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shotwell
Mar 3, 2009, 7:53 PM
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All I see is a company willing to have a look at a potentially damaged product and a crooked "straight-edge." Pictures taken against a real straight-edge should also be square to it. Otherwise nothing is gained from viewing the picture. I do, however, agree that a top down picture would be helpful, as well as pictures taken square against a trued straight-edge.
That being said, the lobes do seem to be crooked on the axle to me. Again, the OP rep said that the lobes are not as tight on the axle as other cams. At this point, to me, everything looks safe and normal.
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Tipton
Mar 3, 2009, 7:56 PM
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sungam wrote: Wow, it seems a fair number of folks on here missed the point. The f*ing axle seems to have warped slightly due to the fall. Can you take a top-down picture as well? Like, of the link cam so we can see it more clearly?
Actually, I think you may have missed the point. If you put a cam in a screwy enough position, then fall on it, well shit, it might just break.
More importantly, MichaelLane (Omega Pacific guy) suggests that the cam axle is not actually bent and that the lobes just sit awkwardly due to necessary larger tolerances in the lobe-axle attachment which are made visible because of the torque applied to the lobes from the springs.
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steady_climbing
Mar 3, 2009, 7:57 PM
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michaellane wrote: Hey, Navy ... If you'd like us to take a look at that cam, call us for a Return Authorization and we'll inspect it for damage. The lobes look a little tweaked, but it doesn't mean the axle's bent. The inspection will reveal if it is, but my bet is that it's not. The inner-most links (the ones attached to the axle) require a lot more rotation than any other cam on the market. As such, they require a little more tolerance between the inside diameter of the link and the outside diameter of the axle. Because of that relationship and that the springs apply some side force to the lobe assemblies, sometimes, they can sit slightly askew on the axle. I'm guessing that's what we're seeing in your photos. Why'd the Link Cam pop when the Camalot didn't? I wish I could tell you. There isn't a lot of information or photos included about the type of placement, so it's impossible for me to speculate. However, we've found through exhaustive testing, as others here have mentioned, that minor variables can significantly effect the holding power of one cam over the other ... or even the same cam from one placement to another in the same feature. But if you'd like us to give your cam a checkup, we'd be happy to. --ML ___________________ Michael Lane Omega Pacific 800.360.3990
I have 5 bucks on the axel NOT being bent....
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Sin
Mar 3, 2009, 7:58 PM
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granite_grrl wrote: sungam wrote: Wow, it seems a fair number of folks on here missed the point. The f*ing axle seems to have warped slightly due to the fall. Can you take a top-down picture as well? Like, of the link cam so we can see it more clearly? Actually, the axle looks straight to me. Yes, the lobes are off a little, but the axle itself looks fine (take a pen, hold it up to the photos). If you take a larger BD cam (I only say BD because they are the only larger cams that I have) you can see an amazing amount of play in the lobes. Not having used link cams, I'm not sure how much play their lobes have, but it's something to consider.
Yup my c4 #3's and 4's lobes look a bit skewed, but still rock solid. It looks like the axel is warped, but its just an optical illusion ooooouuuuuu .
By the way US, despite our recent arguments I'll be the gentleman, and I'll restrain myself from kicking a man when he's down.
(This post was edited by Sin on Mar 3, 2009, 8:01 PM)
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Tipton
Mar 3, 2009, 8:01 PM
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Sin wrote: Yup my c4 #3's and 4's lobes look a bit skewed, but still rock solid. It looks like the axel is warped, but its just an optical illusion ooooouuuuuu .
Girl:"Wow! It's a schooner!"
Willam:"You dumb bastard! That's not a schooner, it's a sailboat!"
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sungam
Mar 3, 2009, 8:04 PM
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A fair point, but the warping may have been along the axis we can see, not perpindicular to it, so we couldn't see it. Hence why I asked for the top down picture.
But since you mention it, yeah, I could see the lobs with several joints having plenty of play in them.
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hafilax
Mar 3, 2009, 8:07 PM
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+1 for the axle not being bent.
Does the cam retract and spring back properly? Is there extra play in the cams? Oh right, you didn't take pictures of the cams before the 'experiment'. One of the main principals in a scientific report is reproducibility.
A photo of the 'fair' placement would have greatly added to your credibility. As it stands there is anecdotal evidence of possible damage due to a fall on a cam in an unknown placement. You do realize that climbers are incredibly superstitious and get rather hysterical over their gear...
I would have talked to Omega Pacific to get a professional opinion before posting this here.
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Sin
Mar 3, 2009, 8:08 PM
Post #33 of 177
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Tipton wrote: Sin wrote: Yup my c4 #3's and 4's lobes look a bit skewed, but still rock solid. It looks like the axel is warped, but its just an optical illusion ooooouuuuuu . Girl:"Wow! It's a schooner!" Willam:"You dumb bastard! That's not a schooner, it's a sailboat!"
