Accident on Manic Crack in NM

I wonder if when this cam got loaded sideways if the trigger didn't pull the upper cams closed. Basically releasing them from the crack.

edit: missed brassmonkey's comment and now I see that I'm not the only one who sees this way.

.3 x4

Kerr Adams wrote:The .4 failing to hold doesn't really concern me anymore. that's just an odd thing that happened. I'm more interested in the broken .3's after such a short fall. I'm working with professionals now to try to replicate the results. Maybe they walked. i don't know.

I'm confused. What was the order of the pieces? Sounds like the crack widens up as you climb up, so from the top: chipped metal .4, bent .3, broken trigger wire .3 - is this correct? So far everybody is assuming you took on the bent stem .3...

Jim C. wrote:THIS (Brassmonkey quote below) is one of the most important observations of this thread, and points to a design weakness. Of course the cam should not be allowed to align away from the direction of pull, but other camming unit designs have more of a floating trigger and would not self-release on one side as this one did.

Aliens have this type of trigger

rocknice2 wrote:I wonder if when this cam got loaded sideways if the trigger didn't pull the upper cams closed. Basically releasing them from the crack. edit: missed brassmonkey's comment and now I see that I'm not the only one who sees this way.

I wonder if that's possible though. For the stem to pick up such a major kink the cam needs to take the brunt of the load at a 90 degree angle and not rotate much. If the trigger gets pulled and the upper lobes start to retract and lose contact with the rock I'd imagine the cam would simply rotate on its lower lobes to line up with the direction of pull. The sequence of event is tough to pin down considering the whole thing takes a tenth of a second...

Kerr Adams wrote: I couldn't give you an exact distance but thinking back, the belayer could have been a little closer. Not too sure what she did to catch the fall but unfortunately it does't really matter. All the gear ripped.

It could possibly matter if the first piece wasn't multi-directional and placed fairly close to the ground, while the belayer stood farther from the wall. As depicted in the following picture (figure on the left):

It looks to me from the pics, that if the unit was placed in the crack in a perpendicular orientation to the direction of pull, the cam retraction mechanism may pivot on the stem attachment point, possibly pulling the retraction wire, and causing the upper lobes to retract under load. Thus, pivoting under a single set of loaded lower lobes that may have very well caused a preliminary failure. Secondarily, while the stem orientation is coming into line with the direction of load the retraction mechanism releases the upper lobes allowing them to now engage and become "fanned out". But also, even if the upper lobes do not fan before the full direction of downward pull is met, the upper lobe's engagement may have created a secondary pivot point, with possible over extended lobes, under compounding(pivotal and directional)load. Then welcome to pilot training.

I have seen a few climbers "plug and chug" cams perpendicular to the crack with no regard to stem load direction. My advice to the new guys is "you can learn a lot from a nut" direction of pull applies to all gear placements and the cam is not the Holy Grail of placements.

My question to Kerr is: how was the stem oriented? The tweeked stem in your pics indicate a perpendicular placement.

Disclaimer, I'm fairly new. But I see two major take aways from this. The first having been noted many times as place cams in direction of pull. Check. But second and often equally important is to be more generous in extending placements. Likely what happened, giving the climber the benefit of the doubt, they made a good placement, but as they moved past it, or took right in front of it they loaded the unextended cam horizontally walking it out of its placement leading to the failure. It's often worth risking an extra foot or two fall to make sure your cam won't move, especially with micros, and as someone said earlier, always take below the cam. Extending the cam, even with just a sport draw, make it much harder to pull the cam straight away from the wall i.e. it protects the orientation of the original placement.

Cam

I'm not sure the metal beads are the best design feature on these X4 cams. It appears to me that the beads force the cable-stem to kink BETWEEN the flange that the lobes are attached to and the lower part of the trigger wire assembly (metal structure that the cables are swaged to). If a large enough kink occurs in this location it appears that the top two lobes could release.

A cam desiged without beads (like the Aliens) seem more likely to kink BELOW the trigger wire assembly which would be less likely to cause a self release.

jon apprill wrote: I'm not sure the metal beads are the best design feature on these X4 cams. It appears to me that the beads force the cable-stem to kink BETWEEN the flange that the lobes are attached to and the lower part of the trigger wire assembly (metal structure that the cables are swaged to). If a large enough kink occurs in this location it appears that the top two lobes could release. A cam desiged without beads (like the Aliens) seem more likely to kink BELOW the trigger wire assembly which would be less likely to cause a self release.

I think you might be thinking of this in reverse. Correct me if I'm misinterpreting your scenario, but if the cam is placed perpendicular to the rock (straight out from the crack), and the lobes get stuck in such a way that the head is not free to rotate towards the direction of pull (we'll assume downward), then the kink in the stem will occur at the distal end of the flexible stem. On X4s this is at the end of the solid metal support connected to the head. The metal beads are not part of the equation at all as they are below the kink and sufficiently free to move.

