I didn't think there could be much differnce in expansion range with the only difference being determined by only a few degrees of cam angle. Could it make that big a differnce.

Well yes perhaps if your Aliens are ones drilled off center with a 25 degree angle - but I wouldn't want to use them except perhaps in flairs for other reasons. Hmmm have we just come up with a flair specific specialty cam?

Julie: the difficult trigger is a result of all that flexibility, and a contributor to the removsl problem too.

Yeah ... I think it's the actual trigger/mechanism itself being flexible that's the problem? - when you pull on it, it flexes the cam around/to the side instead of doing its job.

That's probably why the alien trigger is a cylinder around the stem, and also possibly why the C3 was made so stiff? the Metolius is also pretty stiff towards the cam lobes. But, a longer trigger on newer zeros should make this problem worse! Interesting, I hadn't given that much thought before.

Aric and Gabe, what's specific to the Metolius trigger or bar that causes this retraction?

Seems to me all the alien replacements are significantly smaller in range. But now that we don't have a choice ......

See, you want what we all want. Seems like most of us think Aliens are the best cam ever made in terms of usability, we just want CCH to fix the problems. It will be sad if they can't come to grips with the cost required, and more sad if they do and the climbing community just can't trust them again.

How we can trust them again after their non-responses to this issue, though, remains to be seen

You mean strong, reliable pro that fits in any pod, flare, constriction or bottoming horizontal anywhere on a climb? It already exists. It's called a bolt.

I don't think that. I stopped using them in 2001/2 since I was tired of destroying them so rapidly. In reality once you are past the difference in cam range the other cams are just as good or if not better. I had 10 aliens (now Aric has them) 6 Zeros and 14 C3's and when it comes to working on what are test pieces for me, I go for the C3's first, and then the zero's and even without the QC issues, I disregarded the aliens.

Chas (and others, please weigh in) - in terms of getting past the difference in range - do you find that you compensate by carrying extra piece(s)?

I've almost always carried {blue, green, yellow alien} and a gray camalot. Now I feel like, when I've got C3s, I have less coverage - when I use one, I've got a bigger hole left on my rack. This is the biggest problem I have in replacing Aliens.

In considering the average rack you would carry of aliens to the average rack you would carry of C3s (not a specialty route, or a project, but an average route): do you, on average, carry more C3s, like an extra red or so? Or do you just ... carry one set, shrug, move on?

The C4 .3 covers basically the same range as the green alien.
The C4 .4 covers the same range as the yellow.
The C4 .5 covers the same range as the red.

It's only the blue alien that doesn't have something similar in range; to cover the entire range, you'd need the purple, green and red C3's.

At least, according to published numbers, who knows what the effective range was with misdrilled axles.

Here's a chart of the cam sizes.

Exactly. Aren't virtually all small cams single axle with their angles specified between 13 and 16 degress? If so there can not be a very significant difference in range - unless your Aliens were miss-drilled, and then you better worry about wherther they'll pull with no unit or rock damage from to little friction.

#s from CCH's website, and converted to mm.

green alien = 13.5 to 21.8, range = 8.3.
yell. alien = 15.5 to 25.4, range = 9.9.

C3 red? = 10.7 to 15.8, range = 5.1.
C3 yel? = 12.6 to 19.2, range = 6.6.
C4 0.3 = 13.8 to 23.4, range = 9.6, but head is much wider.

so a) the C3 ranges are MUCH smaller: the yellow C3 range is 20% smaller than the green alien and the red C3 is 34% smaller; b) C3s aren't a great match to the aliens in terms of crack size, in that you can't just substitute one for the other.

I think it's the combination of these two that I'm feeling. Specifically, for the green alien - the blue C4 is much wider, and the red C3 is a decent bit smaller.

I can't say I've run up short on pro. yet; this is all just whining in my head, thus far.

Don't forget, the range depends not only on the cam angle but also the amount of rotation the lobe has around the axle. I don't know off hand how the C3 works, but the Aliens are fairly free to rotate around.