Accident on Manic Crack in NM

D.Buffum wrote: I'd like to read it, but I understand if you don't want to continue subjecting yourself to harassment on MP.

What's a good email address for you?

Kerr Adams wrote:One of the warranty guys sent me a very long email and very politely, said that I did not know how to place gear.

The conclusion was easy to reach; the way of saying it politely likely required a good deal more effort.

Jeffrey Dunn wrote: The conclusion was easy to reach; the way of saying it politely likely required a good deal more effort.

You're a douchebag.

This latest claim of a cam shearing out of a parallel sided basalt crack doesn't sound like user error to me.

Kedron,

You need to chill out. My comment was that writing a professional email to someone who claimed the cams were defective and having to explain that the evidence indicates otherwise was likely a tricky exercise in being polite. If that makes me an asshole so be it.

Jeff

Kedron Silsbee wrote: You're a douchebag.

You're from New Jersey.

Is this lulzy to anyone else but me?

Jeffrey Dunn wrote:Kedron, You need to chill out. My comment was that writing a professional email to someone who claimed the cams were defective and having to explain that the evidence indicates otherwise was likely a tricky exercise in being polite. If that makes me an asshole so be it. Jeff

Only in the wisdom of internet climbers is the conclusion "easy to reach". In reality, evidence is rarely black and white. It may take years to figure out that brand X of cam is less likely to hold in certain places, but that won't stop internet climbers from proclaiming that it must be user error based on a few internet photos and reports. Without good evidence, it is just as irresponsible to assume that such accidents are 100% user error and that design cannot contribute to cams pulling, as it is to assume that the cams have a defect.

jeff lebowski wrote:This latest claim of a cam shearing out of a parallel sided basalt crack doesn't sound like user error to me.

This latest claim is a lot easier to take seriously, given that he actually provided details, didn't proclaim outrageous allegations, nor loudly disavow personal responsibility right off the bat.

Adam Burch wrote: You're from New Jersey. Is this lulzy to anyone else but me?

Makes me a subject matter expert :) Sorry though (to Jeff)...that wasn't a very constructive post on my part.

Brian Prince wrote: "Or place it in hopes for it to hold" is what I do when something is "better than nothing at that point"

Bad gear might hold a fall... racked gear will NEVER hold a fall!

csproul wrote: Only in the wisdom of internet climbers is the conclusion "easy to reach". In reality, evidence is rarely black and white. It may take years to figure out that brand X of cam is less likely to hold in certain places, but that won't stop internet climbers from proclaiming that it must be user error based on a few internet photos and reports. Without good evidence, it is just as irresponsible to assume that such accidents are 100% user error and that design cannot contribute to cams pulling, as it is to assume that the cams have a defect.

Except for the fact that people have been whipping on .4 x4's for quite some time and not observing any pattern of failure, and then we have an example where this previously unidentified failure mode occurs 3 times in a row on the same fall. Then we have pictures that show damage to the back of the cam's and the trigger wires consistent with the most well known failure mode which is pilot error (or cam walking, also a user related issue).

I can appreciate your comment that evidence is rarely black and white. Fair enough. I still think the email would have been a tricky piece of writing, which was the main thrust of my statement.

I, for one, wonder if something is going on with the x4's when they are loaded perpendicular to the fall direction. Yes, small cams aren't designed to work like this but other manufacturer's small cams seem to do a better job based on the very large sample size of 2 failures (sarcasm).

In any event it would be a good project for an undergrad mech engineer. Gather a few small cams and shock load them in perpendicular placements with high speed photography. Hardness tests of the cam lobes, figure out a way to quantify spring tension. Maybe get a hold of one of the failed cams for a hardness test. Its certainly not totally impossible that a heat treament was botched somewhere. I have to wonder if there's a goldilocks combination of cam hardness and spring tension. Cams that are too soft paired with springs that are too stiff equal shear whereas hard cams paired with soft spring will realign in a fall. I dunno.

jeff lebowski wrote:I, for one, wonder if something is going on with the x4's when they are loaded perpendicular to the fall direction. Yes, small cams aren't designed to work like this but other manufacturer's small cams seem to do a better job based on the very large sample size of 2 failures (sarcasm). In any event it would be a good project for an undergrad mech engineer. Gather a few small cams and shock load them in perpendicular placements with high speed photography. Hardness tests of the cam lobes, figure out a way to quantify spring tension. Maybe get a hold of one of the failed cams for a hardness test. Its certainly not totally impossible that a heat treament was botched somewhere. I have to wonder if there's a goldilocks combination of cam hardness and spring tension. Cams that are too soft paired with springs that are too stiff equal shear whereas hard cams paired with soft spring will realign in a fall. I dunno.

theres 2 basic types of perpendicular placements

1. where the cam is free to rotate ... ie a parallel crack without bottoming ... the most likely scenario in this case is that the cam either walked or the climber placed it straight in because of lower skill, or they were absolutely desperate ... whether the cam will rotate or not is a different question, rought crystals in the crack make that harder of course ... as mentioned i find TCUs and C3s more able to rotate due to the 3 lobes, which can be good or bad

2. in a bottoming crack/pod ... the cam cant rotate and this is a forced perpendicular placement ... you place it this way because theres nothing else ... of course in these bottoming/pod like cracks a nut can quite often be put in, especially offset nuts around here

theres no perfect cam ... all of em have strength and weaknesses, some more/less than others

;)

This is all academic at this point. And the posting should be treated as speculative. If it is truly a gear failure he should take many pictures, have an engineer look at them and then send the cams back to BD to get their opinion on what caused the units to fail. BD gear is put through the ringer for quality assurance, and believe it would be exceptionally rare for such an event to take place, especially 3 units on one climb.
Have to agree with Jeffery Dunn. Logic would dictate that if three X4 cams failed on one climb, and thousands of these units have been sold and fallen on, then one would think that failing defective units would be more epidemic across the climbing community. However it would be interesting to see the pictures of the failed units.

