What's up with CCH?

What's the word with CCH? Is anyone going to buy them and start making Aliens again? Wasn't there a rumor Mad Rock was interested? What's the deal?

I think its more likely that someone else (BD or DMM) will start making "aliens" themselves. BD dropping the price of C3s to $59 tells me something is up.

I thought Metolius bought the design and are already producing a like cam? Am I remembering this incorrectly?

John Wilder wrote:as of January, Nadia was still holding out for her original asking price despite several offers (which i assume were much lower than what she wanted).

What did she want for it?

Roots wrote:I thought Metolius bought the design and are already producing a like cam? Am I remembering this incorrectly?

I don't think they bought the design, but I do remember rumor about them trying to reverse-engineer aliens but being unable to reproduce the "benefits" of aliens while still meeting Metolius's own quality controls. Again, possibly just rumor.

It's really too bad overall...quite the flawed business model for a moderate sized company. Single proprietorship, but under the monkier of a LLC. It happens, but you should attempt not to have your company go belly up in the event of a death.

I apologize in advance for possibly asking a dumb question knowing nothing about business etc...

But, why doesn't someone make the exact same unit? Are there patents in the way? Don't patents run out over X amount of years? After all, DMM made the dragon cam after BD's patents ran out on there C4's correct?

I remember someone saying on a different forum that aliens weren't cost efficient to make? How was it that Dave was making them then? Either way, I really hope they go back in business.

I need my green RELOBED!

I tried contacting Nadia to get them relobed and got no reply after several emails.

Ice4life wrote:I remember someone saying on a different forum that aliens weren't cost efficient to make? How was it that Dave was making them then?

That someone was quite possibly me as I generally mention it when the issue comes up, but there were others saying it too on occasion. Short version: lots of little, fiddly parts all requiring hand assembly makes for a high cost of manufacture and when one of the gear companies I spoke with costed it out they were looking at $120 retail. I suspect that CCH being able to do it for $65 had something to do with being out in the middle of nowhere in Wyoming where there's a low cost of living and any job is better than no job (read: willing to work for peanuts). I've also heard that CCH offshored at least part of the production to Chile (Argentina? I forget...), which would help keep costs down. That tidbit came from a post on ST by a guy sitting the parts for a hundred or so Aliens he'd not yet shipped and Nadia apparently isn't interested in. Shouldn't be too hard to find that thread...

EDIT- Found it: supertopo.com/climbing/thre…

..well regardless of all these rumors and assumptions, one ting is for sure; small Aliens are badass cams. Hope someone gets them back up and for sale.

There's more than one reason it hasn't been bought, and it isn't simply complexity/cost of manufacture and assembly and the asking price. I briefly attempted to negotiate with her to buy just the assets of the biz I wanted and after a couple of weeks of back and forth, wrote her off as someone I had neither the patience, nor the desire to work with. YMMV.

All Metolius would have to do is slightly alter their trigger wire design (turn it 90 deg), use 5/32" 7/19 strand main cable, and cut their cam lobes out of 6061-T6 at a 16 deg cam angle on the mastercams...viola, an alien replica.

People talk about the wire going through the lobe being a great design element to reduce head width, but on the smallest aliens (blue and lback IIRC) they don't actually do that, they're just like other cams and they're much wider than something like an equivalent C3.

Why Metolius is so married to the 13.75 or 13.25 or whatever they use, is beyond me.

The reason that the master cam triggers are the way they are is because that allows the stem to flex easily parallel to a crack which helps minimize walking. The Kevlar trigger wires also allow the trigger to rotate so it can work in a horizontal crack. The cam angle, while reducing range, creates more outward force which makes its effective "stickiness" just as good as aliens while being much more durable.

Will S wrote:There's more than one reason it hasn't been bought, and it isn't simply complexity/cost of manufacture and assembly and the asking price. I briefly attempted to negotiate with her to buy just the assets of the biz I wanted and after a couple of weeks of back and forth, wrote her off as someone I had neither the patience, nor the desire to work with. YMMV. All Metolius would have to do is slightly alter their trigger wire design (turn it 90 deg), use 5/32" 7/19 strand main cable, and cut their cam lobes out of 6061-T6 at a 16 deg cam angle on the mastercams...viola, an alien replica. People talk about the wire going through the lobe being a great design element to reduce head width, but on the smallest aliens (blue and lback IIRC) they don't actually do that, they're just like other cams and they're much wider than something like an equivalent C3. Why Metolius is so married to the 13.75 or 13.25 or whatever they use, is beyond me.

