i hear there have been a few reports of link cams braking...

here is another one.
in skaha last week my buddy fell about 5-8 feet onto a link cam, it broke and he hit the deck.
-it was the yellow link cam
-one of the inner lobes broke at the pivot point closest to the head/stem of the cam.
-i cannot speak for how well the cam was placed, or what direction it was placed in, it was my first time climbing with him and he didnt remember much other then a yellow camalot would have also fit, therefore the link was not cammed on the smaller lobes..
i recommend that people dont use these cams.
cheers

Doing a simple search would show you that there are known failure modes for the Link Cam. If you're not aware of the potential failure modes for all of your climbing gear (which ALL gear has), you probably need to do some more research.

I understand that you weren't the person who fell on the cam, but it does seem like the neither you nor the owner were aware of the proper and improper usage of the device. If the piece was placed in a known failure mode (i.e. pivoting when loaded) this accident is equivalent to holding down the cam on a GriGri. User error. Regardless, Omega Pacific should be contacted to make sure that this breakage is consistent with the known failure modes and not a defect.

As far as your recommendation goes? I recommend you learn how to properly assess accident information or take up a different activity. Harsh as that statement is, you clearly don't understand how to properly assess what can and does go wrong in climbing. In this case, you have none of the information required to figure out how to protect yourself in the future. Your 'solution' is to not use a piece of gear you don't understand. Here's news for you though; climbing gear manufacturer's will continue to innovate. You'll still fail to learn how to use new equipment and experience equipment failure you could have been aware of.

The situation I describe is even mentioned on the main advertising page for the Link Cam: http://www.omegapac.com/...oducts_linkcams.html

hello
i have lost faith in these cams. my opinion is they have too many moving parts, witch makes them weaker.

i would like every climber to be aware that these cams do brake under special conditions, thats y im posting.

please note i did mention i cant speak for how the cam was placed, or what DIRECTION it was placed in...

my recomendation is based on my opinion, perhaps a little rash, but not everyone has to follow my recomendations.

it was a vertical crack, i dont know if the cam was placed with a horizontal stem, that is very possible.

an honest question, how many ppl have heard of any other cams braking under these circumstances???

im really not interested in a pissing match about how much i/you know about gear and proper usage, i just feel these cams are weak, agian thats just my opinion

...how many ppl have heard of any other cams br[e]aking under these circumstances

I do not have that issue with any other brand of cams.

i hear there have been a few reports of link cams braking...

here is another one.
in skaha last week my buddy fell about 5-8 feet onto a link cam, it broke and he hit the deck.
-it was the yellow link cam
-one of the inner lobes broke at the pivot point closest to the head/stem of the cam.
-i cannot speak for how well the cam was placed, or what direction it was placed in, it was my first time climbing with him and he didnt remember much other then a yellow camalot would have also fit, therefore the link was not cammed on the smaller lobes..
i recommend that people dont use these cams.
cheers

i hear there have been a few reports of link cams braking...

here is another one.
in skaha last week my buddy fell about 5-8 feet onto a link cam, it broke and he hit the deck.
-it was the yellow link cam
-one of the inner lobes broke at the pivot point closest to the head/stem of the cam.
-i cannot speak for how well the cam was placed, or what direction it was placed in, it was my first time climbing with him and he didnt remember much other then a yellow camalot would have also fit, therefore the link was not cammed on the smaller lobes..
i recommend that people dont use these cams.
cheers

The more experienced of the two climbers I referenced above took a big fall on the Zodiac of El Cap because the .5 Link Cam pulled on body weight in a no-brainier C1 placement.

hello
i have lost faith in these cams.

I have to say, some of you guys are pretty harsh on this guy who is reporting a link cam breakage.

fact is, if you see one break it will destroy your confidence in these things. The limitations of the pieces are so dramatic as to make them nearly worthless.

You think you always place your cams so they never pivot? Yeah, you're wrong. I broke one when the cam arm hung up on a small crystal.

All those statements in the legalese attached to the Links when new weren't there initially. These cams were aggressively marketed as 'the cure for panic' and only after guys started hitting the ground and the cams frequently broke. THere have been more Link cam failures than alien failures.

Personally, it's hard to believe that links are still made and sold when they continue to be 'improperly used' as some of you guys like to put it.

