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justthemaid
climber
Los Angeles
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May 27, 2007 - 05:13pm PT
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Ok Melissa- Your wish is my command.
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dirtineye
Trad climber
the south
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May 27, 2007 - 08:07pm PT
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So, a lot of you must be sitting there with your hand over your ears and eyes shouting, I can't hear you, I'm not listening.
So...
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fear
Ice climber
hartford, ct
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May 27, 2007 - 09:18pm PT
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That CCH video is about as useful as the guy wrecking his Aliens with his car...
We know a good braze is a wonderful thing.
We all know stainless steel cable is strong enough. Duh.
CCH has done nothing to address the current very real problems at their manufacturing facility.
CCH has done little to deal with the thousands of potential garbage units out there. Offering to pull test units we can send in means dick.
Let's face it. What they need is a total revamp of their manufacturing process including eliminating the error-prone braze and a modern approach to testing batches of units. Then, barring discovery of a certain cheap and certain non-destructive test, a complete and total recall and replacement of every Alien ever sold.
That's not gonna happen. It's cheaper to kill or injure a few people, sell as many as they can, and then go out of business.
Sad....
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Curt
Boulder climber
Gilbert, AZ
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May 28, 2007 - 03:42pm PT
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jstan,
I'm of the opinion that if the braze between the cable and head of a given Alien unit is good--the unit itself is also good. (not withstanding the few other known mis-drilled holes, etc....that are also out there, of course...)
That being the case, I'm also of the opinion that an x-ray analysis of those braze joints would almost certainly discover the voids that exist (as in the original photos posted by Russ) where the braze did not fully fill the cavity in the cam head. Since this technology is used to find hidden cracks in pipes, aircraft frames, etc. all the time, can you see any reason why it wouldn't be applicable here?
Curt
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rhyang
Ice climber
SJC
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posted to
http://www.aliencamsbycch.com/alien_news.html
(emphasis mine)
"The UIAA standard for testing frictional anchors(cams) is EN12276. All certification labs test cams to these standards. Testing an Alien by threading a cord under the cams and then applying force is not a valid test and it doesnt simulate use of the cam in a placement. In use, the cable eye can pivot in the direction of the force and also allow the cable stem to take the flex over its entire length With a cord under the cams and around the cable eye, the eye is twisted so that all the bending force is located at just one point: the base of the cable eye. This places undue stress at one point and can cause premature breakage, similar to placing the stem over an edge."
dated 31-May. Comments ?
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AbeFrohman
Trad climber
new york, NY
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I was a big fan of aliens, but are you really going to listen to the clowns who can't seem to build a cam about how to test a cam?
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Russ Walling
Social climber
Out on the sand.... man.....
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Topic Author's Reply - Jun 1, 2007 - 03:54pm PT
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So... pulling the head on a cam in a fairly longitudinal manner is not a valid test. I wonder if the bad braze cam I tested would have been deemed safe using some UIAA method. I would guess knott. Sounds like bunk to me.
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fear
Ice climber
hartford, ct
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CCH is smoking way too much weed. No suprise there.
Russ's 900 pound test would never, ever, ever have broken a good braze. Plus once it broke, we could all clearly see a really sh!tty braze with an improperly inserted cable (not deep enough) and about 1/2 the silver brazing material that should have been there.
Try again CCH.
Desperation is kind of funny.
-Fear
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JLP
Social climber
The internet
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He also seems to be attempting to address the Souder's Crack thing as an incorrect cam placement, with those new how-to-and-not-to diagrams.
His critique of Russ's test was a joke. Clearly, the eyelet he's wanking about isn't what failed.
I have to say I'm with most here and am not impressed either.
If this guy was a decision maker type in a larger company, he'd very likely be fired for his response to these issues.
x-rays from my doctor cost me around $50-250 each. I'm thinking as a quality control thing, it's not going to happen, and in general shouldn't be necessary. There exists a really expensive and precise way to test just about everything, but that's generally not what happens.
JLP
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dirtbagger
Ice climber
Australia
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But that responds from CCH hasn't changed our problem really, apart from telling us that we are no further in teling whether each alien we own is good or not!
I don't wanna give up using them, but not really keen to be playing russian roulette(sp?)
Russ, fear or anybody else who is an expert in testing, cam building etc got any ideas how we can move forward! How can we test our aliens so that we can tell whether they are safe or not???
There were some good ideas out there so far but am worried about weaking them during pull testing!
cheers
dirtbagger
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ramonjuan
climber
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I do Non Destructive Testing at my job and I spoke with a friend of mine who has 30 years of experiance in NDT and has been a level three in almost all the methods for 25 years. He said that the only way to perform NDT and get any results for the type and size of joint on an alien is to x ray it but that it wouldn't buy you that much in that it is very expensive and is highly likely that you could miss indications that could be defects.
This alien thing is a total quality issue. You dont see pre ultralight TCU's failing at the brazed joint.
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fear
Ice climber
hartford, ct
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I've worked with guys doing analysis of welds on very large structures. The equipment I saw (but I'm certainly not an expert) was very complicated. The output sure as hell didn't look like any medical X-ray film you might be familiar with. It took a lot of time and I'm sure cost a lot of $$$.....
Unless there's something else they could do for very small objects (and maybe there is) that would be much faster then I don't see how this kind of analysis would be cost effective for something as cheap as an Alien. I mean, we're not talking about 200' 40 ton struts holding up an oil rig in boiling seas with 100 lives at stake.
Oh wait.... All this worrying sh!t should be CCH's job... I forgot. Back to my C3's...
-Fear
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ramonjuan
climber
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Yeah the source and equiptment usen to do radiography on structures is some intense stuff and probably different from what you would use for alien parts. I have seen real time xray of aircraft parts on a conveyor belt. It was like looking through a window with x ray vision as you conrtoled how fast the part went by. This equiptment was super expensive. From what i can gather xray in this particular instance wouldn't give you the best results.
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Curt
Boulder climber
Gilbert, AZ
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I'm fairly confident that x-rays of Alien braze joints would indeed reveal if any small cracks or voids in the joint were present. The relevant questions are:
1) If no voids or cracks are found, would that categorically define a "good braze" or is there more to it?
2) Could this x-ray analysis be done for a reasonable cost?
Curt
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ramonjuan
climber
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You may be right I'm just going off what a friend told me. I trust him though he has been doing RT for 30 years. I think it would be hard to differentiate between the voids of the cable strands and a crack. As well as shadows from the voids in the cable. Its hard enough to see discontinuities in a weld witch is solid metal let alone s twisted cable the size of a pencil shoved into a tube and brazed. You would be able to see if the cable was inserted to the proper length.
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Curt
Boulder climber
Gilbert, AZ
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Well, in a properly done braze, wouldn't all those voids in the cable strands be completely filled with the silver solder? I'm under the impression that that would be the case.
Curt
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ramonjuan
climber
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I'm not posativly sure if the braze would penetrate the cable all of the way through. I do know for brazed joints there is a minimum clearance (not much but none the less) between the parts being joined to allow for capillary action to take place, wether the clearance between the individual cable strands is enough i don't know for sure but i would tend to think not. The other issue is that the different densitys of the braze the cable and the female part would probably make the xray shot a jumbled mess. Also to see if the braze bonded properly at the whole circumfence of the part you would have to pull some shenanagans (mabye multiple shots)to see everything clearly, keep in mind this is a small part to begin with. It would be interesting to see how it turned out.
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