MALFUNCTION - Fixe Alien

I have a fairly new yellow fixe alien, which has never been fallen on and only placed a handful of times. I was climbing this past weekend and hung on this particular piece (it was a perfect placement in a splitter Indian Creek crack). I did not fall, I placed the piece and gently hung on it. The cam worked just fine, nothing happened, I rested and continued on with the rest of the pitch. I lowered and cleaned all my gear, didn't notice anything unusual. As I was racking my gear at the base I noticed that the yellow alien looked a bit strange. Upon further inspection, I noticed that the bolt or whatever it is that holds the lobes on the cam had simply fallen off and/or come unscrewed. With this piece not intact it allows the lobes on that one side to simply slide right off. I've already contacted the place where I bought it and they were very nice and told me to bring it in so that they could warranty it and notify the company.

You're right, it is just a nut. It's rounded so it can't be taken off with a wrench but that's all it is.

It's supposed to have red loctite on it. If it came off without special tool and/or heat, it's totally a manufacturer error.

That's scary. I wonder if they forgot or if it's bad loctite. Is there any residue on the threads or are they totally clean?

Oh boy. Here we go again

Its happened before

supertopo.com/climbers-foru…

Fixe get your QC act together .... And i do own and use a full set of fixe aliens

;)

Buy them from totem. Better anyway.

And here I thought the Aliens QC errors were a thing of the past. Yikes!

nicelegs wrote:Is there any residue on the threads or are they totally clean?

Pete Spri wrote:Buy them from totem. Better anyway.

Thanks for the heads up. I am surprised the nut came off as it takes a hell of a lot to break loose that thread locker. (I have removed this nut disassembling a couple of CCH aliens.)

I have said this before, so I probably sound like a broken record...

Totem's "alien," called the Basic Cam, appears to be much more refined and better made. IMHO, it is not even a contest. I highly recommend Totem's Basic Cam as the way to go in the small cam category.

I hope that the OP will keep us posted on how Fixe responds to this and what they identify as the root cause of the issue.

It's been a while, but just wanted to let anyone interested know that I brought the cam to Neptune Mountaineering (where I purchased it) and they were super quick to give me my money back and send the cam to fixe. I never got word of what happened after that, so this is more just a shout out to Neptune and their quick, helpful service. They were all pretty frightened looking at the cam!

This further solidified my preference for metolius in the finger sized pieces!

NC Rock Climber wrote:I highly recommend Totem's Basic Cam as the way to go in the small cam category.

Hello,

I'm the climber from the supertopo thread who had the exact same failure on my fixe alien.

Fixe was awesome about warranting it, i was very impressed.

Note that the new generation of Fixe aliens (evolutions I think they are called?) now uses the same method of attaching cam lobes to the axle as Totem uses on their "totem basics." It appears to be both a stronger and slimmer mechanical solution.

best of luck,
matt

Was just talking to someone in Bishop this last weekend who had this same thing happen on a blue Fixe alien. The cam was less than six months old, and Kevin Daniel's (Owner of FIXE USA, and who lives in Bishop BTW) response to him was simply tough luck, and that all gear has a life expectancy.

I agree, support Totem.

I won't even consider purchasing a product from Fixe after hearing how Kevin responds to product issues.

Same thing with Petzl ropes.

The problem isn't really the problem for me. It's how their customer service responds to these issues

Thought I'd tack on to this post as I have a similar experience. Brand new alien purchased a month ago from Neptune.

It has not taken a fall; placed about 3 times. My girlfriend was leading a pitch, got a bit nervous, and bailed. She semi-hung (low angle dihedral - 2nd pitch of Hiatus at Lumpy) on the cam while placing a larger cam to lower off of. I'd estimate partial body weight, about 60 lbs or so, placed gently on the cam.

The trigger wires came out of the brass (?) casing during cleaning - the brass appears crushed as if it had taken a fall. Defect?

One of our local gear shops indicated that some of the new aliens were brought back with broken wires ... There was some manufacturing issue

;)

Neptune said the same - abnormal number of trigger wire issues with the new Aliens. They switched/warrantied out my broken alien with a X4.

Looking at that picture it seems like the wire is broken on diagonal opposite sides. Is it possible that was caused by rotating the trigger wire keeper (or whatever it's called) too far while keeping the cams locked in one position? More or less what the hand is starting to do in that picture... that would seem like a way to get failure with a lower load. Maybe that is obvious/the point of holding the cam that way in the picture.

The old alien and basic appear to have a smaller keeper than that new one. Also how rigid is the connection between the trigger and the keeper?

Matt

I've dealt with totem on quality control. They are crazy for it . The man said the would retest the Batch my cam came from as they still had some at the plant. When a cam had a loose trigger wire

I just picked up a new blue fixe alien in February and before even taking it out, I noticed that one of the rivets was missing which is likely what happened to these other cams. Since it's never even left my house or been placed, it's pretty clear that the defect is not the result of misuse/abuse. I can literally pry the cam lobes apart with my bare hands, and I'm pretty sure I can't generate 11kN of force with my fingers. If I could I'd climb WAAAAAY harder!!!

I reached out to Fixe and got no response until I pinged them on Facebook and started publicizing the issue and got some friends involved -- pretty disappointing. They are now initiating the warranty process.

I have to say that after the BD recalls for pretty much this same issue (missing rivets) I was wary of using their products and actually switched to Metolious and Fixe to replace some of my cams that went missing. So it's pretty disappointing that this issue has apparently been happening for several years yet Fixe can't "fix" the problem. At least BD has been proactive about recalling everything and warning climbers to inspect their gear.

I've alerted the US Consumer Protection Bureau and initiated an investigation. It's unconscionable that this issue with fixe's aliens seems to have been happening for some time, yet they keep either manufacturing defective products, or leave them out on the market.