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bobruef
Jan 14, 2006, 3:10 AM
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In reply to: Knowing the failure rate of the non-dimpled Aliens would thus be helpful. Jay
Well, right now it is zero, no matter how many cams had dimples in the passing cams.
Knowing how many non-dimpled cams passed tells us nothing about their failure rate.
I'm with you though, I'd be thrilled to see some very extensive testing of aliens accross the board, all years. Doesn't sound like much in house testing has ever gone on.
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curt
Jan 14, 2006, 3:26 AM
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In reply to: In reply to: Knowing the failure rate of the non-dimpled Aliens would thus be helpful. Jay Knowing how many non-dimpled cams passed tells us nothing about their failure rate.
Tell me you didn't really mean this, before I have to flame you badly.
Curt
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skinner
Jan 14, 2006, 3:31 AM
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In reply to: Tell me you didn't really mean this, before I have to flame you badly. Curt
Fire up the flame thrower
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healyje
Jan 14, 2006, 4:04 AM
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Gentleman,
Would it be possible to hold off on the stat wars for the moment? I think we can all agree that more data would be helpful and that it would be good to have a broader dataset on both "dimpled" and "undimpled" cams; but for the moment let's settle for finding out the three brazing defect cams in MGear's testing did in fact have the "center punch dimple" CCH identified in their recall notice. It would similarly be good to know the same about Kevin's (the OP) cam and I have emailed him for that info. But please, for now, let's hold off a bit and give Dave a chance to get his arms around all this, deal with this recall, and hopefully in the end he'll provide us with a more comprehensive statement or reporting.
And Paul, thank you so very much for following up on this matter and finding out that info. As was just stated above, your stepping up and representing retail interests in our industry is a real service and credit to you / MGear. You get my next order...
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mistertyler
Jan 14, 2006, 4:44 AM
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Do you like
Dimples on your stems?
I do not like them, cam I am
I do not like dimples on my stems!
Would you like them
here or there?
I would not like them
here or there.
I would not like them anywhere.
I do not like
Dimples on my stems.
I do not like them, cam I am.
Would you like those dimples bigger?
Maybe put them on the trigger?
I do not like those
dimples bigger.
I do not want them
on the trigger.
I do not like them
here or there.
I do not like them
anywhere.
/ad nauseam, just like these threads
//apologies to Theodore Geisel
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bobruef
Jan 14, 2006, 5:21 AM
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In reply to: In reply to: In reply to: Knowing the failure rate of the non-dimpled Aliens would thus be helpful. Jay Knowing how many non-dimpled cams passed tells us nothing about their failure rate. Tell me you didn't really mean this, before I have to flame you badly. Curt
Excuse me, Curt, I should have saith that this tells us nothing new abouth their failure rate.
say 6 cams pass the test, and are all without dimples.
Terrific, I'm thrilled, none of my cams have dimples.
...but...these 6 are a drop in the bucket next to the hundreds or thousands of aliens that have passed 'field testing'. This is no new evidence.
As far as anyone knows there is no problem with un-dimpled aliens.
There is no evidence at this point (in the form of failed gear) that would indicate that the aliens sans dimple are unsafe. On the contrary, there have been years of field tests to prove they are safe. So far we've got quitemonk's brazing failure which we don't know much about, insano's failure (dimpled) and three mountain gear failures of cams all with dimples. CCH has said the problem only exists in the cams with dimples. So far there is ZERO evidence to tell us otherwise. There is a zero mechanical failure rate on non-dimpled cams (as far as we know at this point).
Now, this does not mean I do not have my doubts as to the safety of my 'undimpled' aliens. As I mentioned before, It doesn't seem that there's much testing going on at the cch shed. I'd be thrilled to see some tests accross the board.
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billl7
Jan 14, 2006, 5:28 AM
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In reply to: Bill I am curious, in your long and illustrious career how many Aliens have you acquired, and how many are affected? |
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billl7
Jan 14, 2006, 5:36 AM
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In reply to: Bill I am curious, in your long and illustrious career how many Aliens have you acquired, and how many are affected? |
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skinner
Jan 14, 2006, 5:51 AM
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As I suspected :roll:
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billl7
Jan 14, 2006, 6:00 AM
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In reply to: As I suspected :roll: |
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jersteck
Jan 14, 2006, 6:06 AM
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I'm a long time Alien fan, avid trad climber, and a mechanical engineer involved in new product development for a US safety products manufacturer. We make fall protection, mostly industrial and some recreational.
