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Captain...or Skully
Social climber
North of the Owyhees
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Jun 11, 2009 - 12:09pm PT
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Adatesman....That "yeesh" was at the sight of those failed stems.
CCH really needs to get their collective shizz in order, or they too will fade away.
Gracias'.
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Greg Barnes
climber
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Jun 11, 2009 - 01:06pm PT
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couchmaster, obviously mis-drilled holes don't immediately keep a cam from working, just from working as designed. I imagine the physics gets pretty complicated pretty fast, especially with various locations for the axle centers, plus soft lobes like Aliens have. It would be interesting to see an analysis of how a cam would work with holes misdrilled such as shown above.
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adatesman
Trad climber
philadelphia, pa
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Jun 11, 2009 - 01:16pm PT
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Actually there's a thread about it over on RC with all sorts of pics: Link
Its easy enough to run a pic of your cam through John Field's Cam Fitter software and then plot out the effective cam angles at any point. Where it gets complicated is when you start taking into account lobe softness and axle deformation...
The info for the mangled Clear I posted above is all here, but to save you the trouble...
Effective Cam Angle at Various Positions:
-Red: 16 + 7.0 = 23 Degrees
-Purple (where tested): 16 + 1 = 17 Degrees
-Yellow: 16 – 5.0 = 11 Degrees
-Blue: 16 – 9.0 = 7 Degrees
EDIT- Sorry, keep forgetting ST doesn't automatically downsize pics.
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Greg Barnes
climber
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Jun 11, 2009 - 02:01pm PT
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Tried logging in to that site to check out the program, but after a bunch of tries, all ending with this error, I've given up:
An error occurred in the script
Need to login or create new user
Anyway, not sure how well it would work when the cams are worn:
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adatesman
Trad climber
philadelphia, pa
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Jun 11, 2009 - 03:16pm PT
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Red: 16 + 12.6 = 28.6 Degrees
Yellow: 16 + 3.6 = 19.6 Degrees
Blue: 16 - 2.9 = 13.1 Degrees
BTW, the options I used for this were "Use Edited Points" and "Show Raw Edge Points".
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Ain't no flatlander
climber
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Jun 11, 2009 - 03:54pm PT
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Relax Squishy, the testing doesn't show what he thinks. It was pointed out long ago that the UIAA test (that he wasn't actually using) doesn't correlate well to the field. That shouldn't be a surprise since climbers have almost no input on testing standards. Some companies build gear that look great in lab tests for the sake of marketing and lawyering. Other companies are more concerned with real world performance.
Cams pulling out of jigs under static loads at lower than spec is really a moot point when they are proven to hold in the wild under dynamic loads. Nearly all of the "failures" reported in that thread from hell are completely irrelevant. There was only a single failure at a rating that would be of serious concern--and that turned out to be of compromised cam that nobody intelligent would climb with anyhow. The RC.com folks deny it's a witch hunt while failing to address numerous issues of faulty testing, limited sample size, insufficient testing of other brands, etc. They have yet to present a case of any problem in the field, even with the supposed off-axis holes. It's mostly rumors and innuendos with nothing of substance and lots of denial. Hell, C3s, Mastercams and Maxcams all have more known real world problems yet nobody seems to be panicking.
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Nefarius
Big Wall climber
Fresno
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Jun 11, 2009 - 04:11pm PT
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Now it's getting interesting!
*pulls up chair, sits down with fresh bowl of popcorn, puts feet up and gets ready!*
edit: That last pic of the cam axle program is interesting to me. I'm not sure I've ever seen a cam with the axle hole in the place the program thinks it should be in that pic. Seems like it wants to put the whole pretty close to center. It's supposed to be a camming lobe, not a wheel....
I'm no cam maker, but am an aeronautical engineering grad... And, at first glance, there's something I simply don't like about that pic. Or, rather, maybe that I *do* like. It makes me think that it's being blown out of proportion, or at least that this is a pretty poor example to use in the argument.
Maybe we can get Tom Kasper to chime in here... I Use his cams regularly, so I guess that says I trust his judgment! :)
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Gene
climber
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Jun 11, 2009 - 04:16pm PT
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What about the Metolius offsets? Anybody?
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Greg Barnes
climber
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Jun 11, 2009 - 04:28pm PT
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"when they are proven to hold in the wild under dynamic loads."