Its too bad because Omega is a generally good company, but I think they are just too committed to the Link.

vertflirt, thanks for posting. I think it is important to get this info out there.

the OP making a blanket recommendation that people shouldn't use these cams.

i see more reports of blown metollius 0 and 00 cams than links ...

who knows ... maybe they werent "placed" properly, maybe its the limitations of the gear ... at least one person however didnt even fall on it ...

http://www.mountainproject.com/...n-cam-stop/107129489
i personally blew out a purple TCU 0 cam in what i thought was a good placement ... the cam stops inverted and the cam was unusable

im not running around saying they are "unsafe" ... no gear is perfectly safe



i will say this ... my purple link cam is my most fallen on cam ... and i havent died yet ...

if you want to be a "safe" (whatever that is) trad climber, dont depend on a single piece of gear unless you have no choice ... as the gear can pull, the rock can break, etc ...

i see more reports of blown metollius 0 and 00 cams than links ...

who knows ... maybe they werent "placed" properly ...

i personally blew out a purple TCU 0 cam in what i thought was a good placement ... the cam stops inverted and the cam was unusable

... he likely climbs more trad than both of us combined ...

i personally blew out a purple TCU 0 cam in what i thought was a good placement ... the cam stops inverted and the cam was unusable

blah blah blah .. im jt512 ... i can tell gear placement over the internet

theres someone on the MP post that supposedly never weight a purple mastercam ... and the cam stops broke ...

perhaps youd care to tell him he cant place gear properly ... he likely climbs more trad than both of us combined ...

sure it can ... you can exceed the rating of the gear ...

perhaps youd like to comment mr patto on yr experience with owning and falling on the 0 and 00 Metollius ...

it would be quite valuable if you could shed some insight into why cam stops are breaking on them without people supposedly weighting them such as ...

so patto ... you are saying we have several liars on MP lying about their use of the cam ... or how they broke the cam stops cleaning them

most interesting ...

Hearsay, thus irrelevant.

there is a third possiblity ...

recently had a cam stop failure on my purple master cam as well. It was bought when the master cams first came out. The good folks at rock and snow got on the horn with metolius they sent them some pics of the cam stop/heads and i got a new cam. The new lobes are the major difference. The lobes are now smooth. According to metolius the grooved lobes weakened the milled stop and was a design weakness effecting both the purple and grey.

now perhaps youd care to share yr experiences owning and falling on link cams

i read all the current documentation and saw nothing to indicate that they were aid only ... nor is it listed as such in metollius page as far as i can see

however some posters have indicated that the only reason cam stops break or other such is because of bad placements

yet we have several people on MP stating the cams were never weighted or fallen on ... yet the cam stops were broken.

THere have been more Link cam failures than alien failures.

Cam stops don't break on their own or unweighted. Someone is either mistaken or misrepresenting the facts. As to cam stops failing in a fall - it physically can't happen if pro is properly placed, the cam lobe geometries relative to the axle don't permit it. The only way it can happen is if they are misplaced or walk out to a width of crack relative to the cam lobes where it can - there is no other way.

then basically RCers are saying we have several liars at MP ... different people all lying about the same thing at different times, all with the same brand of cam ...

as to "aid" most other companies list it items a "aid" only when it is only meant for such ... besides thats fairly irrelevant here since according to RCers, its a placement issue on cams that were "said" to be never weighted or fallen on by several MPers

just curious ... how many here have owned and fallen on the 0 and 00 ULTCU/ULPC/Mastercams ...

must be a lying binge over at MP ... darn glad im here ...

again ... most interesting ...

My husband ripped the cam stops off my purple TCU. He ripped it while aiding and invertied the lobes (bad placement obviously). The cam stops make the cam feel a little nicer when placing it, but you don't need them for an operatonal cam. On these small units the cam stops take very little force before shearing.

If the people on MP are saying that the cam stops randomly sheared off with no load applied to them then fuck yeah, they're lying....or too stupid to understand that things don't randomly break without applying some sort of force to them.

How do you think their cam stops sheared? How do you think you broke the cam stops off your cam? Or are you in the lying/stupid camp too?

My husband ripped the cam stops off my purple TCU. He ripped it while aiding and invertied the lobes (bad placement obviously). The cam stops make the cam feel a little nicer when placing it, but you don't need them for an operatonal cam. On these small units the cam stops take very little force before shearing.

perhaps you should read up ... the cam stops are required on these cams

as mr herrington said on MP

"
The cam stops on Master Cams are necessary for the cam to work in any mode. The spring curls around the cam stop and without it in place, there is no spring tension.
"

RC is full of experts and MP full of liars

I think this is not entirely true with the Mastercams. The cam-springs are attached at the cam stops, so if the stops on a Master are broken, you cannot retract the lobes. I don't have them in front of me, but I don't think this is the case with the TCU.

