Did they tell you what led them to revise the specs of the other cams?

Frankly I've never much liked Metolius cams. TCU's are OK, but after I bought aliens, my TCU's quickly found a home in the closet of shame, only to come out as triples/quads for big wall trips.

I had a crusty old geezer force his rack on me up in squamish for a couple weeks, and I learned to really loathe both the cams, and especially the pompus attitude that came with them. Metolius itself really oozes pompusness themselves, so it is not confined to the users. If you read their product descriptions and manuals they just ooze with an air of superiority.

My biggest whipper was due to a purple TCU popping under body weight. It was hard to inspect due to the big ass lugs at the axle/stem interface (which always looks like they were welded with a car battery and a coat hanger, and the battery needed charging).

Aliens are now officially sketch, but so far they are the better design for yosemite pin scars and tricky clean aid.

I'll give these new "Master" cams (even the stupid name is pompus!) a shot, but I'd rather just see someone buy out aliens and get the process under control.

I put together a quick exel chart comparing the usable ranges of 2007 Metolius TCUs to 2008 Master Cams. The usable range is based on 10% to 60% of the total range. All data was taken from the Metolius website.

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Look at the huge holes created by the new sizing. Does anyone know why Metolius did this?

They look great and have a much better feel to them than aliens do. Not as floppy or funky. Cleaner. Had I the need its what I'd buy.

Healyje,

You are by far the single person most vocal in repeatedly projecting that Metolius cams are the best and only ones to have (and that basically, no other major cam on the market can really be trusted -- in your eyes).

I'm not saying that is wrong, but I have to ask because sometimes you come off appearing more as a salesman for Metolius (though it could certainly be genuine conviction).

Do you have or have you ever had any affiliation with Metolius (be it in the form of employment, business relationships, friendships with workers or executives, sponsorships, accepted free gear, or any other relationship)?

I do think Metolius makes one of the nice cams out there.

Thanks,
Avery

Healyje,

It's precisely the "... very limited number of placements other cams won't fit into." that is largely why I love them. Those sorts of placement abound in Yosemite walls. Somewhat beaten out pin scars eat aliens as A1 pieces, and often spit out my TCU's (that I try to burn first).

Alien manufacturing for sure is sketch, but the cam angle is fine. The design is fine. The manufacturing process appears to be run by rabid baboons. Like I said, I'll give them new Mustard Cams a whirl, but I am not going to go brown nosing the pompus Bend bozos till they actually ship, and I actually place them.

the chart above describes exactly what i was talking about on page1. as it is, there are some pretty bad 'gaps' in the tcu sizing. metolius would have been better off sizing the master cams to FILL these gaps, rather than REPEAT these gaps. if the chart above is, ideed, correct about the exremely limited range and lack of overlap of the master cams, then that would be pretty unattractive.

i probably won't buy a set as i already have 3 sets of aliens, a set of offset aliens, 3 sets of tcu's and 4 sets of the .3 and .4 camalot. gotta draw the line somewhere!

(i have actually been using the .3 and .4 camalots quite a bit lately and have really come to like them. not the best for pin scars or flares, but when the crack is deep, i think they are the best. same problems with gaps in sizing though. there is a pretty bad gap between the .3 and .4, which is filled nicely by the yellow tcu).

After creating the chart above I contacted Metolius regarding the resizing of their cams. Since the data I used for the Master Cams above is the same data currently listed for all Metolius cams except the Supercam (TCUs, Master Cams, Power Cams, and Fat Cams), I figured I better hear what Metolius had to say before I bought a bunch of last year's cams before the new sizing took effect. Here is the response from Metolius.

"Thanks for getting in touch. What I have learned after a little digging is that the change in the published cam range is entirely due to the CE certification process that our cams are now part of. One requirement of that certification is that the published range not go all the way out to the 90 degree fully open position of the cam but rather to a certain percentage less than that. I don't know what that percentage is and it is still probably outside of the actual usable range of the cam a bit. Previously we just published the full range of the cam from fully compressed to fully open just like all other cam manufacturers were probably doing. So all the cam sizes are the same as always and the only difference between the Master Cams and the TCUs is that for the smaller sizes of our new Master Cams the cam lobes are a bit narrower so that the overall head width is reduced. This does not change the range. Let me know if you have any further questions."

