Broken Cam thread

I'm not a Master Cam user but I do have experience using TCU's and, as far as I recall, the smaller sizes are the ones supposed to be for "aid only".

Mauricio Herrera Cuadra wrote:I'm not a Master Cam user but I do have experience using TCU's and, as far as I recall, the smaller sizes are the ones supposed to be for "aid only".

not in the current literature =P

metoliusclimbing.com/master…

metoliusclimbing.com/tcu.html

metoliusclimbing.com/cam-ma…

the current UIAA 125 requires a 5 KN minimum rating ... now one can exceed 5 KN on a fall of course, but plenty of other micronuts/cams have ratings around the 5-6 KN range and you generally dont hear of them going KAPUT as often



besides as stated above aggressive cleaning can break the purple and grey metolius ... examples from MPers in my last post

;)

bearbreeder wrote: not in the current literature =P metoliusclimbing.com/master… metoliusclimbing.com/tcu.html metoliusclimbing.com/cam-ma… the current UIAA 125 requires a 5 KN minimum rating ... now one can exceed 5 KN on a fall of course, but plenty of other micronuts/cams have ratings around the 5-6 KN range and you generally dont hear of them going KAPUT as often besides as stated above aggressive cleaning can break the purple and grey metolius ... examples from MPers in my last post ;)

Right, that's what was heard about TCU's 15 or more years ago, thus why I wrote "suppossed to be". I'm a big dude, I've taken falls on those tiny TCU's and they've performed well :)

bearbreeder wrote: the piece itself shouldnt break after repeated falls as long as it doesnt shift and the rock doesnt change ... as long as it doesnt exceed its 8 KN rating (which WONT feel like a moderate fall)

Well, 8kn on the top piece is ~4kn on the climber, isn't it? And 4kn seems rather moderate since that's bounce test territory in terms of feel to the climber...

{popcorn}

:)

Aric Datesman wrote: Well, 8kn on the top piece is ~4kn on the climber, isn't it? And 4kn seems rather moderate since that's bounce test territory in terms of feel to the climber... {popcorn} :)

it would actually be more ~5 KN on the climber

DAV forces on belayer, climber, top runner, and rope path/drag

the thing to remember is that the OP is using a beal rope ... most of which have a factor 1.77 impact force of ~ 7-8 KN (which increases on the last runner due to the pulley effect), but they are the softest catching rope out there ... and as i posted above theyre rated for that even after multiple drops ...

of course the rope does lose elasticity with age, again as i posted up the chart ... but if the OP is using a tube style device that limits the force as well as they slip ~ 2-3 KN



and not to mention the real world effect of the belayer being pulled up and the OP isnt a steel weight and wearing a harness

to put it bluntly if a BD 0.3 X4 breaks apart due to a few whippers in a perfect placement ... its time to look for another cam .... this is the "go to" perfect fingers size and is probably the most used piece up here in the 5.10ish+ range

folks up here take whippers all the time over and over again on that size piece ... the green alien, blue/red friend, blue/yellow metolius, red/yellow C3, blue C4/dragon/totem, etc .... and generally they dont have too many issues with cams coming apart

if they do come apart its usually a placement issue ... and rarely its the cam

if the 8KN rating is not sufficient for what is likely a moderate fall ... you better run away from the WC superlight nuts as well .... note that the blue C4 has the same rating, and doesnt have the same issue

now that said, the grey X4 my partner whipped on caught him, but one of the lobes would no longer retract ... and it seems like similar things are happening on this thread ...

there is of course the possibility that the OP didnt manage the rope path and friction properly ... which is why understanding effective rope length is quite important

now in theory this could bump the force above that of the cam rating ... the reality though as i said is that we arent steel weights ...

heres a very BAD example of managing drag

BMC Technical Conference

BMC Technical Conference

as i said before ... the smaller X4s arent C4s, which are probably the most idiot proof (im not calling anyone here that !!!!), easy to use, plug and play cams you can get ...

if anyone here is REALLY worried about the 8KN rating then i suggest picking up the baby blue 9KN DMM dragon ... i suggest getting rid of the blue totem (8 KN), the green totem basic (7 KN) and green fixe alien (7 KN)

time for POP CORN !!!

;)

Whoa. Didn't quite expect /that/....

