Telescopicing pole stop and lock mechanism?

Is this supposed to be repeatable or a one-time event where the poles extend and then lock permanently in that state? If repeatable, will it only deal with lateral forces or will there be force directly against the direction of the telescoping?

It needs to be repeatable and there will be mostly inline forces.

Can the orientation with respect to the ground change to engage the lock? I was picturing a metal ball that could roll down the shaft that would engage magnetic pins (or something like that), that could be reversed when the orientation changed and the ball rolled back to the base of the shaft or something along those lines. In this case the amount of effort by the user is minimized.

I’m not an engineer, but I’m having a hard time seeing how friction alone would work for solving this problem.

How about a sliding tube inside another tube with perforations on the sides. The inner tube can have a mechanism like the emergency brake in an elevator. The weight of the tube is enough to push a small post into one of the perforations. Lift it and the pin retracts.

@LuckyGuy – like on an adjustable crutch

@RocketGuy Yes. sort of. The pins in an adjustable crutch are pushed in from the outside against a spring to retract them. I’m thinking of the pins being retracted into the center of the inner pole by lifting inner pole and taking weight off the locking mechanism.

@Jonathan_hodgkins I’m also imagining this like a fancy camera tripod. When the camera is attached to the top, the camera body pushes a pin down that applies pressure to the locking pins. When the camera is removed the locking pins are released.
Maybe the pins can release if the pole is held sideways, and lock if held vertically. This all depends upon the application.

I’ve used gadgets with a one-way cam mechanism. They tend to be a pain because they randomly extend as you carry them around, then you have to stop and push the cam to retract it back all the way.