STERLING, VA – August 7, 2020 – Qore Performance recently released the latest addition to their IceAge Ecosystem: IcePlate Sleeve. IcePlate Sleeve replaces the popular, but now retired, IcePlace MOLLE Sleeve Flex as the accessory pouch for IcePlate Curve, the only multi-purpose cooling, heating, and hydration product available on the market.
IcePlate Sleeve uses the same proprietary laminate technology as their IcePlate EXO ultralight ventilated plate carrier. The laminate material does not stretch, is completely hydrophobic, and delivers significantly greater abrasion resistance than 500D Cordura Nylon. IcePlate Sleeve is 33% lighter than the outgoing IMS Flex.
IcePlate Sleeve facilitates native integration with the IcePlate EXO, but is also universally compatible with all plate carriers on the market. IcePlate Sleeve has a six column by seven row laser-cut MOLLE field on both faces, allowing the user to reclaim all MOLLE attachment points that the IcePlate Sleeve takes up on the plate carrier. The product also has the entire MOLLE field covered with hook tape on one side and pile on the other, allowing direct Velcro connection with loop fields on the inside or outside face of a plate carrier.
The design of IcePlate Sleeve allows it to be mounted inside a plate carrier to maximize the multiple benefits of IcePlate Curve’s thermoregulation properties. While it is possible to mount IcePlate Sleeve to nearly any carrier on the market, it optimally mounts to future-proof designs that include pile tape on the inside, which minimizes the movement of the IcePlate Curve.
As with IcePlate Exo, IcePlate Sleeve is compatible with the new right and left exit port versions of the IcePlate Curve, allowing for user-specific routing of the Source 90 Drink Tube over the left shoulder for right-handed shooters and over the right shoulder for left-handed shooters.
IcePlate Sleeve is available now in MultiCam, Black, Coyote Brown, Ranger Green, and Wolf Grey.
They release shoulder pads – Sleeves and what not!
But since their Generation 1 Plate I am a customer of them and own every Generation of Plates ( Gen. 1, 2 and 3) – yet, they do not follow my request I mailed them since day one, to please make some Swimmer Cut Plate, as well as offering more than just Size M Plates: Size S or L Plates, with differenct capacity, would be something many of my comrads ask whenever they see me wearing my IcePlates!
Also, it would be nice to just have slimmer Plates: The Generation 1 and 2 were way slimmer than the new Gen. 3 ESAPI. Carrying 2 IcePlates, in the front and back, on some LVL4 Rig is “huge”! It gets bulky this way, and is harder to use in vehicles. The previous generations have been better for this.
I hope CORE receives more customer feedback like mine, so they get motivated to offer more variants.
Thanks
Hi Sunny – Thanks for being a loyal customer and thanks for your feedback on developing other variants of the IcePlate Curve.
Other versions are in the works. I’m sure you know that manufacturing tools for each variant run in the range of several hundred thousand dollars….each. While we’d love to see every assault swimmer in a custom sized IcePlate Curve right now, the market is not quite there yet. Similarly, about 80% of the US Military wears Medium ESAPI plates. Fortunately, the IcePlate Curve can still fit very well with both large and small sized plate carriers – the differences are within an inch each way. (Obviously a medium plate won’t squeeze into a small plate bag, but the IcePlate Sleeve will allow it to connect on the inside or outside easily.)
For the dimensions – we insist on our plates being able to provide at least 70 watts of cooling power, a standard that the CDC set for cooling vest use under PPE during the Ebola pandemic in 2015. We were the only ones able to meet this standard. Anything less would prove too risky for our applications and thinner plates can’t do this.
Dimensions on the flat IcePlate Classic are 10″ wide, 12″ tall, and 1″ thick. The newer IcePlate Curve is 9.5″ wide, 12.5″ tall, and 1″ thick, and also ergonomically shaped to conform to the exact size and curvature of the ESAPI Plate, resulting in a slimmer overall operator profile.
Please keep the great feedback coming – as long as you do, we promise to keep innovating as rapidly as we can to meet the needs of all our operators.
Hello,
about your 70watt demand: To advertise them as PPE cooling vest, you may want to reach this power – but 90% of the users I know just use your plate as “hard bladder” for hydration.
