CCH Alien Recall Cams?

that would somewhat explain it.. its just odd to me that the failures have been associated with a marking of sorts.

Legitimate info is actually really difficult to find on this subject. Im not sure why...

i would love to see some statistics or facts about what really happened and what category these particular units are likely to fall under.

dave higdon wrote:that would somewhat explain it.. its just odd to me that the failures have been associated with a marking of sorts.

Most items have some sort of manufacturing date or lot code # so as to facilitate recalls, problem resolution, etc. It's extremely common across all industries. Sometimes it really is just a mark.

dave higdon wrote:Legitimate info is actually really difficult to find on this subject. Im not sure why... i would love to see some statistics or facts about what really happened and what category these particular units are likely to fall under.

Starting points:

mountainproject.com/v/10585…

mountainproject.com/v/alien…

climbing.com/news/cch-alien…

supertopo.com/climbers-foru…

rockclimbing.com/cgi-bin/fo…

So my "expertise" is that I own about 20 CCH aliens between my wife and I and I still think they're awesome. Because of this, I payed extra close attention to this because the recall adversely would affect my rack size. I also have an excellent memory for mundane details.

What happened was that CCH was getting overwhelmed by their own popularity and couldn't keep up with REI order among others. In an effort to streamline the process, the steelheads were soldered out of the factory.

I'm not a metalurgist but my understanding is that when soldering you really need a weep-hole to push extra solder (come to think of it, I think it's actually braze, and I don't know if that is an interchangeable term with solder) out and ensure complete coverage. CCH managed to avoid this by having a guy (named John, had an amazing story about drunkedly puking on a girl he was going down on) who was uniquely talented put them together. Once outsourced, the process was not reliable in the hands of others.

To compound things, Dave didn't believe for a minute that it was his fault. He was a crusty old cam maker whose cams didn't fail. Guys like that don't tend to take the public's side. It made them look really bad.

As for Aric, like I said upthread, he proved a mathematical possibility that Aliens would fail. It didn't really affect the end user in any practical terms though. He also proved the lobes were something softer than 6061 as claimed, but that might be a good thing. These were unrelated QC issues, not part of dimplegate.

Does that help?

Russ Walling wrote:Aliens failed with a dimple, without a dimple, and even when marked "tested" by CCH. They failed within the recall date range, and outside of the date range on both ends. Nutshell: Any of them could fail.

I agree with this with the qualifier "when new"

The generation of older CCH Aliens out there still getting used and whipped on are wonderful pieces.

It means I'm happy. It also means you've got to be a little nervous if you buy a bunch of never used older CCH cams.

There were three camps, Alien apologist (me), Alien haters (Russ), and pretty much everyone else.

For the handful of examples that might fit his narrative, I can point out how those examples weren't actually used or well tested. In the end it does nothing to improve his trust in the cams or dissuade me from using mine.

The earth keeps spinning.

Anyone here voting for Trump?

Russ Walling wrote:Aliens failed with a dimple, without a dimple, and even when marked "tested" by CCH. They failed within the recall date range, and outside of the date range on both ends. Nutshell: Any of them could fail.

Russ, I know you facilitated your own load test... to what degree I am unsure... In your opinion, does load testing a cam to a certain value begin to compromise its structural integrity for future uses? And if so, what might that threshold be?

I have heard that CCH tested to 1/3 the cams rated strength.. Which makes me think they were concerned that if they tested them up to anywhere near their "rated" values they would fail at a very high rate.. leaving the company dishing out new cams at an unsustainable rate.

Russ Walling wrote: In a word, no. Considering the alternative, even if it did to some degree, it is still a risk worth taking.

I plan to load test them.. I was just curious what I should expect to see. And If it's crazy to think that they could still be 'safe' to climb on.

Locker wrote:"i still cannot figure out why the dimple was there? " This is what I've been told. Not sure it is accurate. They were farmed out to a new source for "Brazing" and the dimple was there so those specific cams could be identified and traced. The failed cams from the dimpled batch was a result of ZERO brazing.

Thanks Locker... So the dude at the brazing booth fell asleep.... for like 13 months.

It makes sense that the dimple indicates parts that were handled by another party. Standard manufacturing protocol for any mass produced product.

In a lot of the initial literature regarding the recall, CCH claimed that only the dimpled units were of any concern. However, It seems there are people (specifically Russ) who claim to have factual evidence that non dimpled units have failed as well... at a whopping 900lbs. The unit shown in his test clearly shows some degree of brazing.

Sketchy shit to trust your life to.

Gunkiemike wrote: IANAL but I used to work with a few. They were very clear that companies acquire THE ASSETS of another firm. The implication being that they don't take on the pre-existing liabilities. +1 for doing some impromptu pull testing of these.

I was going from memory. I found this article and, as you said, it implies they acquired the assets. outsideonline.com/1787331/s…

The other claim is that they were quenched in water and not oil and that resulted in poor adhesion.

I think that the process used in house was not portable to a larger scale.

Locker the cams I have do not have dimples but they fall under the recall period. I plan to pull test them.

highaltitudeflatulentexpulsion wrote:Wild country makes friends. Dmm makes dragons. Bd makes Camelots. Cch made aliens, they legally sold their operation to fixe to produce aliens. Totem makes a cam similar to aliens and have no affiliation. I think 20kn was drunk when he posted, he usually gets this stuff right. So yeah, fixe does make aliens as and might be your best bet. I don't think they'd touch them though. Find a cord with a known breaking strength and use your car to pull test them to 1/3 of rated . The soldering issue had cams failing at body weight. No need to destroy them to test them.