Just screwed around with the master cams at the show. They're nice, although the cams are much more difficult to retract when the stem is bent than aliens. Also, while the sizes up to yellow (yellow alien size) are alien-narrow, the sizes from orange (red alien) up are maybe 30-40% wider, as the cams lobes are much thicker. I think this reduces their desirability. It follows my usual rack though, as I compliment aliens with ultralight tcu's only up to a yellow, then it's all aliens up to orange alien for me.

The link below has some information about the cams and what else is going on at the outdoor retailers show in SLC.

Day one has some details on the master cams

http://www.rockclimbing.com/Articles/Gear_and_Reviews/Outdoo>>>>>

Day two has details and pictures of DMM offsets

http://www.rockclimbing.com/Articles/Gear_and_Reviews/Outdoo>>>>>

Every time you fall on an alien, Healyje punches an orphan.

FYI:

We (NASA) have been looking at adding new safety anchors to exposed working positions on Deep Space Network antennas - we have some of these antennas in Spain, so they need to be CE approved. I contacted Black Diamond because I knew that their gear is CE approved, I wanted to see where they got their gear tested and certified. There is no certification available in the USA - BD get their gear tested in France.

Enough with the talk and manufacturers descriptions, has anyone played around with these things yet?

aliens seem to beat them on expansion range pretty handily.

As you can see from my previous post the ranges on the new Master Cams, and the new reported ranges for all other Metolius cams, didn't make sense to me either. Because of this I e-mailed Metolius again and they explained the difference. I'll summarize their response.

The CE requirements use 3 equations to calculate the small and large positions of a frictional anchor based on EN standard 12276. (I haven't checked any CE or EN resources to confirm.) Using the values b min = min adjustable width and b max = max adjustable width, the equations are as follows.

Position 1: s = b min + [(b max - b min)/4]
Position 2: s = b min + [(b max - b min) 3/4]
Position 3: s = b min + [(d max - b min)/2]

Position 1 and position 2 are the min and max reported on the Metolius website respectively.

If this is correct Metolius is only reporting the 25% to 75% expansion for each cam hence their total range is larger than reported. I did a little algebra and determined the equations below, to determine b min and b max using the website values, s1 for min and s2 for max. (Please feel free to check my math.)

b min = (3/2)*s1 - (1/2)*s2
b max = (3/2)*s2 - (1/2)*s1

If anyone has any Master Cams it would be great to confirm the theory with actual physical measuements.

"aliens seem to beat them on expansion range pretty handily."

For a given cam angle and trigger pull, the expansion range is going to be equal. The only difference is that Aliens don't have much overlap between their cams.

Well, I received my #3 Master Cam in the mail yesterday. First impressions were that it looks and feels very solid and well-manufactured...then I noticed the strings that attach the trigger assembly to the cam lobes.

Does anyone know how durable this "Kevlar" thread is?

I guess it is the same kind they have on the Supercam, but does anyone even own one of those things?

The cam is very flexible with regards to vertical movement and the trigger can be retracted even when the cable is bent up or down.

But, I would be very hesitant to place this cam in a horizontal orientation because the entire trigger assembly locks up when it is bent due to the placement and rigidity of the trigger "sleeve".

Aside from my hesitations with horizontal placement, it seems like these cams will perform very well and can be trusted not to fall apart (except maybe the Kevlar shoestring?).

As a side note, it is funny to me that 4 of the 7 GREEN Rangefinder dots are in such a position that they will NEVER come into contact with rock during a placement. Pretty optimum, eh? Heaven forbid someone should actually USE those things.

Now that these are being shipped, I'm curious to hear what someone else thinks of these cams. I have yet to use or fall on mine so my observations are pretty limited, but I'm looking forward to comparing this to my Aliens.

I love my supercam and the kevlar.