We should not be so quick to dismiss CCH as a competent manufacturer of high quality climbing equipment because of this one quality issue. We should not be overly critical of CCH because of their initial response to 1 incident. Few companies will perform a recall based on 1 defect. Many companies have went under because they have reacted on 1 data point by being overly cautious. Random flukes are inherent to any manufacturing process. The important thing to consider is that CCH did react with a quick investigation, and eventually a recall, based on an Internet discussion.
Many companies have sustained such situations by giving detailed explanations of the issue at hand and providing data to support their findings. CCH should explain why the dimple is the sole identifier of this defect. CCH should also supply some data to support this claim.
Fortunately the rock climbing community is a different demographic than the general public that most companies have to deal with. In general, these folks are a tight knit community, and more importantly are folks who take responsibility for their own actions. Let's use common sense here, let CCH conduct additional testing, and await the results.
I've witnessed alien cams to hold several falls myself, and so have countless others. Since no one has been hurt as a result of this issue, let's give CCH some time to react to this issue and base our opinions and support of this company on the way they respond to this issue.
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jersteck
Jan 14, 2006, 6:10 AM
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Are CCH Aliens certified to any US or international test standards? I see no product markings on the product. I know at Black Diamond at a minimum is CE certified.
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aeray
Jan 14, 2006, 7:04 AM
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remember--- absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
an old archaeological saw.
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sumo
Jan 14, 2006, 7:10 AM
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In reply to: Are CCH Aliens certified to any US or international test standards? I see no product markings on the product. I know at Black Diamond at a minimum is CE certified.
On the tag it says "Alien Cams are UIAA and CE tested and approved!"
I would scan the rest of it, but scanner doesn't seem to be working.
S
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skinner
Jan 14, 2006, 8:03 AM
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Bill, please don't take this as a personal attack, because it is anything but.
It does re-enforce what I said earlier, that many of the posters who have been the most vocal, are not directly affected by this. Of course someone was quick to point out that all climbers are affected..
The truth is "all climbers" may be indirectly affected.
There are those of us who are *directly* affected, myself to the tune of 11 dimpled Aliens.
So please don't tell me what I should or shouldn't do.
I have every right in an open forum to ask for the clarification or additional information with regards the statement made by mgear.
Do you really think that we are impeding them from investigating or doing their jobs by posting here? :shock:
Do you think that the staff of CCH and mgear, drop what ever they are doing and crowd around the computer because another post popped up in rc.com?
Them having to answer the phone constantly will certainly have some effect, which is why I have refrained from calling.
But as far as this thread goes, they can chose to read it or not, at their leisure, which I am sure that is exactly what they do.
And in reading if Paul realizes that knowing if the cams that did- not fail were dimpled or not, is something that we feel is important, and he decides to pass this information on, then great.
There is nothing wrong with posting a short legitimate questions. It will not affect CCH or mgears work day in anyway.
Huge posts bantering back and forth especially by people not *directly affected* just adds noise and clutter to the thread. This could definitely have an affect as CCH and mgear attempt to filter through it all seeking out legitimate comments and concerns.
BTW: I sugested that all the actual statements made be CCH and mgear be copied into their own thread.. and the thread locked for this very reason. Keep the comments, questions, suggestions, etc. and the actual information separate. Any thoughts?
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billl7
Jan 14, 2006, 4:39 PM
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In reply to: Bill, please don't take this as a personal attack, because it is anything but.
In reply to: It does re-enforce what I said earlier, that many of the posters who have been the most vocal, are not directly affected by this. Of course someone was quick to point out that all climbers are affected.. The truth is "all climbers" may be indirectly affected.
In reply to: There are those of us who are *directly* affected, myself to the tune of 11 dimpled Aliens. So please don't tell me what I should or shouldn't do. I have every right in an open forum to ask for the clarification or additional information with regards the statement made by mgear.
In reply to: Do you really think that we are impeding them from investigating or doing their jobs by posting here? :shock:
In reply to: Do you think that the staff of CCH and mgear, drop what ever they are doing and crowd around the computer because another post popped up in rc.com? Them having to answer the phone constantly will certainly have some effect, which is why I have refrained from calling. But as far as this thread goes, they can chose to read it or not, at their leisure, which I am sure that is exactly what they do. And in reading if Paul realizes that knowing if the cams that did- not fail were dimpled or not, is something that we feel is important, and he decides to pass this information on, then great.