Of the opinion, no matter how these pieces were placed, the damage shown in the pictures should not have happened. Of course, BD is going to say "placement failure" for this could be a lawsuit waiting to happen. Fallen on hundreds of pieces over the years and have never had a piece that has been damaged as much as these. Trigger I get. I'd be freaked out of a cam snapped off a piece of mine. Thinking going to shelve the four I own to see what BD does. If they are defective, this would not be the first recall on climbing gear.

Charles Perry wrote:Of the opinion, no matter how these pieces were placed, the damage shown in the pictures should not have happened. Of course, BD is going to say "placement failure" for this could be a lawsuit waiting to happen. Fallen on hundreds of pieces over the years and have never had a piece that has been damaged as much as these. Trigger I get. I'd be freaked out of a cam snapped off a piece of mine. Thinking going to shelve the four I own to see what BD does. If they are defective, this would not be the first recall on climbing gear.

There are no snapped off triggers and the damage is constant with a bunch of things.
In the first set of photos on page 5, most likely user error.

In the photos on page 14, it's hard to tell but it looks like the cam tracked out at a good enough angle to the fall line but that weird scrap on two of the lobes is a clue to what happened. Plus it looks like it tracked along crystals or grains to leave those little scars.

There is nothing to indicate manufacturer defect here. There are no new lobe alloys and the cam angles have been fallen on for decades.

rocknice2 wrote: There are no snapped off triggers and the damage is constant with a bunch of things. In the first set of photos on page 5, most likely user error. In the photos on page 14, it's hard to tell but it looks like the cam tracked out at a good enough angle to the fall line but that weird scrap on two of the lobes is a clue to what happened. Plus it looks like it tracked along crystals or grains to leave those little scars. There is nothing to indicate manufacturer defect here. There are no new lobe alloys and the cam angles have been fallen on for decades.

not to mention that aluminum is not some some indestructible material

Charles Perry wrote:Of the opinion, no matter how these pieces were placed, the damage shown in the pictures should not have happened. Of course, BD is going to say "placement failure" for this could be a lawsuit waiting to happen. Fallen on hundreds of pieces over the years and have never had a piece that has been damaged as much as these. Trigger I get. I'd be freaked out of a cam snapped off a piece of mine. Thinking going to shelve the four I own to see what BD does. If they are defective, this would not be the first recall on climbing gear.

the damage shown is not abnormal ...

one is an umbrella, the blue x4 has no cam stops

the second is a kinked wire from a perpendicular placement ... which is what happens if the cam walks and locks, or is placed perpendicularly to start

and the last is basically scraped damage on the metal, possibly rough features inside the crack

heres what happens when someone falls on a perpendicular big blue DMM dragon ... which by the way are made in wales and individually hand inspected like all DMM metal gear ...

from ukclimbing.com/images/dbpag…

Bottom line it was down to me and DMM were absolutely brilliant - it was on embankment 2 at millstone - I was clucking and poked it straight in - not at 45 degrees and didn't extend it - the fall wasn't massive - and the badly placed cam did a brilliant job ! obviously the weight of my fat old arse and the cam not moving - something had to give ;-)


ukclimbing.com/forums/t.php…

i believe this is the actual fall ...

youtube.com/watch?v=HTlE-40…

if you fall enough on micro gear ... itll get quite worn and eventually damaged ... and stuff blows, so back it up !!!

;)

I think its highly unlikely that the pulled cams were due to a manufacturer's defect but I think it might be possible that the x4 design isn't as robust as some of its competition. Either the x4's are more likely to walk perpendicular, less likely to rotate back parallel as the fall develops, or less able to hold a moderate load while perpendicular, or some combination of the above. Perhaps the lack of design robustness only occurs with certain types of rock (friction coefficient, presence of small crystals, etc). Its also entirely possible that experienced climbers, such as those used during product testing, would know to avoid the problem placements. All speculation of course.

The pictures say it all - the cam rotated to the horizontal and was then weighted, deformed and pulled in the subsequent downward rotation. Likely the cam was either clipped directly to rope, clipped with a sport draw or otherwise short-slung and rotated to the horizontal as the climber passed it.

A cam - especially a small cam - short-slung such that it rotates to the horizontal as you pass it, creates a highly problematic scenario. When such an up-rotated cam is weighted, with either a take or a fall, it is put into motion and the idea that cam lobes, once in motion, are going to reliably rotate and stop represents some highly-optimistic expectations of a kind which can get you killed.

Yeah, they're wonderfully springy, confabulous things and you can get away with them rotating down 99% of the time, but rest assured it's guaranteed to bite you on the ass sooner or later. Ditto for sport climbing on gear unless you re-check and possibly reset a placement each time after dogging on it. Placements failing after repeated rests have been an increasingly common source of trad (sprad) climbing accidents over the past decade.