There are several threads on OP link cams. I cannot get a read on frequency of failure so I thought I would take a stab asking some questions that may provide me with data.

1. Has a link cam(s) you own failed in service?

2. What part of the cam failed? e.g. links, lobes, trigger wires etc

3. Did it fail in a fall?

4. Did you return a cam in response to OPs product recall?

Thanks in advance for your help. Please respond if you own a link that has not failed as well as this will help me with the stats -imperfect as they are via online data collection.

To start the collection... I own 2 ea #2 links and have fallen many times on both cams. Neither has failed.

Thanks

Jason

O own one of each size- 1&2. No problems. Never failed me, but, have never fallen on them either, just weighted/aided.

There are that go to piece when a tough and quick placement is needed.

I have a #2 and #1, and have taken a 15 footer onto the #2. It was as solid as anything. As long as you keep them relatively clean and lubed, I don't see any issues with them, they are very well made. My only concern would be with the smaller sizes, .75 and .5, as the joints get smaller I would imagine they lose a lot of strength. When buying a new cam recently, I went with a BD .5 instead of the link cam, I'm just not sure about all the moving parts on something that small. I'll bet a lot of info will be available about the new sizes by the end of the summer, I might consider picking them up then.

Mine works just fine (one #2).

1. no failure in service of any type
2. see #1
3. I have fallen on both #1 & #2 with no failures (fell about 18-20 feet on the #2)
4. I did not return anything for the recall

I completely trust my link cams, they are quick and easy to place and feel very secure. The only issue I have is sometimes they are harder to clean (remove from placement) then other cams.

I have a #2 link cam that has worked fine. I have not fallen on it but have aided on it a lot.

I own a #1 and #2. I've fallen on the number 2, and it was totally solid.

Just don't let a nooB place one, it'll be donated fer shure.

There was one that failed at a crag, don't know the guy but he showed it to us. Said it was placed right on the joint between the two steel lobes when he took a good fall on it the joint failed. Don't know if he sent it in, probably, I would have. The guy thought a normal cam would have held. I believe him since the week spots are normally the stem joint or axle... Anyways, I won't ever buy em, they just seem sketchy, but I have no personal experience.

I own the #1 and #2 and bought them about a year after they were released. The ones I own weren't included in the recall. I really like and frequently place my link cams.

1. Has a link cam(s) you own failed in service? No.

I have fallen on both a few times each but nothing larger than 4 to 8 foot falls. I've never had any reason to not trust them. I am curious to hear some real-world tales of the .5 and .75 link cams.

thanks. keep it coming!

I have #1 and #2. Never fallen on them, but I've aided on the #2.

I have all 4 but have only used #1 and #2 so far. My partner loves 'em. I think they're kind of heavy to carry on a trad cragging rack, and find the spring tension on the first lobe of the #2 to be a bit light for my tastes (I worry about it walking into a sub-optimal placement or just plain falling out). OTOH in their mid ranges, they are pretty darned nice for irregular or weirdly flared cracks. I don't recall falling on one, but I think my partner might have taken a short fall or two. We've both definitely body-weighted or aided on them. No failures.

Is any of this info "objective"?

This is anecdotal, not necessarily objective but:

#1 I have a #1 and #2 have used them many times for trad lead climbing without a problem, as others have mentioned seem to work well in cracks that are very slightly flaring. Also, have been used many times as part of a redundant gear anchor for toproping and have never been observed to walk or pop out even after considerable hang dogging.

Don't know if I'll purchase smaller ones. My camelots seem to do a good job there.

A bit heavy but if you keep them clean they work fine even after a lot of use.

#4 Not a recall cam.

Here's some info: They are made and assembled in the USA. Aliens and metolius as well.

BD has outsourced to china, trango is made in czech still I think.

Another interesting fact. While the 1 and 2 are heavier than camalots, the new .75 and .5 OPs are lighter than camalots.

Thanks for the comments on objectivity. I agree. Not perfect. More conjecture than measurable reproducible scientific data. However, I meant more objective than opinions on the cam which vary widely. For this exercise I chose a go-no go criteria for failure frequency. The substitute quality characteristic or measure is people's responses to questions about failures or no on OP cams. I would not write a paper on the results of this study but the results may help me and others decide whether or not to buy the .5 and .75 as a for instance.

I hope this reply does not kill any enthusiasm you may have to respond. I guess some folks out there are practitioners of the scientific method and/or critical thinkers. Thanks to the two posts for keeping me honest. I will be careful about how i use the word objective -I usually am.

If you have pics of OP cams that failed in service please post them.

Thanks

Hey Andrew,

3 lobe joint failures is more than I recall seeing on RC.... Then there was the riveting issue that was subject to the recall and the growing pains with the trigger, but all told there hasn't been all that much.

FWIW, Mal @ Trango recently posted on RC how much he loves the Link Cams he just added to his rack.

wasn't there two lobe joint failures on rc.com Aric? I may be mistaken, it is hard to keep track when people keep cross posting on other sites.

There is at least two that I know of then, maybe three.

But yeah like I said Aric I don't think the axle or trigger wires are that big of a deal.