:)

Aric Datesman wrote:Whoa. Didn't quite expect /that/.... :)

i only breed da biggest meanest beahs

i think its ironic that BD set out to create a cam that was more "durable" in theory than the alien ... but in reality it might be no better at best

of course the fixe aliens do have endcap problems

;)

Aside from durability issues, these cams are an absolute bitch to clean. For ease of placement/cleaning in the thinner, more strenuous cracks I'd like to place them (and where their supposed advantages reside), that issue alone renders these units junk.

This is from today, about letting the rope rest:

rockandice.com/lates-news/c…

So, you fell, the cam held, but the fall and placement were such that the cam is now unusable. BD Replaced each of the cams. What are we talking about here?

Why is it a new discussion is started every time something happens with our new, lighter, smaller, more expensive gear? Why don't we see more discussions about #3 and #4 stoppers blowing out of "perfect placements".

Locker wrote:Dude takes FOUR falls on his gear and wonders why it bent... Uhhh...

But there are other dudes, myself included that have taken a lot more falls than that on a lot older gear than that and it came out with barely a scratch.

Sure it's cool and all that it held and it's cool and all that BD did replace it. From a durability standpoint, this sounds like bad gear.

I have higher standards than a lot of people here. Not only do I expect my gear to hold, I expect it to still work after I fall on it.

Not enough info to say the gear is bad, nicelegs.

It might be, or it could just be a shitty fall and hard for a cam to hold. Would an Alien be fine there? Again, completely unknown.

Are X4s overly fragile? Maybe, but we need to be careful with our thinking.

If you are taking falls on perfect placements, yes, cams should hold and not break, even with years of use. But that is the catch: was this the kind of fall where a cam should not have broken on the fourth try? Or was this the kind of fall where any cam might blow up on a fall? Who the hell knows.

If we let the apologists run unchecked, then we are giving the gear companies carte blanche to build less durable gear.

Fact is, if we don't hold them accountable, they won't be accountable.

Another problem with gear in general is that the vast majority of it isn't used much. It's placed on nature hikes and rarely weighted. When it is weighted, it's either a take moment or at an anchor. There isn't a ton of the gear out there being whipped on. That makes these problems seem statistically rare.

I wonder how much of this gear is getting trashed in the hands of people who go for it? Incidentally, this is why I don't buy Metolius (any model) cams, since every single person who I know who actually falls has mangled them to the point of uselessness.

Tangential thought.

Who is the market?

People who place gear and expect it to hold if they fall but rarely ever climb routes where they might fall

or

People who push themselves and pretty much expect to fall several times, sometimes far, nearly every time they go out.

Seems like we're asking a bit too much to have one type of gear for both.

Locker wrote:"Not enough info to say the gear is bad, nicelegs." Yep.

Not enough info to say it was good.

There is ample anecdotal evidence that these cams are easily damaged in falls.

Until someone goes up and sticks an alien in the same spot and mangles it, I will go ahead and assume that this is just another incident highlighting how shortlived the X4's are.

Jake Jones wrote:What about people that have fallen on them without issue?

Does that matter...NO. Only the failure of a unit matters.

Climbing gear should be tested and not be so fragile.

3 sigma testing and standard!!!!

Locker, you're not climbing many steep routes these days.

So what evidence have you personally gathered or seen that any cam out there is durable or not? Maybe you're running in the wrong circles to really say.

To put it nicely, if I was doing a study of climbers who regularly fall on their gear and an analysis of the damage their gear has taken, you wouldn't be in the study.

Jake Jones wrote:What about people that have fallen on them without issue?

I drove today. It didn't light on fire. The brakes worked. The wheels stayed on.

In other news, I had turkey last night, it didn't have salmonella.

Nicelegs nails it on gear expectations.

Some of you folks expect your small gear to break? Really? I'm a big boy who lobs off onto double zeroes and I expect them to hold the next fall. And they do. Stop snorting the fear and climb something you can't just tripod your beer gut onto and call it technique.

Again, anybody defending the durability issue should try cleaning one of these cams for a few pitches. Ease of cleaning is a real working issue, I don't care how you parse it.

Experience falling on gear is all that matters when talking about the subject. 36 years of USING gear does not make a shit bit of difference if you haven't spent a substantial part of those years FALLING on that gear. I've been climbing for more than 20 years and given how little I fall, I'm not in much of a position to comment on relative longevity of gear when considering repeated falls on the same piece of gear. I'll admit I'd be talking out of my ass if I said otherwise. I recognize that there are many other climbers out there regularly take multiple falls on the same gear over repeated climbing trips, and expect that gear should be able to hold up to this type of abuse, and I tend to agree with them.