone posted about cutting the risers to get her reserve off her ex-BF's rig...probably fucked him over.

I guarantee the people who bought your Cypres and reserve will not mind waiting a day or two to ensure that their new property is disconnected correctly.

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Rigger here...

Do you have the manual for the rig?

If not, go to Sunpath's web-site, surf around until you find it and then download it or open there.

www.sunpath.com

Read the manual! ... the part on the reserve packing instructions and/or rigger's info. That should answer a lot of your questions. Basically, you're going to do a lot of what you see there in reverse.

Read all of what you're interested in BEFORE working on your rig.

Here's some motherhood from me. Please read all of it BEFORE proceeding.

But basically what you're going to do is pull that silver handle... make sure you're not pointing the business end of the reserve cap towards your cat, expensive lamp, girl friend's face, 100 gal saltwater fish tank... you get the picture.

After you've launched the reserve pilot chute, place the rig on the floor, pack tray up, carefully open the flaps and lift the reserve, still in its free-bag, out.

You'll see most of the Cypress in the bottom of the packtray. Carefully remove the Cypress from its pocket. Take care NOT TO tug on or otherwise stress ANY of the cables. There will be two cables running up a sleeve on the right hand side of the pack tray; one skinny, one fatter. The skinny-er one will go about halfway up the sleeve and come out in the middle of the pack tray and go to the cutter; the reserve loop is (or should be) through the cutter. The cutter will be held in place with a bit of elastic. Carefully take the reserve loop out of the cutter and push the cutter back through the elastic that holds it. Continue to push the cutter back down the sleeve its wire is in back down towards the Cypress box at the bottom of the pack tray; persuade it down the sleeve by pushing on the cutter and NOT by tugging on its cable until you get it free. Now to the other, fatter, wire. This goes to the Cypress control head, where you turn it on and off. The control head will be in that clear pocket at the top of the rig, on the back-pad right behind where your neck would be with the rig on, I'm sure you're familiar. Same thing. Gently pull the control head from the pocket it is in. Again, DO NOT apply any significant force on the cable. If you have to pull hard on the cable, something's wrong, STOP, and look see what (if) the control head is hung-up. You may have to massage it around to get it out of its pocket easily. Same thing as the cutter, then gently coax the control head down that black sleeve towards the bottom of the rig more my pushing on the control head and less by tugging on its cable until is free.

At no point should you have to disconnect the cutter!

Once you get the Cypress out, presuming it was in working order to begin with, you should still be able to turn it on and off. You may want to do this just to double check that its still good to go.

Now for the reserve.

Here's where it might be harder for you or not, depending on whether the reserve is attached to the reserve risers with Reserve Slinks or with Fast Links (Metal French Links). If its French Links, that pretty intuitive, a Crescent wrench or box wrench of the right size and a screwdriver to slide through the French Link so you have some leverage and all you do is loosen the barrel until you can slide them off the reserve risers. If its Reserve Slinks, I'm sorry, but explaining that in words is tough (at least for me), but hopefully you can find a picture or figure it out; either way, it will NOT involve cutting in any way, so if you get stuck, don't go for a pair of scissors!

You'll have to get the toggles off of the steering lines to get the steering lines out of the guide rings. Look in the rig's manual where it shows how to attach the reserve toggles. Then look at the toggles on your rig, unstow the toggles and do things in reverse to get the toggles off of the steering lines.

Now, for getting the reserve out of the freebag. Mind this, be VERY CAREFUL when taking the reserve lines out of the pouch they're stowed in. If you snag the reserve lines on the hook side of the Velcro that holds this pouch closed, you can damage the lines badly enough that the MIGHT need to be replaced. So, LOOK first to see what I'm talking about and then SLOWLY pull the lines from the pouch being careful not to damage them. Riggers would use what's called a Velcro protector to help, but you probably don't have one... and the lines come out of there without a Velcro protector during a reserve deployment anyway, so its not something to be really scared of, just be careful, look first.

A couple of other things...

The Freebag and Reserve Bridle / Pilot Chute stay with the container.

The Reserve toggles stay with the container.

Most folks say, the Reserve Links (Slinks or French Links) go with the Reserve Canopy. Keep the lines on the links, its a good way to keep then organized during shipping too.

The packing data card SHOULD also go with the Reserve Canopy.

Bottom line.

At no point, should you have to CUT anything to get the Cypress out of a rig and/or detach the reserve.

Also, you shouldn't have to force anything or "get a bigger hammer" to do either.

