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caughtinside
May 4, 2007, 5:45 PM
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bobruef wrote: [RANT]Also, would people PLEASE stop posting stuff like "I fell on an Alien and it held me." or "They sent my cams back promptly". A few good experiences w/ CCH mean nothing. Hell, a few thousand good experiences mean very little when you consider the overwhelming amount of negative feedback on the company. Hell, I'm glad my last United flight didn't crash this winter, but we're not aiming for over 50% success rates here. And I would think it absurd to respond to reports of multiple similar catastrophic failures on their jets with something like "oh, well I flew United the other day, and it was the best flight I've ever had" If United planes had fuel tank explosions on say 6 or 7 flights a year, there would be an alarming public outcry. Likewise, if 95% of Aliens don't fail at the braze (or the swage, or in the range, or at the cable...), it is simply unacceptable. [/RANT]
well bob, I understand your point, but at the same time I would disagree that a few good experiences mean nothing. And I wouldn't say that the negative feedback on CCH is overwhelming.
A few thousand good experiences do mean something. its the only reason why the company is still here. I'm not saying that recent events leave no cause for concern, but to say that the 10+ years of goodwill prior to those incidents are meaningless is incorrect.
however, like many out there, I would like to see these concerns addressed, which frankly they have not been. Further, I'm not holding out much hope that they will be. Very disappointing.
But I'll continue to climb on my old aliens, because quite frankly, they're the best small cam going. I know because I've tried the rest. Oh yeah, I fell on an alien (two actually) last weekend and it held me, and when I sent some in to get tested they sent my cams back promptly. 
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brogant
May 4, 2007, 7:36 PM
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I was at the Reservoir Wall with Micah Dash last Sunday when this incident occurred. Micah started the thread over on Super Topo as a community service. He does not have the photos.
Micah asked Josh (the dude with the camera) to email him the photos as ssoon as he got home. If Micah's word isn't good enough for you, go over to Super Topo and ask Malcolm Daly about the photos. He saw them in camp that night. Anyone who knows anything, knows that Malcolm is a standup guy and his word is gold.
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aerili
May 4, 2007, 7:53 PM
Post #54 of 112
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musicman1586 wrote: I think you fail to understand what is going on here. A cam should not pull apart at forces well below the manufacturer specs. If manufactured properly, which there are aliens out there that have been, they bottom line should not fail when used in the proper way. What has happened here is that cams have failed in situations that they should not have failed in, period, if they were built to the manufacturer specs, and so the problem is not that aliens are not fantastic units, all too many people believe they are the best, the problem lies in that these fantastic units are not being built as they should be.
Ditto. If a company can't get it's QC under control they will go under eventually. 80% of quality problems are caused by only 20% of the process steps, so what CCH needs to do is find the money to hire a Six Sigma Black Belt to overhaul their manufacturing process and pinpoint this 20% of errors.
Either that or find a Japanese company willing to buy them out and improve upon their original concept. 
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tomcat
May 4, 2007, 10:14 PM
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Bobreuf....how many Aliens would you guess are in use? And if we double the number of internet reports for good measure,what is the failure rate as we know it?You can pick the number in use.
Aliens pushed the envelope,maybe C3's will.It's a four cam unit with tiny parts.I would also say the braze connection is not the smallest of them,and should not be an issue.
I've owned three kinds of small cams,they are the first ones I really trust.In a they really stick in a placement way.I've fallen on most of mine and would not be strongly inclined to put all my cookies on any small cams I have used.
They may represent different things to different people,to me they are often gear where there was none before,I'll take that.
Mr Musicman...I do understand what's going on here.I manufacture a quality product in a diverse environment,I refer you to the same question.What is the failure rate,in terms of units in circulation and how does that compare to what you do?
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bobruef
May 4, 2007, 11:14 PM
Post #56 of 112
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caughtinside wrote: I'm not saying that recent events leave no cause for concern, but to say that the 10+ years of goodwill prior to those incidents are meaningless is incorrect.
