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MtnGearCEO
Trad climber
Spokane, wa
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Topic Author's Original Post - Feb 15, 2011 - 05:10pm PT
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Attention Climbers:
I’d like to alert you of a problem we found today with DMM Dragon Cams. Several DMM Dragon Cam #5 in our inventory have cracks in the aluminum axle boss. These are cracks radiating from where the stem lug is pressed into the aluminum and are visible from the top of the cam as well as the underside. This issue was identified and addressed in an earlier recall by DMM but was thought to be specific to the dragon Cam #6 only. Due to the similar manufacturing and material similarities in the #4 and #5, we would advise to stop all use of Dragon Cams #4 and #5 immediately until further notice. There is an image attached that is representative of our findings. We have not tested the "cracked or uncracked cams but would assume all to be suspect until further notice. The Cams smaller than #4 use a different material and we have not heard of any problems with them.
We are working with DMM and their US distributor – Excalibur to determine the scope of the problem but wanted to inform the climbing community as soon as possible of this potential safety issue. Please share this with friends who may have Dragon Cams in their racks. I expect DMM will post more information soon.
Paul Fish
Mountain Gear, Inc
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Moof
Big Wall climber
Orygun
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Feb 15, 2011 - 05:17pm PT
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Thanks for the heads up!
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mucci
Trad climber
The pitch of Bagalaar above you
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Feb 15, 2011 - 05:18pm PT
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JINGUS!!!!
China is sitting pretty right now.
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Bad Acronym
climber
Little Death Hollow
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Feb 15, 2011 - 06:26pm PT
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Feck, maybe Donini will want my #5.
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bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, CA
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Feb 15, 2011 - 06:37pm PT
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Thanks for the heads up, Paul! I buy almost all my gear from you guys. Great service you guys provide.
Thanks!
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adatesman
climber
philadelphia, pa
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Feb 15, 2011 - 06:41pm PT
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Thanks Paul!
BTW, if you ever run across something like this again feel free to drop me a line.... I've been making an archive for gear warnings/recalls over on the Gear Recalls Page at TheClimbingLab.com as it strikes me odd that no one has bothered to put together a central repository for this sort of thing. I've gotten every one I've heard of in the past couple years, but if there's any others feel free to let me know (or register and add it yourself in a non-pimping-my-site kind of way; just looking to get the info out there and couldn't care less about page views).
-aric.
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matty
Trad climber
under the sea
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Feb 15, 2011 - 06:54pm PT
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Ha! Some people made a big stink about DMM being superior because they don't outsource to China...
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couchmaster
climber
pdx
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Feb 15, 2011 - 07:06pm PT
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Paul Fish at Mountain Gear was the one who really got the Colorado Custom Hardware (CCH) folks to look at their Alien issues when, based on a few internet reports of failures that the CCH company said were fallacious, he took some off of his shelf and had them tested out of his own pocket.
He still gets business from me due to this single thing. Thanks for that, thanks for this Paul.
DMM has an excellent track record and makes high quality products, unlike some of the Alien issues, this should be fixed and jumped on stat. I personally think the Camalot is a better cam (not just better for the money but just better), but that's me and neither here nor there. I still love everything else DMM makes.
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Anastasia
climber
hanging from a crimp and crying for my mama.
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Feb 15, 2011 - 07:14pm PT
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I own a whole set of DMM(s). Sorry, didn't get the memo that I had to be a Limey.
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Jaybro
Social climber
Wolf City, Wyoming
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Feb 15, 2011 - 07:23pm PT
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Anybody talk to Petro about this?
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bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, CA
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Feb 15, 2011 - 07:26pm PT
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Ha! Some people made a big stink about DMM being superior because they don't outsource to China...
I was one of those. I'll withhold judgement until they determine how this happend.
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adatesman
climber
philadelphia, pa
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Feb 15, 2011 - 09:36pm PT
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He still gets business from me due to this single thing. Thanks for that, thanks for this Paul.
+1 on that. He had my business long before this, but this pretty much set it in stone.
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cragnshag
Social climber
san joser
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Feb 15, 2011 - 09:39pm PT
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Perhaps send some of these defective cams to Banquo for pull testing in the lab. He likes to break stuff.
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Anastasia
climber
hanging from a crimp and crying for my mama.
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Feb 15, 2011 - 10:04pm PT
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Ha! Limeys and Greek climbers... Not bad since we actually do share a good sense of humor and a limited sense for self preservation. :)
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Khoi
climber
Vancouver, BC
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Feb 16, 2011 - 03:19pm PT
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DMM has posted an official announcement. For more details on the recall, and to see if your #4 and/or #5 Dragons are affected by the recall, go to their website.
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Bad Acronym
climber
Little Death Hollow
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Feb 16, 2011 - 04:11pm PT
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Gene, thanks for the link - looks like my #4 & #5 are headed back to Wales for some reassembly.
Thanks to Paul Fish for the vigilance, and DMM as well for addressing the defect so quickly. I have hung off this gear on multipitch belays, after all.
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le_bruce
climber
Oakland: what's not to love?
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Feb 16, 2011 - 06:24pm PT
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The people at DMM have to be asking themselves why one of their retailers was quicker to let us know about this than they were? It's not like ST.com is some backwater in the climbing community, is it? If you're DMM, why not take the time to put the word out in the obvious places as soon as you know about it?
For the health of their company - not to mention the health of their customers - shouldn't they be doing a full court press on this problem, including in the very least posting to the most obvious and relevant web sites? How much effort does that take? What consideration could come before customers' safety, especially when it lines up with your company's reputation?
This sounds accusatory, I know.
Thanks to the OP, big time - you've got my future business. Whatever DMM's thinking was, yours seems clear and focused.
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Gene
climber
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Feb 16, 2011 - 06:37pm PT
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The people at DMM have to be asking themselves why one of their retailers was quicker to let us know about this than they were?
Answer: 8 hour time difference.
Paul @ Mountain Gear gave us the warning at 2:10 p.m. yesterday. That’s after 10 p.m. in Wales. See OP. I assume that Paul didn't know about the issue more than a few hours before he posted.
Last night (15th Feb 2011) DMM received information from a U.S retailer regarding size 5 (Blue) Dragon Cams. From DMM Link: http://www.dmmclimbing.com/dragonrecall45.asp?l=en
Seems to me that Mountain Gear found the flaw, contacted DMM after DMM's business hours, and DMM addressed the issue immediately this morning.
Fast response all around! Appears to have been done in darn near real-time. Well done MG & DMM.
EDIT: Maybe we knew about it before DMM.
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mucci
Trad climber
The pitch of Bagalaar above you
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Feb 16, 2011 - 06:41pm PT
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That picture in the OP, of the defective cam is proof that QC at Dmm is as shotty as it was in CCH.
I don't see this sh#t with BD, even the *gasp* ones made in chinatown.
The fact they let cams like that slip by, then not be the first to mention publicly that there is a problem?
B. FUKING S.
They are in a full sprint, backwards right now.
You guys can keep the pasty fat women, and your busted ass dragon cams on that side of the pond.
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