Or maybe people misreading? Master Cam and TCU are not the same. Whether they have the same cam stop spring design may be true, but would need to be established before your quote is relevant. I didn't see enough info on the Metolius site to determine the spring and cam stop design on either.

Don't know about what any of the current documentation says, but they used always have a notation to that effect and at 5kn you shouldn't need the documentation to spell it out for you.

then basically RCers are saying we have several liars at MP ... different people all lying about the same thing at different times, all with the same brand of cam ...

as to "aid" most other companies list it items a "aid" only when it is only meant for such ... besides thats fairly irrelevant here since according to RCers, its a placement issue on cams that were "said" to be never weighted or fallen on by several MPers

just curious ... how many here have owned and fallen on the 0 and 00 ULTCU/ULPC/Mastercams ...

must be a lying binge over at MP ... darn glad im here ...

again ... most interesting ...

Geez Louise! Is this true? I picked up 2 link cams last year. I've fallen on one of them twice. So far, so good. But still.... YIKES!

I don't recall the 0 and 00 TCUs' documentation ever stating that they were aid-only pieces, although many climbers certainly treated them as such. In fact, Metolius used to give them the same strength rating as their larger cams, 2000 lbf, IIRC. I remember when they downgraded them to 1000 lbf (now 5 kN) and why. Metolius stated that in an optimal placement the 0 and 00 TCUs would meet the old 2000 lbf rating; however, the rating was reduced to reflect the fact that the placement tolerances are small for small cams, and that therefore many placements in actual use are suboptimal.

I carried 0 and 00 TCUs when I trad climbed, but I was aware of their limitations. I never fell on one that I recall, but I did take a small fall on a comparably sized Alien, which held (and wasn't even damaged). The small Aliens had much higher strength ratings than the comparably sized TCUs, but I assumed that that was because the Alien ratings did not take into account the difficulty of getting an optimal placement.

Jay

well thanks for sharing that experience ... thus we at RC have basically established that there are a bunch of lying bastards over at MP ... completely different people lying about how they use the cams, how their stops broke, at different dates ...

either that or soo "stupid" they dont even know what they are doing ...

again .... most interesting

now back to links ...

Well, I don't know about relative failure rates, but I know that you climb in the Gunks, and link cams are poorly adapted to Gunks placements. In particular, I would consider link cams inappropriate for horizontal cracks.

That about sums it up....though there's always the possibility that you're misrepresenting what they actually said on MP. I rather doubt you could tell MP users that these cam stops randomly broke without having them question this claim too.

http://www.mountainproject.com/...n-cam-stop/107129489

judge for yourself ... several of the posters indicated explicitely that they did not weigh the cams, others that it likely broke during "cleaning"

but hey ... i freely admit to falling on my cam

of course metollius did admit about hacving and issue to at least one poster ... that could be all a lie of course as well ...

i sure am glad im on RC ... those darn lying MPers

again ... lets get back to links ... perhaps you can share yr experience owning and fallling on em ...

Just a thought...people might take you a little more seriously if you stopped writing like a 13 year old girl.
But, then again, I'm guessing that you know how much it irritates some people and that you enjoy it.

Yeah - I remember you warning me about that before. It was the only thing I could fit into the odd shaped horizontal right before the crux on retribution. I've climbed it twice and fell in the same spot twice. What else do people put in there?

Yeah - stop writing like a girl! bearbreeder probably throws like a girl and climbs like a girl, too. sheesh.

Yeah - stop writing like a girl! bearbreeder probably throws like a girl and climbs like a girl, too. sheesh.

Yeah - stop writing like a girl! bearbreeder probably throws like a girl and climbs like a girl, too. sheesh.

im only replying to this post since a mod posted it ...

id love to climb gracefully with flawless footwork like some gurls i know ... IMO there is no shame in climbing like a gurl

"highly moderated" indeed !!!

[image]http://i43.tinypic.com/jl3sib.png
[/image]

Yeah - I remember you warning me about that before. It was the only thing I could fit into the odd shaped horizontal right before the crux on retribution. I've climbed it twice and fell in the same spot twice. What else do people put in there?

http://www.mountainproject.com/...n-cam-stop/107129489

judge for yourself ... several of the posters indicated explicitely that they did not weigh the cams, others that it likely broke during "cleaning"

but hey ... i freely admit to falling on my cam

of course metollius did admit about hacving and issue to at least one poster ... that could be all a lie of course as well ...

i sure am glad im on RC ... those darn lying MPers

again ... lets get back to links ... perhaps you can share yr experience owning and fallling on em ...