I'd say its more like a sailing boat?
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billcoe_
Mar 3, 2009, 9:02 PM
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Navy: in response to this "You may notice how the BD is in perfect condition comparatively, despite the more severe fall: ". I find it suspicus that the metal on the OP is chewed up, as if it really took a harder fall.
BTW, the axle probably isn't bent, I think OPs post is more than fair. I'd like to see a calibrated pull test before I worry on it.
As noted above, Max Cams are made by Trango, were not part of this "test" and is a trademarked item not made by Black Diamond or Omega Pacific. Omega Pacific makes the Link Cams, like you tested here, and that is a different trademarked item. 8kN is the min rating (Strength 8 - 14 kilonewtons) on the Link Cam in .5 size.
Is it not possible that you may have easily hit that number without knowing it? If the aluminum material is the same on both, would you not question why the cam on the Link Cam is more marked up?
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justinboening
Mar 3, 2009, 9:23 PM
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I have to say that (for reasons which have already been mentioned) I first read your post and thought it was a joke! It wasn't until you responded to the first few posts that I realized you were actually serious. I find your confidence shocking, Navy. And you haven't even corrected the thread title—tisk, tisk.
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jdefazio
Mar 3, 2009, 9:33 PM
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bandycoot wrote: ... Your logic is flawed. You can't make sweeping assumptions based on a single data point that isn't statistically significant...
Bingo.
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patto
Mar 3, 2009, 10:06 PM
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Personally I think some people here are being a little harsh on USNavy personally. He put the time, money and effort into doing this test and then he posted it online for us to see.
Like others I don't think much can be concluded from the results. The tests don't really say much and the OP cam may not even be broken.
Anyway I thank USNavy for providing us with this information despite me thoughts on its usefulness.
Also Michael Lane handled this quite well. Nobody likes to see their company's cam rubbished. ML seems to have restrained his comments well. Plenty of others have stepped up to defend OP.
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Tipton
Mar 3, 2009, 10:14 PM
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patto wrote: Personally I think some people here are being a little harsh on USNavy personally. He put the time, money and effort into doing this test and then he posted it online for us to see. Like others I don't think much can be concluded from the results. The tests don't really say much and the OP cam may not even be broken. Anyway I thank USNavy for providing us with this information despite me thoughts on its usefulness. Also Michael Lane handled this quite well. Nobody likes to see their company's cam rubbished. ML seems to have restrained his comments well. Plenty of others have stepped up to defend OP.
Maybe if the title didn't say "Disturbing Results..." then the harshness wouldn't have been as justified. But the manner he presented the results promoted hysteria, which thankfully no one really gave a shit about.
He pulled the fire alarm with no fire and people got pissed about it. Shocker.
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mojomonkey
Mar 3, 2009, 10:14 PM
Post #39 of 177
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patto wrote: Personally I think some people here are being a little harsh on USNavy personally. He put the time, money and effort into doing this test and then he posted it online for us to see. Like others I don't think much can be concluded from the results. The tests don't really say much and the OP cam may not even be broken. Anyway I thank USNavy for providing us with this information despite me thoughts on its usefulness. Also Michael Lane handled this quite well. Nobody likes to see their company's cam rubbished. ML seems to have restrained his comments well. Plenty of others have stepped up to defend OP.
I think the strong reaction comes from the tone of the original post. Based on his testing, he implies that the OP quality is not up to snuff and the link cams aren't trust worthy. A lot of people may come across that info and it could hurt OP's sales or public opinion on link cams. All based on what is in reality a test that has way too many unknowns to be significant.
That is unfair and people may be motivated to point it out.
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cracklover
Mar 3, 2009, 11:39 PM
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A "fair" placement is a meaningless term. Without a picture (or at least a really detailed description) of both the original placements, and the final position of the BD cam, it is impossible to judge anything whatsoever.
It sure sounds, though, like the direction of the fall line was not the same as the orientation of the cam. In such a situation, a fall of factor .3 is *not* a minor fall, as far as the the impact on the cam is concerned. The peak force on the sling in that case is 6kN, or over 1300 lbs. And if that force is put into torquing the cam, it's easy to have all kinds of things go wrong.
It sounds like the BD cam had two of its lobes ripped out of the placement, such that the final position in which it caught the fall was more in line with the fall line. Whereas the OP cam, due to it's larger range, probably just torqued into the crack further until the rock failed. But the force that you put on that cam before it failed was probably significantly larger than the force on the BD, because it couldn't rotate.
In short, not enough info provided, and I don't trust you to know this stuff already and have factored it in before coming to your conclusions.
GO
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USnavy
Mar 4, 2009, 3:18 AM
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granite_grrl wrote: The Link cam could have blown away bad rock, or it could have been in a bit of a pod which the Link cam didn't sit in quite as well. Heck, he didn't end tell us what type of rock he placed it in!