In reply to: There is nothing wrong with posting a short legitimate questions. It will not affect CCH or mgears work day in anyway. Huge posts bantering back and forth especially by people not *directly affected* just adds noise and clutter to the thread. This could definitely have an affect as CCH and mgear attempt to filter through it all seeking out legitimate comments and concerns.
We both think each other posts are unnecessary noise but not our own. Probably not surprising to anyone and probably not a serious problem for either one of us.
In reply to: BTW: I sugested that all the actual statements made be CCH and mgear be copied into their own thread.. and the thread locked for this very reason. Keep the comments, questions, suggestions, etc. and the actual information separate. Any thoughts?
Skinner (and Jay), I regret that my tone was directive to you. I apologize. I do tend to be biased about giving investigators room to work when I assume they undoubtedly need it. But I went a little too far.
Bill
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ronolsen
Jan 14, 2006, 4:55 PM
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In reply to: The important thing to consider is that CCH did react with a quick investigation, and eventually a recall, based on an Internet discussion. |
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jt512
Jan 14, 2006, 4:56 PM
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In reply to: In reply to: Exactly. The partial information that Paul released suggests that the dimpled Aliens are problematic, but actually says nothing about the non-dimpled ones. As helyje more eloquently put it, many of us, who have sworn by Aliens for many years, now have nagging doubts about the product's quality, and would like to know whether the problem was exclusively limited to the dimpled Aliens, or is more pervasive. Knowing the failure rate of the non-dimpled Aliens would thus be helpful. Jay Ok, I get what you're after now. Correct me if I'm wrong, but you're thinking that if all 6 passing cams were non-dimpled, then that would attest towards the strenght of supposed 'in-house' cams?
Not exactly. What it would do is allow us to compare the failure rate among dimpled cams vs non-dimpled ones. If those numbers were 100% vs 0%, then that would be evidence supporting CCH's claim that the brazing problem was restricted to the outsourced cams. However, if even a single non-dimpled cam failed below rated strength (out of 6), then I would consider all non-dimpled cams -- at least recently manufactured ones -- to be suspect, as well.
I agree with you that just knowing that no non-dimpled cams failed is not sufficient to completely restore my faith in Aliens. I really need to know that CCH has corrected whatever systematic errors led to these and other recently reported problems. However, it would be a step. Remember, we have no evidence at this point WHATSOEVER that the problem is restricted to the dimpled cams. The partial test results that Paul has released do not support this assertion (they don't contradict it either). Furthermore, the fact that Paul has not released this information adds to my suspicion. I'm asking him to post one single-digit number that he has at his finger tips. That is not a huge burden.
Additionally, as I think tgreene pointed out a couple days ago, the wording of Paul's initial message that the dimpled cams failed below rated strength "at the braze" is ambiguous. The wording allows for the interpretation that the non-dimpled cams also failed below rated strength, but not at the braze. I realize that this might just have been sloppy wording on his part. I make my living by writing unambiguously, and obviously not everybody else does. Nonetheless the ambiguities are there, and need to be addressed before I, and others, from what I gather, will have our faith in CCH restored.
Jay
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bobruef
Jan 14, 2006, 5:39 PM
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In reply to: We took nine units of various sizes and date stamps dating back to the earliest we had in stock which is 0605 for pull testing. Of the nine Aliens tested, three brazes failed and the cable pulled out at below the CCH-stated max strength for that size. The failures were from different sizes and date stamps, and included both Hybrid and regular Aliens.
In reply to: To answer the questions on the (9) Nine Alien cams Mountain Gear had tested: All (3) Three that had failed brazes had dimples.
I'm sorry if I'm missing something, but are you infering that there were possibly more than three cams that failed testing?
I think that Paul from mgear has been very forthcoming in all of this, and would find it very hard to believe that he would withold information of additional failures from us. While I can see the loophole in the wording I think you're reffering to, what you are suggesting would be a horrific thing for Paul to do to say the least. I'm personally content to trust him based on the credebility he has built throughout this ordeal.
If Paul is being honest, then we've got 3 cams that fialed, all at the braze, and all of which had dimples. I'd take tht as evidence to support CCH's claim.
Otherwise, he'd be witholding very pertinant information, and would have very seriously decieved us.
While I'll give you credit for being very shrewd in your analysis of this situation (especially on the previous statistics debate), I'm content that Paul's not misleading us, intentionally or otherwise.