What can I say? I moderate like a girl.

Links fit in lots of weird places, and a lot of those weird places I wouldn't trust them.

They were initially billed as being awesome in flares, but considering that a cam in a flare reduces your options for aligning the stem with the anticipated load direction, and according to OP you have to line that up perfectly, I'd reckon they are nearly worthless in flares, particularly if it bottoms out (which will likely torque the lobes.)

After mine broke, I kept the two bigger ones for a while, thinking they'd at least be good at Indian Creek. Then, at the Creek, I'd find myself at the tops of climbs with nothing left but link cams, and a funky placement (contrary to widely held belief, such placements are in abundance at the creek). I'm only glad donny couldn't see my tears of rage and fear as I stuffed them in and proceeded with zero confidence. I unloaded them after that trip.

just curious ... how many here have owned and fallen on the 0 and 00 ULTCU/ULPC/Mastercams ...

One of the medium tri-cams (blue or brown) or I think it's a green C4 (.75) - none inspired the confidence that the old pin that used to be there did - even though they probably were marginally better. I haven't given any of them the acid test though.

I don't recall the 0 and 00 TCUs' documentation ever stating that they were aid-only pieces,

Jay

I will have to double check with the one I have at home. Oddly I haven't noticed an issue with the spring tension, but I will admit I don't really use this cam anymore either (the hubby ran out and bought me a replacement pretty quick).

It was an older cam (from right around when the ultralights were coming out) so maybe it wasn't an issue then?

It's kind of an unofficial official statement. Metolius has openly said in e-mails that the pieces are designed for aid only, however they do not state that on their website. I remember reading a thread awhile back where someone complained that they decked when a 0 or 00 ripped. He contacted Metolius and they told him that the 0 and 00 cams were for aid only.

My partner fell on a 0 Master Cam last season and umbrellaed the cam in its placement, shearing off the cam stops.

I just checked with their catalog crew and they did at one time annotate those pieces as aid-only. It was probably not the wisest decision to stop pointing out the obvious in their documentation from my perspective.


As I said, it's physically impossible for a cam - anyone's cam; of any size - to invert and sheer the stops in a good placement - physically impossible.

No it's not impossible, not even close. The guy that fell on the cam took a factor one fall on it. What likely happened is the cam ran out of range and it umbrellaed. That's is not only very possible, it is very likely.

The only way it can happen is to fall on a piece that isn't placed securely, or is placed securely in less than idea rock, and said cam drags to a wider section of the crack where the cam then inverts. That's why you need to pay exceptional attention to detail when placing all forms of small pro.

No it's not impossible, not even close. The guy that fell on the cam took a factor one fall on it. What likely happened is the cam ran out of range and it umbrellaed. That's is not only very possible, it is very likely....

A good placement doesn't umbrella. If it does, then it was not a good placement.

Rubbish that micro cams like TCU 0 and 00 are for aid only. Same goes for micro nuts (RPs) which are event lower rated that TCU 00.

As I said, it's physically impossible for a cam - anyone's cam; of any size - to invert and sheer the stops in a good placement - physically impossible.

Axle (and stem) failures are another deal and you correctly identify them as the primary failure modes in good placements.

For semi-blind placements where the rock is kind of undulating, they're certainly nice.

GO

I used to think that too.

You think you always place your cams so they never pivot? Yeah, you're wrong. I broke one when the cam arm hung up on a small crystal.

... is far more common with link cams then any other brand.

Dude, again, could be because THEY AREN'T LIKE ANY OTHER CAM.

Look, if you or anyone else can't tell that after a 1/4 second glance at them then you shouldn't be using them. They are what they are and if the fact they have springs and a trigger somehow fooled you into thinking they're just another cam then it's the same story - you shouldn't be using them.

One of my posts is the one after the Ksolem post you quote. He's another old guy who simply rejects the design tradeoff premise as unacceptable. That's cool and you can bet he either rejected it out of hand or after checking them out, but what he didn't do was leave the ground with any illusion they're just another cam.

The inescapable bottom line remains the same - when you clip a chunk of metal on your rack or harness, you aren't leaving the ground with some idealized or generic device. No, you're leaving the ground with a device with very specific advantages and disadvantages inherent in its design and manufacture. You either recognize and work within those constraints or you are just asking to be hurt or killed.