love aliens.
love em.

Unless you can have someone qualified physically inspect said unit, pictures are just speculation. I can take anyone of those photos and make it look however you want. The only part that I don’t like is the way CCH handles this stuff, but so far all I see are couple of low resolution pics of said cam.

How do you know all the photos are components of the same cam? No photo shows all pieces in the same frame.

Also why is there completely different lighting and backgrounds in the photos of individual parts? (Excluding the one of the cam in the crack)

Why is there no photo of the stamps on the other side the trigger pull?

The photos raise just as many questions as they try to answer.

All of the aliens on my rack have been tested (unwillingly most of the time) So until I see anything more official I’m done thinking about it

Sure, you could fake it, take pictures and fool the masses. It'd be easy to do. But of course you're opening yourself up to getting sued by CCH, maybe by the goverment if the CPSC steps in and finds it a fraud.

The pictures were posted because the masses have asked for them. While not proof, it does show it's more than just spray. Either it's real or an elaborate hoax.

The pictures show only what people have asked to see. There may be more that haven't been linked or uploaded. Obviously the pictures are taken at different times, some on the rock, after they got home, some maybe even later as people asked to see different aspects. Lighting is arbitrary because the guy's not a professional photographer, didn't take all the pictures at the same time or from the same angle.

What's on the other side of the trigger worth taking a picture of?

The pictures answer the questions posed in the thread:
1- it's not just spray, there's a broken cam
2- it's not a braze failure that prompted the recall
3- the lot number is post-recall
4- the lobes are relatively intact, indicating a low force fall
5- there are no kinks in the cable which could indicate loading over an edge
6- the cam appears well placed

You don't need to think about it if all your aliens have been fallen on, if all your partners' aliens have all been fallen on, if you don't plan on replacing any aliens in the future. But there are a lot of people who are concerned, because we've bought new aliens or know people who have or climb with people who might have.

Nothing actually... What Smike meant was the swage. It has a stamp denoting whether it was tensile tested or not.

QTM, unless you've read something I have not (which could be the case) #2 is speculation if just looking at the photos (which is the focus point of this failure, how did the stem break)

Yes DB, that’s what I meant as that would / could have major impacts in CCH testing ability if the cam broke post tensile testing manufacture (Adding merit to concerns on recently purchased units)

7. Because the unit is so very new and clearly not abused, these pictures put CCH's response to the failure in a very clear and harsh light.

8. CCH has NOT tensile tested all of its post-recall units, as claimed.

Seems to me that's like having unprotected sex with random strangers. It's usually called "denial." I love my Aliens as much as the next guy/gal, but these issues are too prevalent to ignore. My 2006 Alien is going back to CCH for pull-testing before I think about even placing body weight on it.

It's possible it's related. But the braze failure that prompted the recall ended with the entire cable and braze pulling clean out of the stem, leaving a clean hole. This shows the brazing material seemingly intact in the stem.

I agree that you can't tell what happened. But it looks like the cable was never fully inserted into the stem and simply separated under load; that calls into question the assembly QA and the pull testing. If the cable actually snapped, then why did it snap?

The tensile testing is a big question as well. CCH claims all cams made in 2006+ have been pull tested, and many have sent their cams in to be tested. Was this cam actually tested? Can we rely on the static pull tests to adequately simulate conditions in a real world fall? Is everything really ok, but for some reason this fall generated greater than expected forces that somehow didn't disfigure the lobes?

Hard questions to answer even if you have the cam; pictures alone aren't going to answer them.

Unless the picture are an elaborate hoax, or are incredibly deceiving I agree with the first line above. Clearly noting in the picture is broken but the solder or braze.

I know one thing for sure. I wouldn't send my Aliens to CCH to have them tested. It seems very clear that that they cannot keep track of what the are doing. We're probably better off doing a crude test ourselves. At leat that way you know it got done and how.

People survive doing that too. I still think the overall risk isn't that high, but I admit it's getting higher.


Why would you trust them?