Alien failure!

baldclimber wrote: See pictures of three different failed BD cams just four posts above yours. Definitely not bent cables.

LOL. I really don't think those were the same situation (shallow perpendicular). I believe one of those was ran over by a car.

Seriously? So cam manufactures warn against such placements just for fun?

patto wrote:Seriously? So cam manufactures warn against such placements just for fun?

Hey patto,

Sorry, let me explain myself please. I totally agree with you about the limitations of cams. I definitely did not mean to say that you should place cams like that. I very much understand that cams are designed to be placed in the direction of fall and will fail at a significantly lower load when placed incorrectly. I'm just thinking that a BD cam would've at least held in that same situation. Again, I'm not advocating anyone place cams like that but it seems like BD cams do a pretty good job of rotating towards the direction of pull and it seems like BD cams will typically bend before they break. And again, I typically place tri-cams in places where I can't get a cam to sit nicely in the direction of pull and especially in shallow horizontal cracks.

mattm wrote: I don't think he's saying that other brands will fail in the SAME manner (snapped cable), simply that shallow placements that produce a torque load near the head will fail at much lower loads than rated. IMO, the "snapping" of the cable at the braze is a limitation of the braze termination design, not per se an Alien specific failure. The more shallow a placement, the close the fulcrum point on the cable gets to the head termination area. Brazed terminations act much more like a forged friend in that they do NOT have flexibility. Swaged terminations maintain the cable flexibility all the way to the base of the head. Shallow horizontal placements allow you to use the bottom lip of the crack as a fulcrum point almost all the way up to the head. Incorrect Shallow Vertical placements, where the cam stem sticks out from the wall, move that fulcrum point directly to the base of the head/termination. In a C4,X4 etc that uses the swage termination, the cable maintains flexibility. In a brazed termination, the cable is NOT flexible and is more like solid metal rod - much more prone to snapping off. It's imperative that users understand the limitation of the brazed head and place their gear CORRECTLY to allow for this. This is no different than the Forged Friend days... Below are two placements that were likely very similar. Vertical Crack, Shallow Placement, Stem sticking OUT from rock instead of down, inline with loading direction. Cable bent at fulcrum point. Saw this one from patto's post - NOT an Alien. this recent one is interesting in that the fulcrum point looks even CLOSER to the axel. It's obvious how it was loaded incorrectly though. While the yellow above does look better than most, it's hard to tell how it was loaded without better pictures etc. The final position of the cam may not be indicative of how it was loaded. The thing I worry about now and then, and is perhaps the case here, is when cams are not extended and the rope pulls the stem straight out from the wall. This occurs more often when the climber takes momentarily higher up but can happen with rope drag or movement. (It's similar to zippering nuts). If the cam rotated up and then was fallen on, I can see the placement snapping. Wasn't there are rotational failure post from Squamish last year?

This.

Jeremy Polk wrote:I'm just thinking that a BD cam would've at least held in that same situation.

What leads you to that conclusion? Why this blind faith in BD? Maybe it is time that we bring back some pull test for this failure mode...

Smaller BD cams have similar solid stems than will similarly break if subjected to significant bending loads as occurs when the cam sticks out 90degrees to the fall.

Brassmonkey wrote:You're incredulous and just made our point, none of the cams you posted were FAILURES.

You can find plenty that have failed. I don't know the story behind all of them.

Brassmonkey wrote:Th concern is not that a cam broke, but how and why.

How and why? Bad placement. Breakage or pulling out is expected in such a circumstance. Cams 90degrees to the angle of load will struggle to hold any more than low loads.

Brassmonkey wrote:And comparing solid stem to flexible stems and the tons of R&D that has occurred since then is like comparing a Model T to a Ford GT.

Hardly. Most cams still have a solid stem for some distance away from the cam head. The same failures can and do occur as evidenced by the cam in the reddit thread.

Brassmonkey wrote:Also, link cams were a faulty design which is why few climb on them

They are not faulty. They work exactly as intended.

patto wrote: "Sheer [sic]" failure? No this would be bending failure like I pointed out. Hence the tensile failure on one side quite visible with necking and the compression failure on the other. Well yes. Plenty of cams do experience failure when incorrectly placed. This has been happening for decades. BD cams with their dual axles seem to deform. Link cams with their delicate links break. Solid stem cams were snapping regularly until flexible stems became common. mountainproject.com/v/c4-wi…

That #2 Camalot was destroyed as a result of a large rock crushing it, not as a result of someone falling on it.

Brassmonkey wrote:You talk in circles. meh Link cams work as designed? Thats all you needed to say, all credibility gone. Adios!

I don't need credibility. I prefer to base arguments on engineering realities. Link cams do work as designed. Link cam failures have been due to loads they are no designed to take and from being placed in placements where they should not have been placed.

20 kN wrote: That #2 Camalot was destroyed as a result of a large rock crushing it, not as a result of someone falling on it.

Fair enough. I linked to an entire thread of failures and threw in a few pictures for good measure. Anyone can use google there are a tonne of failed BD cams out there from poor placements.