It was placed in basalt. I checked to verify the OP cam did not damage the rock before I placed the C4. Although the rock did have some slight tick marks where the lobes grabbed, the fundamental shape of the rock did not change from the OP cam pulling.
adatesman wrote: Hey USnavy- Mind fixing the thread title? You have it as "OP Max Cam" rather than "OP Link Cam".
Done.
mexclimber wrote: The lobes come like that new. I shopped several places before buying my .5 OP because I thought something was wrong and they were all identical.
They do, but not to the extent listed above. I work at a gear shop and all 30 of our Link Cams look like this when brand new:
vegastradguy wrote: fourth- you mentioned that the BD slipped an 'inverted sideways'- does this mean that the stem was not oriented downward for these placements?
The stem was pointed downwards in anticipation of the fall pull direction in both cases. When I placed the C4 .4 all four lobes were orientated downwards. When I got back up, I noticed the inner two lobes slipped some allowing the C4 to rotate counterclockwise approximately 45 degrees.
A similar thing happened with the OP cam that I did not list. Two of the lobes on the OP cam have two separate bite marks in two separate locations. It appears that when the OP cam pulled, it expanded and grabbed into a second placement on two lobes, then slipped again. You can see two separate set of bite marks below.
sungam wrote: Can you take a top-down picture as well? Like, of the link cam so we can see it more clearly?
Done. The bite marks are indicated in red.
hafilax wrote: Does the cam retract and spring back properly? Is there extra play in the cams? Oh right, you didn't take pictures of the cams before the 'experiment'. One of the main principals in a scientific report is reproducibility. A photo of the 'fair' placement would have greatly added to your credibility. As it stands there is anecdotal evidence of possible damage due to a fall on a cam in an unknown placement. You do realize that climbers are incredibly superstitious and get rather hysterical over their gear...
Yes the lobes retract smoothly but they no longer retract symmetrically as they did when brand new and as the C4 still does. I didn’t take pictures of the cam beforehand because I did not expect this to happen. I was not even planning on publishing my finding until this happened. The original goal of the experiment was only to determine if the differences in various cams do translate to real world holding power differences in the same placement.
I will get a photo of the placement.
billcoe_ wrote: I find it suspicious that the metal on the OP is chewed up, as if it really took a harder fall. 8kN is the min rating (Strength 8 - 14 kilonewtons) on the Link Cam in .5 size. Is it not possible that you may have easily hit that number without knowing it?
The lobes on the C4 are a bit chewed up as well. It’s impossible for the Link Cam to have held a higher impact force because the cam did not yield to the full force of the fall like the C4 did. It pulled before I stopped on the rope where as the C4 did not.
No, it’s impossible for me to have hit the 8 kN limitation on that fall. At most the BD C4 may have seen 5 kN but even that is pushing it. The OP saw less than the BD because it failed to hold.
cracklover wrote: It sure sounds, though, like the direction of the fall line was not the same as the orientation of the cam. In such a situation, a fall of factor .3 is *not* a minor fall, as far as the the impact on the cam is concerned. It sounds like the BD cam had two of its lobes ripped out of the placement, such that the final position in which it caught the fall was more in line with the fall line.
The cams were orientated in the direction of the anticipated fall. Falling from a distance where my feet was only slightly over the cam with about 25 feet of rope out is a minor fall.
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Valarc
Mar 4, 2009, 3:45 AM
Post #42 of 177
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bandycoot wrote: Your logic is flawed. You can't make sweeping assumptions based on a single data point that isn't statistically significant, especially with so many variables and factors and imperfections applying strange forces in an outdoor crack real world scenario.
^^^^^^ This
hafilax wrote: One of the main principals in a scientific report is reproducibility
^^^^^^ Also this.
All you've demonstrated is that it might be possible to warp something on a link cam in some sort of placement. I bet it might be possible to warp something on lots of cams in some sort of placement.
At an absolute BARE MINIMUM, you should have taken pictures of the placements before taking your falls, if you wanted this "experiment" (it pains me to use that word to describe this) to be taken seriously.
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robdotcalm
Mar 4, 2009, 5:26 AM
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USN: you made an interesting observation along with some conclusions not fully warranted by a single datum. However, the flaming by those who never present data was, as too often the case, intemperate and vacuous. The prompt response by OP once again demonstrates how seriously they take any untoward events involving their equipment.
I look forward to your showing pictures of the placement as that may shed some light on what’s happened. I own a couple of link cams and am cautious in placing them because of their more complex design. I regard them as specialty gear—very good for those situations, e.g., a flaring crack, in which nothing else will work.
Cheers,
Rob.calm
_______________________________________________________
‘Tis better to have trad and failed then not to have trad at all.