The 3 biggest things that make MasterCams sub-par to an Alien (assuming proper build quality) are:

Trigger Design: Everyone Knows it's not as good as the Alien "tube"
Lobe Material: You want the softer 6061 stuff ala Wired Bliss
Cam Angle: I HATE, HATE the 13.25 that Met uses. Yeah, it holds more BUT the lack of size overlap in their sizes leaves GAPS that stand out. Blue-Yellow and Orange-Red Gaps are the ones that jump out (Green Alien and Red Alien Sizes - the best!)

I have serious doubts about the assembly cost claims. Aliens are no more complicated than a C3 and probably less so. Modernizing the trigger wire terminations (which always seemed to "change") would help. COMPLICATED is a Totem cam, hence their $80 DIRECT cost. Look at the Wild Country Zeros - They're cost competitive as well.

A Modern Alien would have a WC Zero like Head Termination, Molded Thumb Loop, Improved Trigger Assembly (plastic trigger with integrated "sheath" to plastic terminator to kevlar trigger wires? No idea there). Is there an alloy BETWEEN 6061 an 7075?. Might look at that. Then exhaustively test the 16 deg cam angle down to something like the camalot angle. See how 16 compares to other angles and pick the best one that still gets you Alien performance. Heck, 16 might be the magic angle after all given the softness of 6061. Modern Tech may even be able to come up with a better internal spring.

All of this can be done for $70 MSRP in my mind. Again, look at the C3 original MSRP. A well made, improved Alien that performed as well as or better than the original would sell like gang busters at $70.

mattm wrote: COMPLICATED is a Totem cam, hence their $80 DIRECT cost.

Which means retail through a distributor would be $100+, which is why no one picked them up and they were forced to go it themselves.

mattm wrote: I have serious doubts about the assembly cost claims.

Anyway, a long while back I posted a parts count for a couple different cams (might have been on ST?) and Aliens weren't even in the same ballpark as everything else. More parts = more assembly time = higher cost. No way around that short of automation, which won't work in this case. My analysis of it puts it around the $100 mark or so, assuming you pay a living wage. If you have a cost analysis that shows different I'd love to see it.

jamboni wrote:The reason that the master cam triggers are the way they are is because that allows the stem to flex easily parallel to a crack which helps minimize walking. The Kevlar trigger wires also allow the trigger to rotate so it can work in a horizontal crack. The cam angle, while reducing range, creates more outward force which makes its effective "stickiness" just as good as aliens while being much more durable.

Not to quibble but the Alien trigger did well in both directions, why change unless there were patent issues?

I don't think (and reviews back this up) that it's a 1:1 trade off of small cam angle/harder metal vs large cam angle/softer metal.

Someone with more knowledge than me can probably get into the technicalities of force of friction, material shear loads (6061 in particular) and cam angles.

I felt that the softer metal allowed for greater initial "engagement" with the rock as it deformed around crystals etc. Kind of like how a softer rubber is more "sticky" than a hard rubber.

Cam angle plays a role too of course. Anyone have a graph of force, friction etc for different materials and cam angles?

mattm wrote: Anyone have a graph of force, friction etc for different materials and cam angles?

Didn't Brenta poke at that a while back? I remember sending him data for something like that within the past year.

Aric Datesman wrote: Which means retail through a distributor would be $100+, which is why no one picked them up and they were forced to go it themselves. Anyway, a long while back I posted a parts count for a couple different cams (might have been on ST?) and Aliens weren't even in the same ballpark as everything else. More parts = more assembly time = higher cost. No way around that short of automation, which won't work in this case.

Post was on Gunks.com

"Gold Alien = 42 parts with 1 braze, 11 swages and 1 nut, Purple #0.5 C4 = 30 parts with 5 swages and 2 peens (the 4 axle peens are likely done in pairs), #0.5 Tech Friend = 27 parts with 6 swages and 2 peens, #1 Rock Empure Durango = 27 parts with 6 swages and 2 screws, #5 Powercam (pre-Ultralight) = 31 pieces with 4 swages and 4 brazes (IIRC the Ultralights have machined cam stops, which would drop the part count by 4)."