Take care with the reserve lines NOT to snag them on the hook side of the Velcro on the freebag (pocket where the lines are stowed) or the Velcro on the reserve toggles. SAFETY TIP, if you de-mate any of the Velcro, re-mate it as soon as you're done working that area so as you move on there's not un-mated hook side of the Velcro just begging to snag something.

Good luck.



If you can get Yuengling beer in South Carolina, mail me a case, care of Skydive California City. Label it NON-ALCOHOLIC BEER, otherwise the vultures will get to it before me. ;)

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First of all, thanks to all who replied in a post as well as IM's. That is one reason why I'm a skydiver.

To ZZM thank you so much. It was not hard, I just wanted to know what not to do before it was too late. The tip about the lines snaggin on the velcro, I would have never thought of. I did read the cypres user guide, but it was very basic and did not say anything other "than removing it could be done by the user and it was not difficult." I love my rigger and totally appreciate his expertise, but because of my time dilemna, I wouldn't have had a chance to get to him first.
Also, this gave me a complete understanding of my rig and how it works. Thank you again for replying and beer is on me when I'm out there again.

Word to all, your rigger does not get paid enough to take care of us the way they do. Take care of them and they will take care of you.

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>:( I'm not "people from California"... or "The People's Republic of Kalifornia", as I call it... I'm just a person living in California because this is where the work is... :(.

I grew-up in Reading, PA and went to school in State College, PA... Yes PENN STATE! :)
Of course, back in ye'ol College Days, Gennese 12 Horse Ale was my brew of choice.
;)

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Glad everything worked out. I'd also like to say thanks to ZZM because that was a great set of instructions. (Particularly liked the part about not aiming at the cat, fish tank, etc.)

I think this demonstrates how many riggers love what they do. One thing I'll offer my clients is that they can watch me repack their reserve. I remember before I ever saw a repack it all seemed like magic from behind the curtain. Just watching the first repack showed me a lot about how the whole system works.

I've heard other riggers lament about how little some skydivers know about the equipment that they depend on to save their lives. This includes an interview that Bill Booth gave.

To all, on your next repack ask your rigger if there would be enough time in their schedule to allow you to watch the repack.
Packin' Jack
42nd Lost Prairie: The Ultimate Answer to Life, the Universe, and Skydiving
25 Jul - 3 Aug 2009
2007 photos: http://www.skydive.com/prairie/pages/prairie.htm

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One thing I'll offer my clients is that they can watch me repack their reserve. I remember before I ever saw a repack it all seemed like magic from behind the curtain. Just watching the first repack showed me a lot about how the whole system works.



I'll do the same for free for similar reasons. Its a great thing to do for young skydivers once they've been in the sport for a bit and have a few jumps under their belts to where they can appreciate and undertand what's going on.

... if they want to help pack their own reserve rather then just watch... it costs extra... :P

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One thing I'll offer my clients is that they can watch me repack their reserve. I remember before I ever saw a repack it all seemed like magic from behind the curtain. Just watching the first repack showed me a lot about how the whole system works.



I'll do the same for free for similar reasons. Its a great thing to do for young skydivers once they've been in the sport for a bit and have a few jumps under their belts to where they can appreciate and undertand what's going on.

... if they want to help pack their own reserve rather then just watch... it costs extra... :P


Amen, brother - or else they have to do hours of stitch-picking.

Thanks for your excellent descriptive post that helped our guy disassemble his stuff .... and congratulations, Jarrod, for doing this yourself.
While it's not hard, it's easy to get things to the point (loose links, no daisy chain and tangled lines) where life is difficult for the next rigger to get things straightened out & assembled again :S.

Oh, and Ziggy: thanks for the help you've given us via e-mail over the years - I'll never forget how quickly you identified that old, obscure main brought to me with no ID markings that some old Air Force or Navy rigger had built in his garage or basement back in the day - and you did it just by some of the construction techniques. Like my rigger daddy DDW says, you are "Da Man."

Hell, maybe I should send you some Yeungling B|. Are you wanting lager or black & tans?

Best,
Dawn at CSS

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Oh, and Ziggy: thanks for the help you've given us via e-mail over the years - I'll never forget how quickly you identified that old, obscure main brought to me with no ID markings that some old Air Force or Navy rigger had built in his garage or basement back in the day - and you did it just by some of the construction techniques. Like my rigger daddy DDW says, you are "Da Man."




Hmmmm... thanks for the kudos, but I don't think that was me...
:S

:$



... but if you want to send me some Yeungling... I WILL LET YOU!

:)

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