Protected wire cams vs unprotected

Do the protected wire cams add significant life to a cam? Im starting to look into my next buy as I get more involved in trad.

Heres an example of the protected wire: outdoorgearlab.com/Climbing…

No.

Better to get cams that perform well.

John, that's not a wire that's protected, but rather a wire made from a material, in the case Kevlar, as opposed to the usual metal wires you see on most cams. Generally speaking other design features aside from the material that the wires are made of are more important when it comes to deciding the type of can your going to use. The X4's are typically considered a speciality cam that you wouldn't typically find on a starter rack.

If your looking to buy your first set of cams, there on endless topics on this forum with suggestions on what cams to get for your first rack, I would recommend reading through them.

thanks, these cams were just for reference to the protection i was talking about.

i like cams that don't have the metal trigger wires. those things get all bent outta shape and it bugs me...

John Martin2 wrote:thanks, these cams were just for reference to the protection i was talking about.

Watch the video in the link i shared. At 1:30 it talks about the protected cable/wire Im referring to.

I think I see the confusion here, he's talking about the stem of an x4 cam, not the wires, this just seems to be a feature relating only to the x4 cam where they added aluminum beads around the small wire stem to increase durability while retaining flexibility. I don't think there's a universal category of "protected wire cams vs unprotected". Sounds maybe like you should do some more research and/or climb with somebody elses rack before making purchases.

sheath on the wire stem may add to the durability of single stem cams when that wire is loaded against an edge or features .... the old aliens were known for this

also modern camalots/dragons/friends have their stems encased in plastic

the downside for some designs is that it makes it harder to inspect the wire, especially where it comes out of the metal sheath ... where there have been a few failures

not many companies make unsheathed single stem cams these days ... either theres and alien/x4 type shealth or a plastic enclosed one ... even the zeros and totems are encased one way or another ...

now dual stem cams tend to be more durable and there doesnt seem tohave too many issues with the stems getting damaged on those ... but thats also likely due to the fact that you simply cant place dual stems in some of the ways that you can flexible single stems which are more likely to damage the wire stem ... for example placing an alien/totem/zero straight downwards in a crack/flake with the stem bent sharply over the edge, or sticking the cam into a bottoming perpendicular placement ... is something i wouldnt do with a TCU

;)