Link cams work as designed? Only if you place them perfectly every time and they never, ever walk in the slightest.

I got a set once, and at something like 30% off. After one climb with them, I knew I was selling them.

As many reviewers have noted, they're great for anchors, but who wants to haul that weight or spend that money for anchor pieces? People also rack them as oh-shit pieces, but again...

It's not a surprise that you can always find Link Cams deeply discounted. They're pretty and they sound great and occasionally do work great but ultimately aren't worth it.

aaron hope wrote: I disagree. A cam placed in a vertical crack often will have "load perpendicular to the placement". Cams like aliens are designed with flexible stems to account for this. I agree that the OPs placement looks a bit more horizontal than ideal...but if the Alien can't take a minor amount of eccentric loading, it needs to be redesigned.

you are correct for the most part. the cable is designed to take eccentric loads.
however, if the head unit shaft is not aligned to the direction of load, you have created a lever against it. the head unit shaft should be placed facing direction of anticipated load or supported by rock (like in a horizontal crack)which then the cable can do the bending. This same occurrence happens when carabiners are loaded over edges.

Brassmonkey wrote: Please sir, enlighten the masses. Show us the tons of failed BD cams (not bent, failed).

Bending of the lobes and subsequently not holding the fall is a cam failure. Your criteria for failure a bit bizarre.

Brassmonkey wrote:X4's dont count, they are flawed IMO and you will find numerous pics of them broken. Along with link cams that "work as designed".

Lol talk about moving the bar....

patto wrote: Anyone can use google there are a tonne of failed BD cams out there from poor placements.

I used the google and I can only find one similar bd cam failure and it is an x4 that looks like the cable was still attached and so I think it still would have held. I did, however, find lots of these broken aliens.

I definitely don't have a blind faith in BD cams that are placed incorrectly but the photo of the OP's placement looked like something a BD cam could handle. I guess I'm only speaking from my limited experience but I do tend to climb at my limit on trad and I do take falls on gear and kind of have a feel for how bd cams react in different situations. But again, I probably would've went tri-cam myself so maybe I'll never know. And I'm still not buying aliens, lol.

patto wrote: Bending of the lobes and subsequently not holding the fall is a cam failure.

I looked into those bent lobe "failures" and the cams in fact held. So no failure and likely no replacement from BD as the cam did its job.

Jeremy Polk wrote: I looked into those bent lobe "failures" and the cams in fact held. So no failure and likely no replacement from BD as the cam did its job.

https://www.mountainproject.com/v/accident-on-manic-crack-in-nm/108673549__5

Or is this another one of the X4 don't count scenarios....

Aww yeah, it's an old fashioned MTN Proj turd throwing contest! Here's mine: Patto, your last link is to a thread where the cams ripped; they did not self destruct like OP's. Still waiting....

I've resigned myself to the upcoming "nobody cares about your tricams OR your linkcams" thread.

What would have happened if instead of placing the cam in at 90 degrees it was placed vertically in the crack with one side (two lobes) well-engaged?

I'm curious about when faced with a bad placement with no good options, which bad option might let you live longer?

ebmudder wrote:I've resigned myself to the upcoming "nobody cares about your tricams OR your linkcams" thread. What would have happened if instead of placing the cam in at 90 degrees it was placed vertically in the crack with one side (two lobes) well-engaged? I'm curious about when faced with a bad placement with no good options, which bad option might let you live longer?

Given that a 90degree placement loads only two cams lobes anyway AND at approximately twice the total load AND applies significant lateral load on the lobes then I would avoid this at all costs.

A 2 cam placement if it can be braced against the eccentric rotation would have better chances.

Deja Vu all over again.

ebmudder wrote: I'm curious about when faced with a bad placement with no good options, which bad option might let you live longer?

I feel like this is key here. I think my friends alien failure was a lot worse of an incident than the more recent one with the black one, because the placement appeared to be better (and the cam was a bigger, stronger one), but this kind of failure has happened multiple times with aliens, and as far as I know not with any other type of cam.

Add the fact that they really don't seem to take these issues seriously, and you've got a brand I really don't wanna buy more safety gear from...

ebmudder wrote: I'm curious about when faced with a bad placement with no good options, which bad option might let you live longer?

Neither. You place a TRICAM and live forever!

Jeremy Polk wrote: I looked into those bent lobe "failures" and the cams in fact held. So no failure and likely no replacement from BD as the cam did its job.

I'm going to back patto up on this one.

There's a highly probable engineering reason for bent lobe vs broken stem failure modes between BD cam's and the Aliens. The main reason being the BD cams, being double axle design, have large holes in the cam lobes. This makes the lobes much more susceptible to bending stress failure than a solid cam lobe. It's entirely possible that under the same loading the BD cam lobes fail before the peak stress is reached which would cause the stem to fail on an Alien. This bending, if it doesn't cause the cam to pull, would change the orientation of pull to be more axial and the stem would never reach the failure point.

I also wouldn't count on the cam holding in the rock. If it did indeed hold, I'd attribute it to blind luck.