Do you not climb, or do you work for CCH?
Nearly everyone who risks hard falls on small gear very rarely actually falls on that small gear.
So if the risk that your cam is defective is 10% vs 1%, there's a HUGE difference in risking those falls. You won't know unless you tested vast numbers of existing cams whether the catastrophic failures are extremely rare or pretty darn common.
I don't believe the standard tests much either - they'd have to be done with pin-scarred polished flares in granite to make me happy. Rock type, metal type, irregularities in the rock, etc - the standard tests are pretty meaningless. Just like biner tests where the biner isn't being slapped against granite during the fall or jammed in a crack - those tests don't hold much water.
But brazes pulling, clear manufacturing defects, etc - that's a whole other can of worms. And CCH has had years to get their act together. Most of us who still carry Aliens trust our old beat-up ones more than newer ones, but honestly how many people have taken hard falls on their own cams? The one I remember catching on one of my green Aliens, the cam was dented and I had to take a file to the lobe to get it to work, and even then it's visibly dented.
CCH has been so dumb - they could have really cleaned up their act, then everyone would trust new Aliens more than their old ones, and since old ones always get beat up and worn down anyway, they'd be in good shape. Instead, they're actually managing to turn away people like me who love those cams since they fit better and stick better than anything else.
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Jun 11, 2009 - 04:34pm PT
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"Nearly all of the "failures" reported in that thread from hell are completely irrelevant."
Bullsh#t. On one hand you say "climbers have almost no input" and here we have a climber, Aric, taking it upon himself to do testing and get involved - your response: 'irrelevant'. Dude, his tests are honest, open and more to the point relevant to CCH's own specs. And when he uncovers bad work - whether we consider it craftsmanship or manufacturing - like this as part of that testing:
it speaks volumes - sh#t work is sh#t work.
"There was only a single failure at a rating that would be of serious concern--and that turned out to be of compromised cam that nobody intelligent would climb with anyhow."
Again, total bullsh#t. You're either just another shill or you know nothing about manufacturing or quality. The majority of the cams failed below their rating - get that - below their rating. That's an enormous FAIL no matter how you stack it.
"The RC.com folks deny it's a witch hunt while failing to address numerous issues of faulty testing, limited sample size, insufficient testing of other brands, etc."
No one is on a witch hunt, I personally spent months defending and attempting to work with CCH on these problems along with a lot of other folks - we all ended up walking away shaking our heads in disbelief, changing our position and have worked simply to get a clear picture of the scope and scale of their problems.
And "limited sample size" - dude, you've got to be kidding! Aric walks into R&S in New Paltz, cleans them out of 20 or so new Aliens sitting out for retail sale and tests them with most all of them failing with multiple quality issues. Want to bet what the results would be for 20 Metolius or BD cams off the same R&S racks would be: they'd all pass with margin to spare and show no manufacturing defects - guaranteed. Clueless spew, dude, clueless.
"They have yet to present a case of any problem in the field, even with the supposed off-axis holes. It's mostly rumors and innuendos with nothing of substance and lots of denial."
You've clearly never read any of those Alien "thread[s] from hell" over on rc.com. If you had you note a number of real world incidents straight off folks' racks and people being injured. The facts, you know facts, that have been accumulated over the past fours years of this fiasco are not 'rumors', they are not 'innuendo', they are documented facts. To date we have documented cases of Aliens with bad brazes, unswaged stem loops, misdrilled axle holes, random cam lobe hardness, missing axle washers, and wrong color codes. Documented, dude, documented.
"Hell, C3s, Mastercams and Maxcams all have more known real world problems yet nobody seems to be panicking."
List'em out dude, out with them. You may not like design decisions taken by these manufacturers, but you'd have to buy hundreds, if not thousands, of each to even have a remote chance of getting a single one with a manufacturing defect of any kind. With Aliens on the otherhand, the recent R&S exercise clearly showed your odds of walking into a shop and buying one without a manufacturing defect is pretty damn low.
What a t/fool. And what's really sad is the odds are good you're about as close to effective customer communication as CCH will ever come.
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adatesman
Trad climber
philadelphia, pa
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Jun 11, 2009 - 04:44pm PT
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@Nefarious- Its putting it towards the center because that's where the center of a logarithmic spiral should be.
