Alien cam lobe fell apart

I thought people might be interested in seeing/discussing this.
My green alien fell apart when my follower removed it from the rock in Yosemite yesterday. The failure was similar to that posted in supertopo ( supertopo.com/climbers-foru…). However, this time the end cap came off the threaded side of the cam rather than the press-fit one.
The cam was purchased just under two years ago, placed less than 20 times, and never fallen on.

CCH, Fixe, or Totem?

Oops, sorry. Fixe.

f**k! My green alien (original alien) remains in excellent condition. My blue alien (also original) has taken some factor one falls and remains in excellent condition. What's up with this?

It seems the bolt came off.

Fixe needs to get their act together

Thats all there is to it

;)

I am pretty sure Aliens have had more engineering flaws then all other cams on the market combined. Maybe it is time to scrap the design, call it, and just move on with a new design. Although, at least Totem seems to be able to keep the QC in check a bit, but CCH and Fixe never seem to be able to get it right.

20 kN wrote:I am pretty sure Aliens have had more engineering flaws then all other cams on the market combined. Maybe it is time to scrap the design, call it, and just move on with a new design. Although, at least Totem seems to be able to keep the QC in check a bit, but CCH and Fixe never seem to be able to get it right.

I've owned, dropped, fallen on, trashed, and abused my Aliens for 10+ years and have never seen this before (which is why they are an integral part of my rack). I do remember in the past something regarding CCH closing down for a while due to various issues.

Wow. That is scary...

What's this, the third such incident posted on MP?

TQM isn't just boilerplate.

As for "scrapping the design" posted by the sight administrator. Are you nuts or just inexperienced. The Alien is the best camming device available for horizontal cracks or any marginal (shallow, flared) placement.
Clearly there may be a problem with the quality control of the manufacturing by Fixe. I worked with Dave Wagoneer of CCH back in 1987-88. In fact, I was the test pilot for the early Aliens. I also worked in his machine shop. There were no problems like this. Simply the end of the axle rod must not have peened. Over a decade later when he started subcontracting out the manufacturing is when problems arose.

Locker... LMAO...

On topic, I've remained fairly confident in the Alien design when produced properly. The botched batches of that isolated period being the exception. That said, I see no reason to project that trust, or distrust to Fixe. I'll judge them by what comes. Could be an anomaly, or a systematic flaw. I'd prefer they rise to the occasion, and shore up their QC.

climbing friend,

Perhaps the alien cam would be sensing that you were not bold enough on your flash attempt? And thusly fell apart.