Dave Alie wrote: I think you might be thinking of this in reverse. Correct me if I'm misinterpreting your scenario, but if the cam is placed perpendicular to the rock (straight out from the crack), and the lobes get stuck in such a way that the head is not free to rotate towards the direction of pull (we'll assume downward), then the kink in the stem will occur at the distal end of the flexible stem. On X4s this is at the end of the solid metal support connected to the head. The metal beads are not part of the equation at all as they are below the kink and sufficiently free to move.

Yes, this is the scenario I'm describing but I wonder if the metal beads are leveraging the upper two lobes to retract. Without the metal beads the stem seems more likely to kink below the trigger wire assembly. I'm probably wrong on this one but just wanted to throw the idea out there.

Life Lesson... stick with the reliable tried and tested pro. When a company rolls out the hot new shit, let someone else break their back testing the 'new' gear.

The Phoenix wrote:Life Lesson... stick with the reliable tried and tested pro. When a company rolls out the hot new shit, let someone else break their back testing the 'new' gear.

dibs

jon apprill wrote: Yes, this is the scenario I'm describing but I wonder if the metal beads are leveraging the upper two lobes to retract. Without the metal beads the stem seems more likely to kink below the trigger wire assembly. I'm probably wrong on this one but just wanted to throw the idea out there.

Blue x4 vs green alien ... Same size ... Note the longer metal sleeve on the x4



Green alien bending in the horizontal plane ... The very flexible wire spreads the bend out on the entire wire



Blue x4 bent as far as i dare without fear of kinking the wire, its not my cam

I suspect in a shallow horinzontal or perpendicular placement the force of a good fall could seriously kink the wire where it enters the sleeve

The wire on the x4s are much stiffer



As ive said before in previous threads repeated flexing and kinking of the wire at a particular spot has caused total separation on older cams, will this happen to the newer ones? Who knows

If you want a super flexible cam for whatever reason, nothing is as flexible as the aliens with the zeros a decent second

The Phoenix wrote:Life Lesson... stick with the reliable tried and tested pro. When a company rolls out the hot new shit, let someone else break their back testing the 'new' gear.

Kerr Adams wrote: dibs

Ha! Kerr, I'm glad you're able to keep a good sense of humor about the accident and all this internetz chatter. Here's hoping you heal up strong and fast.

D.Buffum wrote:In the demo photos above you're bending the stem along the axis perpendicular to the cam axle, whereas in the fall being discussed here the stem would be bent parallel to the cam axle. It's only relevant insofar as one hypothesis put forward above is that the bend caused the trigger to retract one set of cams (the pair on top). From your photos, it's not possible to see if that's a plausible hypothesis.

They have more or less the same flexibility differences in the vertical plane

Test it yourself if you have accesss to both cams

Vertical bend ... Green alien



Im not demonstrating it because of why the cam pulled ... Any cam in a perpendicular placement is suspect regardless of flexibility

But rather why the wire kinked so badly at that particular point on the x4

Kerr Adams wrote: dibs

Awesome! It is really glad to see you got a sense of humor about this.

I hope that we will soon read about you being back out on the rock and climbing strong.

Cam

I wonder if the OP can take this cam, recreate a perpendicular placement (ie: 90 degrees from application of force) load it up and see if the upper two lobes slightly retract. If it were me I'd do it with a bench vise and sand bags but I suppose a ground level crack and body weight would also work.

bearbreeder wrote: Blue x4 vs green alien ... Same size ... Note the longer metal sleeve on the x4 Green alien bending in the horizontal plane ... The very flexible wire spreads the bend out on the entire wire Blue x4 bent as far as i dare without fear of kinking the wire, its not my cam I suspect in a shallow horinzontal or perpendicular placement the force of a good fall could seriously kink the wire where it enters the sleeve The wire on the x4s are much stiffer As ive said before in previous threads repeated flexing and kinking of the wire at a particular spot has caused total separation on older cams, will this happen to the newer ones? Who knows If you want a super flexible cam for whatever reason, nothing is as flexible as the aliens with the zeros a decent second

Your photos are misleading--The stems on X4s are stiffer than Aliens, but the bend shape looks pretty much identical, and they're really not that stiff. No X4's were harmed in the taking of these photos...

Vertical flex

Horizontal flex

I feel like the OP's .3 kinked because the head was not able to rotate to match the direction of force. If this was the case, it wouldn't matter the brand- the cable would have kinked on any small cam.

Vertical flex

You have to actually fix the head and load the cam to get an accurate representation of how it will operate when catching a fall. Simply bending a cam's stem into a U shape isn't helpful. This obviously applies to both Aliens and X4's. Now that I think about it, body weight loading isn't sufficient either...it should be something approximating a fall and the jig should simulate a shallow placement that doesn't allow the cam to rotate. Of course this isn't a recommended placement but I've done it while aiding. I guess the bottom line is to know the limitations of your gear.