Fair enough, you're right. I don't think any of this would be argued nearly as much if we were talking about Rock Empire cams. Alien's certainly earned their cult following. I love mine as much as the next guy. I'll be the first to concede that they place like no other cam.
tomcat wrote: Bobreuf....how many Aliens would you guess are in use? And if we double the number of internet reports for good measure,what is the failure rate as we know it?You can pick the number in use.
OK, if we went by your method, that would be 16 unreasonable failure in the last year or so. That's counting the misdrilled axle hole as just one, even though there were definitely more affected by that specific issue. This is also not counting the Aliens that failed when tested at Mgear at the start of Alien-gate. But let's be conservative and say that 50% of failures have been reported between here and supertaco, and double my lowball estimate to 16. Do you really think that's an acceptable # of failures? We're not talking about 10 kN rated pieces failing at 9kN either, we're talking about absurd failure modes. I'd also have to say that we're doing pretty good if half of the failures are reported. Hell, if half the people report back in a survey, you're doing pretty damn good. And considering that Supertaco and RC.com are based in the US, we're only talking about climbers who speak english for god's sake!
In reply to: Aliens pushed the envelope,maybe C3's will.It's a four cam unit with tiny parts.I would also say the braze connection is not the smallest of them,and should not be an issue.
Seems like you answered your own statement there, the tiny parts aren't related to the mode of failure here. In fact, most of the failure reports have been in the bigger sizes (i.e.- Orange, Purple). Alien parts are no smaller than TCU parts. Why isn't this expected failure rate occurring w/ Metolius cams? If somebody takes a MONSTEROUS whipper on one of the littlest buggers and it breaks, that would be a much more reasonable failure mode.
In reply to: I've owned three kinds of small cams,they are the first ones I really trust.
I'm glad that you've got a gut feeling that they're trust worthy, but in the end, your gut feeling isn't the standard I'd like to see these guys live up to.
Edited: spelling, formatting
(This post was edited by bobruef on May 5, 2007, 1:09 AM)
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schveety
May 5, 2007, 2:31 AM
Post #57 of 112
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Pictures were just posted on the Souders Crack thread (RRG) (May 4) - I just thought I'd let people know in this thread in case they weren't checking on that thread as well............ Yellow alien
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tallmark515
May 5, 2007, 5:15 PM
Post #59 of 112
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Links to pictures... (of the yellow alien failure).
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b275/tennisplayer121/l_5e142ac9ec658c471afd80a6e7e007fe.jpg
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b275/tennisplayer121/l_82ce45703350466bf710e324891a90c6.jpg
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b275/tennisplayer121/l_94e58a150e1b31c46ed602d2fa02e6d2.jpg
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b275/tennisplayer121/l_aba5a38d8ec4376268f2b9e21dd5ecb7.jpg
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b275/tennisplayer121/l_e5d9c269f5ccb3118b7c55f00c56be62.jpg
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b275/tennisplayer121/l_e544748490264250dbd84ec5b9a6e74a.jpg
That's some scary shit!
(This post was edited by tallmark515 on May 5, 2007, 5:58 PM)
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medicus
May 5, 2007, 5:21 PM
Post #60 of 112
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Lol... I am watching both of these threads and the last two posts here just link me back... the last one made me laugh because it linked me to back to my post.
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scuclimber
May 5, 2007, 11:09 PM
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Helped ya out there.
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jakedatc
May 6, 2007, 11:39 PM
Post #62 of 112
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hmmm ORDER UP!
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lubby
May 7, 2007, 9:44 PM
Post #63 of 112
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Ok, as a user of newish and sent-back-and-tested aliens, is there an issue with mine? Has there been a failure of tested aliens (all post-recall cams are tested according to CCH).
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bobruef
May 7, 2007, 9:57 PM
Post #64 of 112
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lubby wrote: Ok, as a user of newish and sent-back-and-tested aliens, is there an issue with mine? Has there been a failure of tested aliens (all post-recall cams are tested according to CCH).
The cam in this thread was stamped with a date of March 2007. That's post recall. Supposedly all cams post-recall were tested. This one seems not to have been. As I've articulated before, I would not trust CCH to test your cams, whether you buy them new, or send them in. As healyje pointed out, this cam's trip to the market was likely preceded by more than one inexcusable error. They're just letting too much get by them in there factory to be trustworthy as far as testing cams is concerned.