Parts count is not necessarily an indicator of assembly complexity. You could have 10 parts that are simple to slap together or 6 parts that require complicated procedures. OR a greater parts count could have simple sub-assemblies that go together easily vs a lower parts count that is one longer complicated assembly.

The Alien Thumb loop is basic as is the webbing.
There are still 4 lobes and 4 springs like any other cam. They might insert a bit differently but that can't be THAT much harder.
Axel/Nut termination - normal and modern termination techniques might make it less complicated.
The trigger assembly is the complicated part of an alien and I feel it's no more so than a C3. Again, a larger company with something above "garage assembly" systems should be able to improve on this.

mattm wrote: Post was on Gunks.com

Thanks. Couldn't remember which Alien discussion that had crept into.

adatesman (me) on Gunks wrote: Gold Alien = 42 parts with 1 braze, 11 swages and 1 nut, Purple #0.5 C4 = 30 parts with 5 swages and 2 peens (the 4 axle peens are likely done in pairs), #0.5 Tech Friend = 27 parts with 6 swages and 2 peens, #1 Rock Empure Durango = 27 parts with 6 swages and 2 screws, #5 Powercam (pre-Ultralight) = 31 pieces with 4 swages and 4 brazes (IIRC the Ultralights have machined cam stops, which would drop the part count by 4)."

mattm wrote:Parts count is not necessarily an indicator of assembly complexity.

Very true. But in this case the problem is the number of swages involving tiny, easy to drop parts that all have to be done by hand. As bolded above, Aliens have almost twice the number of swages as the cam with the next highest swage count, with all but the one on the cable being on fiddly parts that need to be exactly the right length.

mattm wrote:There are still 4 lobes and 4 springs like any other cam. They might insert a bit differently but that can't be THAT much harder. Axel/Nut termination - normal and modern termination techniques might make it less complicated. The trigger assembly is the complicated part of an alien and I feel it's no more so than a C3. Again, a larger company with something above "garage assembly" systems should be able to improve on this.

Perhaps, but the fact that no one has kinda points to the opposite being true. In my experience this is very much a hand assembly kind of job as it neither lends itself to automation nor has sufficient volume to justify the expense of attempting to automate it.

EDIT- does MP not like nested quotes?

Doug may have "deemed" the tube design not strong enough, but I'm not buying it. The tubular material itself is plenty strong, it's the crimped-on termination points at each end of the sleeve that are weak in the larger sizes (smaller ones are soldered at the termination and plenty strong). If you soldered them at all sizes, no legit strength issues...and really, has anyone ever seen an Alien with a failure in the tube assembly?

More likely reason is the complexity of assembly...i.e. swaging/crimping termination pieces on the ends of the tubular weaved stainless piece were a weak point and a PITA during assembly, and soldering on small ones is a labor and material intensive process (silver, and hence solder, is a lot more expensive today than 5 or 6 years ago).

JLP wrote: If you're happy with a 12 pack of Bud, a little meth for your boys and a Russian bride, then the #'s might be a little different.

A+

x 2

@Adatesman - They may have changed the design but on my aliens, I only count 7 swages. Thumb Loop, 2 for the trigger tube (copper bands) and 4 for the trigger wires.

I'm fairly certain the major cost of ALL cam manufacturing is the labor. I had a buddy who I believe consulted with BD back in the day (worked on the Original Hotwire). He said that's the case with cams. All those fiddly bit have to go together in a Jig to get assembled. Certain aspects might be automated in a company more so than CCH (e.g. cam lobes via CNC) but for the most part they're all "hand made".

Here's BDs facility in China:

You can also watch bits of how the Totem Cams are made in this video:
Totem Cams Being Made

Design improvements ala CNC'ing the lobes, redesigning the tube trigger (I can't believe you couldn't make an injection molded trigger and top piece that would "capture" the sheath material properly - I'd look at the GriGri 2 packaging for ideas! Metolius' claims for needing strength seem unwarranted - they sometimes cling to the idea of "bomber" a bit too much.

All I'm saying is I'm not seeing anything about the current CCH design let alone improvements that could be implemented that indicate that the Alien is cost prohibitive to make. There are other designs on the market that appear more complicated to make (C3, Zeros, Link Cams, Totems). MSRPS back this up.

There's something coming. I have no doubt about that in fact. I've started my "savings" to be ready when they do show up. The Summer outdoor shows will show us the goods if not sooner.