Some examples from companies that actually put the hole in the right place:
#3 BD C3
#3 BD C4
#5 Powercam
Medium Supercam
Orange Mastercam
#6 WC Zero
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bvb
Social climber
flagstaff arizona
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Jun 11, 2009 - 04:54pm PT
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original #6 stopper. light. bomber. slips in easy.
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Prod
Trad climber
A place w/o Avitars apparently
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Jun 11, 2009 - 04:55pm PT
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Interesting thread.
Have you pull tested other manufactures? I would like to hear some info on that if you have the time.
Thanks,
Prod.
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adatesman
Trad climber
philadelphia, pa
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Jun 11, 2009 - 05:01pm PT
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@Prod- Done lots of other stuff, most of which is over on RC in The Lab in The Directory of Test Results. Not everything there is mine and there's links to tests done by manufacturers, the BMC and whoever else I've run across results from. I have a bunch of other cams (BD C4, Met Powercam, RE Durango, some others) that were also done at the NRR (when the two Aliens that started this were done), but haven't gotten a chance to write them up yet for obvious reasons. All were done on the same equipment with the same fixtures and exceeded their ratings.
EDIT- Oh, and I also did a used #1 BD Pre-C4 and a Blue Met TCU while up at R&S as control samples for that testing. Both failed well above their ratings.
Oh and @Healyje- Not to quibble, but it was 13 new ones from R&S, not 20. The other 9 were used ones that were donated. But yeah, I pretty much cleaned them out.
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klk
Trad climber
cali
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Jun 11, 2009 - 05:04pm PT
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"What a t/fool. And what's really sad is the odds are good you're about as close to effective customer communication as CCH will ever come."
It's no wonder he's anonymous.
Hard to imagine anyone with a reputation to lose now staking it to a defense of CCH's behavior over the course of this debacle.
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Nefarius
Big Wall climber
Fresno
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Jun 11, 2009 - 05:23pm PT
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Thanks, Aric. Just didn't have the time to do that. That puts it into perspective. I guess I just don't look at my cams in that manner too often. hahaha Looking at all of those cams tho, yeah, they sure are closer to the center.
One thing about what aintnoflatlander said, I would think is logical. About dynamic loads vs. static loads. It would make sense to me that static loads would pull from the device easier than dynamic loads. Especially with the Aliens and their softer lobes. Seems like the sudden and dynamic load would help the lobes bite into the granite.
Have you done testing of this sort with other cams, Aric? Just curious what the results are.
edit: Nevermind... Just read the above post to Prod. Thanks. :)
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couchmaster
climber
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Jun 11, 2009 - 05:35pm PT
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Flatlander, I won't call you names. However, your post is wildly off base. This was the list of Alien failure threads posted as of May 25th 2007! The stuff you are reading is only the current tip of the iceberg. Interesting that the purple failure was sadly the late great Michah Dashs.
[quote "bobruef"]
One correction. There was the Cam at the Soulder's crack, the more recent purple alien at the creek (maldaly posted about it... not dimpled I believe, some euro dude). There was also the one Russ Walling tested. Then there was the nondimpled unswaged cam you posted about That's at least four. Five if you count the Paridise forks cam which CCH admits may or may not have been clearly dimpled. And if that's there position on that cam, that's saying something. If there was even a halfway clear dimple, you know they'd be saying it was dimpled.
Here's the list I have from another thread (which is likely incomplete still). Thanks again for your posts on the subject.
In another thread, I compiled a list of Alien failures documented here and on supertopo (from a quick search and memory). I'm reposting it here for those who've not been following the whole messy saga from the begining. For those of you counting, that brings the number of documented failures/faulty cams to 9 (by my count... please someone correct me if my info is wrong or incomplete). I don't want to be alarmist, but I believe this is important information for those who are not aware of the previous failures/production mistakes.
The list:
Again, If the threads I linked here aren't the best sources, or my descriptions are innacurate, somebody please post up a correction.
