Drop 40L Backpack Designed by Dan Durston Discussions | Drop

Click to view our Accessibility Statement or contact us with accessibility-related questions

Free Standard Shipping in the US on orders over $99

Showing 1 of 241 conversations about:

Drop 40L Backpack Designed by Dan Durston

FULL DISCUSSION

HansDan

Jul 23, 2019

How does the vx fabric of this pack compare to dyneema? For example how does this bag compare to hyperlite mountain gear?

Jul 23, 2019

Vote

dandurston

5116

Dan Durston

Jul 23, 2019

HansDanThis pack uses VX21 (green) and VX07 (light grey) from X-Pac, which are composite fabrics (sandwiches) with a face fabric of 210D nylon or 70D nylon, followed by a waterproof plastic layer, and then protected inside by a woven layer of 50D polyester. DCF like HMG is using is also a sandwich but with 70D polyester on the outside, interlaid dyneema strands (not woven) below that, and then a layer of plastic on the inside. The materials we are using are easily more abrasion and puncture resistant because we have heavier (210D) material in the high wear areas (e.g. back, bottom, side pockets) and only 70D in the more protected areas (the light fabric), whereas Hybrid DCF has 70D face fabric everywhere. It's not quite that simple because there are other factors too like cire coatings, threadcount etc, but fabric denier gives a pretty good idea of its robustness. Dyneema gets a lot of hype for being strong, but in hybrid DCF the dyneema strands are inside the sandwhich (where they don't help with abrasion) and not woven (so they don't help with puncture resistance). The dyneema does help with the tear strength but it's not much of a concern with packs because abrasion and punctures are the main problems, and any fabric strong enough for that is going to have pretty good tear strength. Also, the high tear strength of hybrid DCF is offset by it's lower puncture resistance, since tears usually only happen after a puncture. I once put a 5" rip in a hybrid DCF pack after falling on a sharp branch. If the fabric had higher puncture resistance, the tear wouldn't have happened. The waterproof layer is X-Pac is also much more durable because it is protected by additional woven layer inside (whereas the internal plastic of DCF is exposed and can be damaged by sharp objects in the pack), and because it is thicker plastic (0.25 mil vs 0.08 mil). One advantage to the DCF is that because the plastic is exposed it can be seam taped to be more waterproof, whereas you'd have to seam seal this pack. But the flip side of that is greater longevity of this plastic layer since it is protected. The inside of a HMG pack usually looks pretty haggard after 200 days of use. So to sum it up, this pack requires user seam sealing to match the waterproofness of an HMG pack, but has superior durability in terms of the face fabric (better abrasion and puncture resistance) and of the inner plastic (since it's protected).

(Edited)

Jul 23, 2019