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k.l.k
Mar 4, 2009, 5:41 AM
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Okay, I'll make the token required obvious response so that I can say I've done my good citizen time.
This is fuckin bullshit, if the Knob is going to post this stuff then it's just Jackass for n00bs, and this thread has zero empirical content.
For all of you n00b lurkers, do not do this at home, do not do this at your university, and above all,
DO NOT DO ANYTHING LIKE THIS AT ANY CRAG I AM LIKELY TO VISIT.
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Valarc
Mar 4, 2009, 5:52 AM
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robdotcalm wrote: However, the flaming by those who never present data was, as too often the case, intemperate and vacuous.
I found this thread to be pretty damn civil, honestly. If you consider that to be flaming, perhaps you need to start carrying some Johnson and Johnson No More Tears shampoo in your purse, and make sure you have a cell phone handy to call the whaaaambulance.
His "data" is damn-near meaningless and he's trying to use it to paint a doom-and-gloom picture of Link Cams. It's unfair to OP and insulting to the intelligence of the RC.com reader, whether that reader "presents data" or not.
I've published enough genuine peer-reviewed scientific articles that I feel perfectly justified calling people out on drawing horseshit conclusions from a single data point, regardless of whether I've ever contributed anything to the RC.noob climbing data pool.
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k.l.k
Mar 4, 2009, 5:55 AM
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robdotcalm wrote: [T]he flaming by those who never present data was, as too often the case, intemperate and vacuous.
This would be a smart retort, except that this thread contains no data, at least not any that are relevant to cams.
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vegastradguy
Mar 4, 2009, 6:23 AM
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USnavy wrote: vegastradguy wrote: fourth- you mentioned that the BD slipped an 'inverted sideways'- does this mean that the stem was not oriented downward for these placements? The stem was pointed downwards in anticipation of the fall pull direction in both cases. When I placed the C4 .4 all four lobes were orientated downwards. When I got back up, I noticed the inner two lobes slipped some allowing the C4 to rotate counterclockwise approximately 45 degrees. A similar thing happened with the OP cam that I did not list. Two of the lobes on the OP cam have two separate bite marks in two separate locations. It appears that when the OP cam pulled, it expanded and grabbed into a second placement on two lobes, then slipped again. You can see two separate set of bite marks below.
the cam rotating 45 degrees is probably the answer. i'm guessing this means 45 degrees if you're looking at the wall straight on with the cam placed, not looking at the stem from the side. if thats the case, now you're dealing with serious torque- something that is a known weakness of the link cam (remember the left ski track incident?). this also sounds weird when i try to imagine this actually happening- i'd really like to see a picture of the placement, but also its relation to the climb so i can more clearly understand how the fall caused the 45 degree rotation.
sounds like Gabe's got the right idea with higher forces than you think occurring...and, this also points to my original response that the link cam is NOT a beginners cam and people need to realize that it has real limitations that need to be taken under consideration when placing it.
btw- the pictures from the top definitely show major deformation of the axle...definitely send the cam back to OP.
finally, basalt=slippery rock. or it can be. i've literally pulled fixed cams out of basalt by just tugging on them the right way- of course, my experience is limited to the stuff @ paradise forks, so without a picture and knowledge of the area, i cant make any real assumption there.
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billcoe_
Mar 4, 2009, 6:25 AM
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Valarc wrote: His "data" is damn-near meaningless and he's trying to use it to paint a doom-and-gloom picture of Link Cams. It's unfair to OP and insulting to the intelligence of the RC.com reader, whether that reader "presents data" or not.
And yet, although incomplete, it is more information than you had yesterday.....
Thanks for starting down the road Navy.
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curt
Mar 4, 2009, 6:49 AM
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billcoe_ wrote: Valarc wrote: His "data" is damn-near meaningless and he's trying to use it to paint a doom-and-gloom picture of Link Cams. It's unfair to OP and insulting to the intelligence of the RC.com reader, whether that reader "presents data" or not. And yet, although incomplete, it is more information than you had yesterday..... Thanks for starting down the road Navy.
I just flipped a coin and it came up heads. You now have even more information than you had yesterday.
Curt
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jt512
Mar 4, 2009, 6:49 AM
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k.l.k wrote: This is fuckin bullshit, if the Knob is going to post this stuff then it's just Jackass for n00bs, and this thread has zero empirical content.
Kerwin, that is a very elitist attitude. This is America. This is a democracy. Anybody can make climbing equipment, anybody can test climbing equipment, and so can anybody else. You, on the other hand, seem to be implying that it would be preferable for such tasks to actually be undertaken by individuals possessing relevant knowledge, training, and skill. You should be praising USNavy for the effort he has put into contributing to the climbing community, not castigating him for no other reason than his results were meaningless. Haven't you ever heard of giving an A for effort?
Jay
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