Alien Fixe cam worth the $$$

With the Alien Fixe cam being on sale for 60$ right now, are they worth the money?  Has anyone tried them and can vouch for fixing the old problems they had?  What are your thoughts?

I recently started adding aliens to my rack and have found them quite complimentary to BD c3's and x4's. They have a greater range as well as a slightly different range than their BD counterparts, adding versatility to your rack. Other than the obvious manufacturing problems, one complaint is that they are manufactured with softer steel that makes them wear out faster. The softer steel is intended to make them grip better in small cracks from what I understand. Btw, you can often pick them up for $49 with free shipping  at the largest online auction site that MP  would not allow me to create a link to. For now they're staying on my rack. Also, they are a suitable replacement for the no longer manufactured c3's.

Andrew AJ Jackson wrote:Btw, you can often pick them up for $49 with free shipping  at the largest online auction site that MP  would not allow me to create a link to.

Excuse my ignorance, but which site are you referring to? 

Aliens are great. Definitely 'worth the money,'  around the same price as X4s and probably lighter.  I rack them along side my Met three-lobe TCUs.
I'm curious to try to LITE version. I also have a new grey Revo with the extendable sling which has been nice.

X4s never tickled my fancy for some reason.

I like them a lot.  I have a pair of the red ones and they work great.

The green, red, and yellow Aliens are a must on my trad rack. Followed by blue and black Aliens for tiny protection, and the grey Alien as the in-between yellow/red size.

I also prefer Alien off-set / hybrid cams, both for aid climbing and certain placements while free climbing.

https://climbingtechtips.com/instructional-climbing-videos/aid-climbing-and-big-walls/offset-placements-offset-cams/

Your mileage may vary!

For standard small pro I will place an alien first every time.  

That’s a useful video, thank you 

Stranger Danger wrote: Aliens are great. Definitely 'worth the money,'  around the same price as X4s and probably lighter.  I rack them along side my Met three-lobe TCUs.
I'm curious to try to LITE version. I also have a new grey Revo with the extendable sling which has been nice.

X4s never tickled my fancy for some reason.

The LITE version are a complete hit or miss. I have a grey and yellow and the spring pops out and has to be pushed back in. When this first came out it was a big issue and getting FIXE to do anything in regards to warranty was a compete and utter nightmare. I’m sure you could dig up the old threads on here, but that’s how I got mine so cheap. I tried to unload them after and no one would bite at $35 so I kept them. Maybe it’s changed, but I’d just go with the normal old school CCH style 

Justin. S wrote:

The LITE version are a complete hit or miss. I have a grey and yellow and the spring pops out and has to be pushed back in. When this first came out it was a big issue and getting FIXE to do anything in regards to warranty was a compete and utter nightmare. I’m sure you could dig up the old threads on here, but that’s how I got mine so cheap. I tried to unload them after and no one would bite at $35 so I kept them. Maybe it’s changed, but I’d just go with the normal old school CCH style 

Yeah I realized yesterday that the LITEs are the ones that people keep complaining about. My buddy had some go wonky on him and Fixie just swapped them out for Revo's, which have been bomber for me so far. But avoiding the LITEs.

Interesting to see that one could buy aliens for $60 in 2018. I bought my first alien in 2000 for $90. After many great climbs and falls on it, it finally broke yesterday. Roughly 25 years of service! I obviously will replace it with another alien. Turns out, their US price is still around $60... so it is a no brainer.

In the photo below you can see how one of the cables broke. Again, after 25 years. A testament to how well aliens work. I have a set from black to red, including offsets and I really think they are worth the money. 

Ismael Chivite wrote:

Interesting to see that one could buy aliens for $60 in 2018. I bought my first alien in 2000 for $90. After many great climbs and falls on it, it finally broke yesterday. Roughly 25 years of service! I obviously will replace it with another alien. Turns out, their US price is still around $60... so it is a no brainer.

In the photo below you can see how one of the cables broke. Again, after 25 years. A testament to how well aliens work. I have a set from black to red, including offsets and I really think they are worth the money. 

That appears to be serviceable.
GunkieMike I bet could tell if so and then fix it for ya.

That is indeed quite fixable.

Use 20 ga (maybe 22 ga?) stainless steel wire.  

Thanks @Mr Rogers, @GunkieMike and @BobSteed !  No worries. I ordered today replacements from FixeHardware.com and... naturally I will fix my red oldie. 

Well... after some work my friend ChrisD was able to get my old alien back to life! He had to drill a bit beause the alien was an 'original' from Dave's garage (pre-Fixe era). So proud!

Yay for keeping it going (and out of the trash stream)!

my wife accumulated aliens over the past decade or so, buying used and bootying along the way.  I'm a convert, hands down my favorite small cams.  Especially the greens

Ismael Chivite wrote:

Well... after some work my friend ChrisD was able to get my old alien back to life! He had to drill a bit beause the alien was an 'original' from Dave's garage (pre-Fixe era). So proud!

I think I was there in 98’-99’. So I probably didn’t put that one together. Too new.

It should work fine how you’ve done it but generally the wires should allow for a slight umbrella or at least just perpendicular angle to the stem.

If you ever have to do it again, use wires that are a bit longer.

I’ve become a big fan of the 4 independent piano wires rather than tiny swaged cables and wires. Faster to assemble and more durable in use. They started that about a year after I left.

i generally carry a frankenrack, ie gear from a variety of manufacturers (mostly Fixe, BD, and Metolius), but if there are some general trends/history then i can say that aliens have been on there since back to the cch days and hybrids are a standard (if given a choice between hybrids and regular cams i'll probably take hybrids 7 or 8 out of 10 times).

an interesting note is that fixe and bd hybrids flare in opposite directions, which makes one more useful than the other in certain situations.

highaltitudeflatulentexpulsion wrote:

It should work fine how you’ve done it but generally the wires should allow for a slight umbrella or at least just perpendicular angle to the stem.

If you ever have to do it again, use wires that are a bit longer.

Hi! When I made these repairs, I thought it was pretty interesting how retracted the cam lobes were, knowing how Alien cam lobes on factory-wired units at rest are quite umbrellaed. 

This repair was made with pre-bent wires supplied by Fixe for this specific cam (you can see how they are shipped in the repair kit in the image below), so I didn't have the option to make them any longer. 

When it was all together, I looked at it and called it good, since I would never place that cam with the lobes more deployed than they are in the picture.

Which made me wonder again (as I have many times) why Aliens are built with the umbrella built into the cam lobes at rest. What's the benefit?