WC and DMM make Friends and Dragon cams, they are basically modified copies of the Camalot. Sure DMM added a Dyneema sling w/ no thumb loop and WC changed the colors some, but they are both modified copies of the Camalot in the same way the new Aliens and the Totem Basics are modified copies of the CCH Alien. That's what I meant when I said they made "Camalots", or similar versions anyway.

I wasent aware Fixe Faders actually bought CCH's rights to manufacturer. I know Wagner's wife tried to sell the company and some were interested (e.g. Trango if I recall right?), but no one wanted to pay the price they were asking. I am curious as to why Fixe Faders would have purchased the design they certainly dident need to, at least not legally. Maybe a marketing thing, just so they could retain the Alien name?

Also, on a side note mostly for the OP, Fixe and Fixe Faders (which now appears to be called TechRock) are not the same company. Fixe (which has been known as Fixe USA) is a distributor owned by Kevin Daniels. Unless something changed in the past few years, Fixe USA doesent manufacturer anything. What they do is they distribute Fixe Fader's products. The bolts, hangers, cams, ect, are made by Fixe Faders, which is a company in Spain. Two different companies, one manufacturers in Spain and the other distributes in the USA. To make things even more complicated, Fixe Faders or TechRock as it seems like it's called now, is actually a combination of several other entities. If I recall right from my tour of the facility, it's a combination of Fixe, Faders, Roca and one other entity that all formed together to create what is now known as Fixe Faders/ TechRock.

This was all explained to me when I visited Fixe Faders, but of course stuff changes so I would be interested in hearing from someone that knows more.

Maybe someone who knows more can chime in since that's the limit of my knowledge about the history of the company.

Don't know if this helps or not, but here's a link from MountainTools describing which Aliens were subject to recall:

mtntools.com/techtips/psa15…

Hallelujah to Arlo and Locker! Thank you Arlo for posting that link to the original recall notice - I have never known where on an Alien that infamous dimple was located, and now I know. Thank you Locker for posting your actual experience of failure. Given Russ' statement that Aliens of all stripes (dimpled, non-dimpled, tested, non-tested, brazed & not) have failed, I'm off to my gear bin to look at my rack and inspect what I've got for dimples & brazing.

Would the test lab at Black Diamond or DMM, or at some university run a test on Aliens? I have a couple spares on my rack that I would happily submit for testing; If enough of us submitted the extras from our racks, we could put together a large enough batch that we would get statistical significance. And that would at least give us actual numbers & failure rates on which to base our use of/ rejection of Aliens.

Locker wrote:" The soldering issue had cams failing at body weight. No need to destroy them to test them." Exactly! I weigh approximately 145lbs and as soon as I stepped into the aider, the cable slid out of the head.

And to add to that some Aliens held bodyweight but would fail on any real lead fall. I recall a user on this forum posting a photo of the separated cam indicating it failed under a soft lead fall but held bodyweight several times prior. The cam was a post-recall and that incident was not isolated. There were several others on various forums including here, RC and the Taco.

caribouman1052 wrote:Hallelujah to Arlo and Locker! Thank you Arlo for posting that link to the original recall notice - I have never known where on an Alien that infamous dimple was located, and now I know. Thank you Locker for posting your actual experience of failure. Given Russ' statement that Aliens of all stripes (dimpled, non-dimpled, tested, non-tested, brazed & not) have failed, I'm off to my gear bin to look at my rack and inspect what I've got for dimples & brazing. Would the test lab at Black Diamond or DMM, or at some university run a test on Aliens? I have a couple spares on my rack that I would happily submit for testing; If enough of us submitted the extras from our racks, we could put together a large enough batch that we would get statistical significance. And that would at least give us actual numbers & failure rates on which to base our use of/ rejection of Aliens.

I could test them and publish the results. However, honestly, the results wouldn't be anything surprising. It's already known that Aliens of any size, any type and any year-make can fail if they were made by CCH. Anyone who has been on the forums more than five years can probably recall several posts about the issue. Regardless of the exact outcome of any test anyone might do, the ultimate conclusion will still be the same, which is that ALL CCH Aliens are suspect and could potentially fail. The chances arnt super high, but much higher than the chance of any other cam failing.

Ick. That's enough to make my stomach flip. Awesome design, bad production, eh?

caribouman1052 wrote:Ick. That's enough to make my stomach flip. Awesome design, bad production, eh?

Meh, maybe. Even Fixe Faders has had problems with their Aliens. Both the old ones and their new model. Aliens have had nothing but problems since they were first invented. Even after 15+ years, they still havent gotten it right and people are breaking the triggers on the new model. I might even wager that the Aliens as a whole have had more design, production and quality control problems than every other major cam model/ brand combined. The only other cams that have had even half as much public attention are the X4s and Master Cams, and both of those combined still have fewer issues than Aliens.

the basic alien design is just fine ... the problem was always with the QC issues at CCH and fixe

the totem basic hasnt had may reported issues

if fixe would simply clean up their QC issues and go back to the old design but keep the narrow head of the lites ...

thats all there is to it

;)