Keep in mind also I won't use aliens either, if you can trust an alien you can trust a link cam I am sure. That is just where I am coming from, seen one broken one, read of one or two. Compared photos from OPs recall to where I have seen them fail. Overall more aliens have been recalled than link cams and more aliens have failed than link cams, but aliens have existed longer. I wouldn't ever tell anybody to use aliens or link cams, or some other gear items. My problem is I know to much but then not enough and just instinct is don't use certain gear. For me to overcome that would require me to witness the manufacture and testing...

BTW Aric some cool tests on these would be to place them ackwardly where there wouldn't be normal forces on the lobes and shock load them, a slow pull on the steel just aint the same. But it will probably never happen because these are way to expensive to destroy. Look into charpy testing i.e. impact strength...

Hey Andrew,

I'd have to dig through RC a bit, but I remember 1 instance of LC lobe failure for certain and think there may have been a second that went through, but I don't recall 3 being reported between RC, MP, SP, Supertopo and Gunks (you might say I have a climbing site addiction). But I don't have any LCs so may not have been paying that close attention and may have missed a report. The two major LC issues I remember were the one poorly placed in a pod that resulted in the joint shearing and the one where a LC slipped through production without the rivet being peened. The rest were changes to the trigger due to the plastic breaking and not mission critical IMO.

As for testing, no one's stepped forward to donate any LCs for destruction yet so chances of that happening anytime soon are close to nil (too complex for me to build a knockoff). With luck someone will booty one and send it in, but I'm not holding my breath. They're fairly nice even with the rather awkward and long action.

Never heard of charpy testing... Got any links? Last I looked at powdered metal components it was just coming onto the scene a decade or two ago and it looked pretty cool as an alternative to forging, but I totally understand how it could lead to voids in the material or poor crystalline structure (and therefore poor/unpredictable performance under loading).

And a side note about Aliens just because its fresh in my mind and I don't remember if I posted anything on MP about it.... I had a new Clear Alien sent to me for proof testing last week and it appears they forgot to include the brass washers on either side of the head during assembly. Pulling it to 1170 pounds-force (33% rating) with steel plates under the inner lobes rendered it nonfunctional. For comparison I pulled an old purple I had lying around to 3000 pounds-force (86% rating) the same way and the action was still snappy (it had the washers, same as every other Alien I've ever seen). CCH has got to get serious about their QC program. For anyone who cares it had an 1107 date stamp, no stamp on the head and no dimple, and no engraving on the axle. There's pics over on RC that I can link if anyone wants them, but in the meantime sorry for the hijack.

EDIT- Nevermind the link Andrew... It looks like Charpy testing is a fairly standard V notch impact test.

impact energy becomes a big player if the placement isn't perfect, I am sure you understand all of that... If not we can discuss elsewhere.

I'll save the powder met discussion for later too. It doesn't compare to forging though.

Don't want to completely hijack the thread... Sorry still a little off topic.

You mean CCH has a quality department? Who would have thunk it, they keep having failures, they don't know what heat treatment they use, etc. Great design though just like the OP LCs.

I only remember two on RC.com then they got cross posted all over, then the one I saw on my last trip to AR. So three I think. Could be more though that didn't get posted like the AR one which I didn't remember seeing. But one thought is if you are sending it in or planing on a legal complaint you may not be allowed to go public, anybody know anything about that?

Did a bit of digging on RC and the only incidents I found were the broken lobe at Intersection Rock in JTree (link) and the unpeened link rivet (link).

Looking at OP's site there was also an issue with the axle nut not being peened correctly (link), which I recall seeing but did not come up in my RC search.

(thread drift)
Luke- the context I was looking at powder met was for near net shape forming of nonstructural parts, for which it was being pitched as a cheaper alternative to forging and subsequent finish machining.
(/thread drift)

Oh well. Unsaid goal 2 failed. Is it possible to use an online forum to gather useful information? There is so much noise not that i do not believe someone checking the thread will see anything more than alien and link bashing. Anyway, I will close this one out with a final note:

First off, the population in this study is too small and, the one or two failures reported were not by the owners. No conclusions can be drawn.

Next. Everything can fail. The question is whether something you use will fail when you use it for what it was designed for. Other cams fail too -not just aliens and links. So do wires, biners etc. After 19 years I have seen a few of my own pieces fail. So what is an acceptable failure rate? How much responsibility can be placed on a manufacturer who cannot inspect the cam before each use and guarantee it was used properly?

Andrew -when you go back to Univeristy of Missouri, Rolla I recommend you study factors of safety. Also you might think on how statistics and Griffith crack theory can be used in damage tolerant design. Since you know this stuff so well maybe you could do an FEA model for a cam and tell us about stress distributions and the factors of safety w.r.t. material strength, cam lobe thickness, axle, location of holes in the lobes etc -remember to validate your model. Let us know how strain rate sensitivity influences different metals particularly steel axles and pins and whether the present geometries are sufficiently over-designed. Tell us how is it that braided wire can be stronger than a solid machined piece -back to Griffith -and whether the braid is suitably designed for the cam. Perhaps you should also read J.E. Gordon's "New Science of Strong Materials or Why You Don't Fall Through The Floor". Maybe this will help you with your airplane paranoia. Also some time with the science will help as well.

Another funny thing about an online community is that there are so many geniuses out there that know more than the rest of us and want to take away our voice.

On that, my end of this thread is closed.