Resivoir Wall non-dimpled post recall Purple Alien Failure
http://www.rockclimbing.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=1593796;#1593796
5/15/7 Non-dimpled Blue Alien fails at 900lbs when tested by Russ Walling http://www.rockclimbing.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=1596942;page=unread#unread
Souders Crack 11d groundfall (broken cable, non dimpled, post recall)http://www.rockclimbing.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=1585733;search_string=groundfall;#1585733
Faulty Swage (post recall)
http://www.rockclimbing.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=1316820;search_string=alien%20failure;#1316820
Dimpled Orange Alien Braze Failure at Indian Creek (the cam that started the recall)
http://www.rockclimbing.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=1277756;search_string=alien%20failure;#1277756
Gray Alien braze failure (2005, pre-recall)
http://www.rockclimbing.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?do=post_view_flat;post=991387;page=1;sb=post_latest_reply;so=ASC;mh=25;
Non dimpled Paradise Forks Orange Alien bodyweight braze failure (post-recall)
http://www.rockclimbing.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?do=post_view_flat;post=1435781;page=1;sb=post_latest_reply;so=ASC;mh=25;
Misdrilled Axle Holes (rei recall thread)
http://www.rockclimbing.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?do=post_view_flat;post=1281489;page=1;sb=post_latest_reply;so=ASC;mh=25;
Tradrenn's oddly sized alien (deleted post)[quote "tradrenn"]Just the other day I was inspecting my gear ( OK I was bored and had nothing better to do with my time ) and after looking at my Aliens I have discover a little problem with my Yellow ones ( I have to of them ) The problem is that one Yellow Alien has a proper range of Yellow Alien, like it should. Second Yellow Alien has a range of Grey Alien.
Difference between Yellow and Grey size range is not that much so it is just a minor inconvenience ( got to get some grey electrical tape )
Here are some picks for you people.
The height of good lobe on yellow alien ( 0.508" )
The length of good lobe on yellow alien ( 0.709" )
The height of lobe on grey alien ( 0.553" )
The length of lobe on grey alien ( 0.774" )
The height of lobe on "bad" yellow alien ( 0.553 )
The length of lobe on "bad yellow alien ( 0.773" )
Range of yellow alien ( 0.698" ) (notice the yellow sling )
Range of grey alien ( 0.760" ) (notice the grey sling )
Range of "bad" yellow alien ( 0.761" ) (notice the yellow sling )
So, here is a little heads up for some of you that are getting into Aliens or buying more Aliens.[/quote]
Here is Ouchs Alien failure picture:-)
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couchmaster
climber
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Jun 11, 2009 - 05:44pm PT
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ain't no flatlander, that list I copied from 2 years ago doesn't include these also from 2007, ....so git to readin'
I you do nothing else, please look long and hard at the picture directly below, the one that says "Tensile Tested" on it. If you bother to read that link you'll note that it says "All of the cams were pulled to 1200-1300 lbs"
http://www.supertopo.com/climbing/thread.html?topic_id=379659&tn=0&mr=0
I can find more if you need it. This was June 2007 AFTER they had "fixed" the QC issues.....
You somehow intimate that Black Diamond and Metolius have had issues as well. Now lets see the proof of ANY Metolius or Black Diamond failure. ANY Bring it or it's just slander.
BTW, I still use my Aliens....but like I say above......
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adatesman
Trad climber
philadelphia, pa
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Jun 11, 2009 - 05:50pm PT
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@Nefarius- I actually agree with you and Flatlander re: the dynamic vs quasi-static testing thing and was working on finishing my drop tester when this mess started. Its almost done and one of the things already on the list is to build 10 identical Forged Friend knockoffs (I have material for it laying around, so it will cost far less than 10 commercial cams) and then test 5 quasi-static and 5 dynamically using a couple hundred pounds of steel and a hunk of chain using the same fixture for both sets of tests. I've never seen or heard of anyone doing a test like this, so am quite curious if there will be any difference in the results.
But as for the validity of the CE/UIAA test, well, its the only standard test we have and its the one that the rest of the manufacturers use for rating their gear, so we're kinda stuck with it. And given that _some_ of the Aliens I tested had no problem with it I tend to think treating them differently isn't the correct thing to do and the failures were due to incorrect materials or manufacturing defects.
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Jun 11, 2009 - 05:57pm PT
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Aric, you have the four more or less like-new Alien Hybrids I sent you - why don't you test those dynamically? Hell, maybe even use a rougher surface texture to give them an edge that plays to their soft lobes...
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