The Alien design is an incredible one though, and it looks like the climbing community at large is not ready to just toss their cams. There are currently discussions on the site looking into good methods for people to reliably test their own cams.
Best of luck,
Bob
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carabiner96
May 7, 2007, 10:03 PM
Post #65 of 112
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A major climbing manufacturer company is in the process of designing their version of tha alien that will, and I quote: "Blow CCH out of business."
I was ready to buy some aliens, but hearing this from the rep and whats been happening lately, I can wait a few seasons for the new, better QC guys to come out.
ps I'm not naming the company b/c i'm not sure if this has been made public yet.
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basilisk
May 7, 2007, 11:56 PM
Post #66 of 112
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carabiner96 wrote: ps I'm not naming the company
you, madam, are the devil.
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carabiner96
May 8, 2007, 12:13 AM
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basilisk wrote: carabiner96 wrote: ps I'm not naming the company you, madam, are the devil.
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gunkiemike
May 8, 2007, 12:27 AM
Post #69 of 112
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Whatever else you might be thinking, it is clear that CCH has improved their act: they haven't accused anyone of a hoax in this latest go-round. (AFAIK)
Scary pics!!!!!!!!
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j_ung
May 8, 2007, 1:52 AM
Post #70 of 112
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carabiner96 wrote: A major climbing manufacturer company is in the process of designing their version of tha alien that will, and I quote: "Blow CCH out of business." I was ready to buy some aliens, but hearing this from the rep and whats been happening lately, I can wait a few seasons for the new, better QC guys to come out. ps I'm not naming the company b/c i'm not sure if this has been made public yet.
So? Make it public. 
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carabiner96
May 8, 2007, 3:04 AM
Post #71 of 112
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j_ung wrote: carabiner96 wrote: A major climbing manufacturer company is in the process of designing their version of tha alien that will, and I quote: "Blow CCH out of business." I was ready to buy some aliens, but hearing this from the rep and whats been happening lately, I can wait a few seasons for the new, better QC guys to come out. ps I'm not naming the company b/c i'm not sure if this has been made public yet. So? Make it public.
You have no idea, I want to so bad, it's that exciting! It'll be worth the wait though, I promise.
Meanwhile, totems, anyone?
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Smikey
May 9, 2007, 4:44 PM
Post #72 of 112
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carabiner96 wrote: A major climbing manufacturer company is in the process of designing their version of tha alien that will, and I quote: "Blow CCH out of business." I was ready to buy some aliens, but hearing this from the rep and whats been happening lately, I can wait a few seasons for the new, better QC guys to come out. ps I'm not naming the company b/c i'm not sure if this has been made public yet.
Metolius, hafta wait and see.
(This post was edited by Smikey on May 9, 2007, 4:45 PM)
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notch
May 9, 2007, 5:06 PM
Post #73 of 112
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Just out of curiosity, if you can't trust a company's initial quality control, why would you trust the quality control when you send one back to be checked? Unless the Aliens are checked by a third party, there is no reason to believe the test practices are any more rigid than the manufacturing practices. Anyone who posts, "I sent my Aliens back to CCH and they say everything is fine." ought to have his head examined. If you sent your cigarettes back to a tobacco company, they'd tell you they were safe too! Still wanna smoke?
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svilnit
May 9, 2007, 5:11 PM
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bobruef wrote: Oh, I almost forgot! [image]http://it.stlawu.edu/~tbudd/hiv200.jpg[/image] booyah! 
Get out of the lab and climb!!!!
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maldaly
May 9, 2007, 5:17 PM
Post #75 of 112
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Hi gang,
Here are the photos of the braze failure that Micah Dash witnessed. THis happened at the Reservoir Wall (IC) on 4/29. The climber wasn't hurt because he had another cam in about 2 feet down. There was about 50' of rope out when he fell. We may not hear from the owner of the cam. He was, according to Micah, "some 'euro dude".
Be safe out there...
Mal
(This post was edited by maldaly on May 9, 2007, 5:19 PM)
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