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curt
Jan 14, 2006, 5:49 PM
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In reply to: In reply to: In reply to: Exactly. The partial information that Paul released suggests that the dimpled Aliens are problematic, but actually says nothing about the non-dimpled ones. As helyje more eloquently put it, many of us, who have sworn by Aliens for many years, now have nagging doubts about the product's quality, and would like to know whether the problem was exclusively limited to the dimpled Aliens, or is more pervasive. Knowing the failure rate of the non-dimpled Aliens would thus be helpful. Jay Ok, I get what you're after now. Correct me if I'm wrong, but you're thinking that if all 6 passing cams were non-dimpled, then that would attest towards the strenght of supposed 'in-house' cams? Not exactly. What it would do is allow us to compare the failure rate among dimpled cams vs non-dimpled ones. If those numbers were 100% vs 0%, then that would be evidence supporting CCH's claim that the brazing problem was restricted to the outsourced cams. However, if even a single non-dimpled cam failed below rated strength (out of 6), then I would consider all non-dimpled cams -- at least recently manufactured ones -- to be suspect, as well. I agree with you that just knowing that no non-dimpled cams failed is not sufficient to completely restore my faith in Aliens. I really need to know that CCH has corrected whatever systematic errors led to these and other recently reported problems. However, it would be a step. Remember, we have no evidence at this point WHATSOEVER that the problem is restricted to the dimpled cams. The partial test results that Paul has released do not support this assertion (they don't contradict it either).
We don't even know whether any "non-dimpled" cams were tested. It could be that nine "dimpled" cams were tested--and three of them failed. I too would like for Paul to simply tell us what the make-up was of the original set of cams tested.
Curt
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jimdavis
Jan 14, 2006, 5:59 PM
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What I really want to know...is how CCH decided to change their manufacturing process (or contracters), and never fucking tested the new process.
I mean honestly; you change the setup and never test it?!?
Is this common? Or did CCH just F* up? Condoms get random batch tests...why doesn't climbing gear?
These friggin things have been back-ordered out the ass for years, now once they finally catch up on supply....they have 2 recalls in 1 year!
They should sell the design to someone else that knows what the hell they're doing.
Jim
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clayman
Jan 14, 2006, 7:28 PM
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Maybe this has been discussed already, can't seem to keep up with all these threads. But, has CCH said anything about the recall of non-dimpled cams yet? What assurance is there that the party responsible for the faulty braze wasn't also negligent in putting a dimple on every unit?
It would seem more appropriate to recall units by date and model than by this dimple.
cl
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bobruef
Jan 14, 2006, 7:38 PM
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In reply to: What assurance is there that the party responsible for the faulty braze wasn't also negligent in putting a dimple on every unit? cl
excellent point
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porcelainsunset
Jan 15, 2006, 12:23 AM
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Yeah I will agree with that as well. Somebody else mentioned that they had several cams from the same batch, some with Dimple of Death (DOD), some without. I too have the same issue, my Aliens are marked as follows:
Blue, no DOD, Batch #0205
Yellow, no DOD, Batch #0705
Grey, DOD, Batch #0205 (Note, same as the Blue above)
Red, DOD, Batch #0305
Orange, DOD, Batch #805
Violet, no DOD, Batch #0105
What concerns me about the Recall being limited to cams only with DOD is that I have both a blue and gray from the same batch #, one with DOD and one without. At the same time, I have no idea if this means anything or not. What I want answered at some point by these investigations is what the batch number represents, and weather or not there can be both affected and unaffected cams with the same batch number, as I am currently led to believe.
This is only a guess here, so please don't take my word for it, but I think that the batch number is relative to the month and year that the cams where manufactured. Example, 0705 would indicate that the cam was made in July of 05. If this was the case, then that would mean that we could not identify the problem by batch number, but only by DOD, which I would believe to be the mark that separates In house from out of house. If this is the case, then I sincerely hope that this DOD came pre-fabricated and sent to the contractor, or was an unavoidable part of the manufacturing process, otherwise, the scope of this problem would not only be limited to Cams marked with the DOD.
Hopefully this was of usefull imput to the discussion.
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healyje
Jan 15, 2006, 1:41 AM
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Folks,
There is no doubt we'd all like more answers and my conversation with Dave at CCH left me pretty confident we'll get them but they are going need a bit of time to fully respond. This could take days or weeks, he is just one person and is pretty consumed right now dealing with this recall...
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