If you see the Plate as just that, you do not care for cooling power or storage capacity of fluid. I never iced my plate yet, but on the other hand fill frequently some hot tea in them when we are on exercise and sleep outdoors.
Advertised as just these, they have great potential in other manufactures bags as they could appeal to the civilian/sport market for just offering hydration that stays in shape – not like all these soft bags by Source, Camelbak and other manufactures.
One last note:
I love that you went for Source accessories, but in my humble opinion you should skip using these hose lines. They taste bad – and this means they leak chemicals into the water. Your hose lines of Gen. 1 and 2. even tasted better than the newer Gen. 3, so I replaced all my hose lines with just FDA approved silicon tubes in 10x7mm (1.5mm wallthickness). If you like it stiffer, you may use 10x6mm.
Another suggestion I have would be to offer the Source Storm Valve: The Helix bite Valve tastes bad again, and can not be set open permantly:
If you use the plate for showering, like I do frequently, you want to have the Storm valve because it locks in an open position!
As I was used to the Storm valve before, because they are issued with our Source hydration bladders, I replaced all the Helix Valves of my IcePlates with them aswell.
Long Story short: I was a little bit unsatisfied to order the “Source Upgrade” but at the end replace the Valve and Hose for other products, because the one you put into the package are not fully functional.
Greetings
Hello,
one last note:
The shape of the Gen. 3 Plate pokes a bit into your upper chest, because of the curvature that ends in some sharp peak. You may want to flat this a tiny bit, even if that is only perfectioning the comfort.
Greets
If they can find a way to integrate this idea with the Mystery Ranch WildFire packs they’ll be back ordered for years.
Keep an eye out…projects are in the works! Fire retardant systems are a challenging problem, but our R&D team is on it. #StayFrosty!
Tyler, great customer engagement!!
FR for aircrew would be great!! I use gen 1 in the UK and still love them… two thoughts though
The exposed fill port and connector is really quite messy and the bend radius of hose does not tightly align down the Ice plate body side. If this could be refined the port could easily be covered by the Sleeve and hose and connector protected. the hose could then run completely internally til it exits on either shoulder… it would look far more mature,
on the Sleeve the above would also increase the available PALS grid. have you though of adding the Crye zip logic to either side of the sleeve… it would add a bunch of utility!!
looks like time to upgrade my current kit though!!!
Hi Vince,
Thanks for sharing your thoughts!
IcePlate Curve and IcePlate Sleeve are intentionally designed to expose the IceCap and Fill Ports to facilitate rapid exchange, filling and ambidextrous accessibility. Fully enclosed designs present a host of functionality and interface challenges that result in sup-optimal UX, bulky construction and necessary weight when accounting for maintenance, accessibility and ambidextrous functionality.
The hose spacing and profile are a function of the relationship between cube space constraints from profile matching, volume, cooling power requirements and universal clearance issues for anyone running IcePlate Curve in another type of carrier (generally thicker than ours).
Regarding Internal tube Routing: if you look closely at the pictures (also noted in the copy above), you’ll see we incorporated laser-cut Tube Routing Ports at the top of the IcePlate Sleeve for exactly this purpose.
Hi Vince,
Thanks for sharing your thoughts!
We intentionally exposed the Fill Ports for a number of reasons: IcePlate Curve exchange, profile, weight/bulk, ambidextrous accessibility. Fully enclosed designs, while prototyped, introduced a host of issues, all of which yielded sub-optimal UX in those areas. The drink tube clearance is dictated by profile constraints (matching geometry) coupled with requirements for cooling power, capacity and compatibility in other carrying apparatus. As for internal tube routing, IcePlate Sleeve already has this feature. If you look closely at the pictures, you’ll notice the top of IcePlate Sleeve has Laser-Cut Drink Tube Routing Ports on the top (also noted in the copy). As for the zippers, we don’t have any plans to add zipper panels because there is no industry standard right now, so it would just lead to lots of expense for all of our customers with minimal gains in functionality across all user groups due to the lack of interoperability, which is one of our fundamental design principles. Hope that helps and #StayFrosty!