New Totem Basic blue (alien)

Lost in BD X4 lauch is the Totem basic blue w/ internal spring design. The reworked finish (lower profile, molded trigger bar, diagonal cut groves in the lobe & many less noticeable changes) loses the "garage built" look of the original aliens & certainly doesn't justify the $10 increase, but having it thru backcountrygear.com (where I got it for 20% off during their site wide sale) meant it costed me same as before.

Totem basic blue

reboot wrote:Lost in BD X4 lauch is the Totem basic blue w/ internal spring design. The reworked finish (lower profile, molded trigger bar, diagonal cut groves in the lobe & many less noticeable changes) loses the "garage built" look of the original aliens & certainly doesn't justify the $10 increase, but having it thru backcountrygear.com (where I got it for 20% off during their site wide sale) meant it costed me same as before.

Do they have the same range as the old blue Alien? I'm debating if I should replace mine with the Fixe or the Totem.

That fucker is way better than the original alien. The uber wide head of the black and blue alien was always a pita. I actually liked the purple Master Cam better than the blue alien for this reason. That's awesome.

Do all the Totem Basic Cams (alien designs) have these same changes (lobe groves, trigger, etc)?

Might be time to get some.

divnamite wrote: Do they have the same range as the old blue Alien? I'm debating if I should replace mine with the Fixe or the Totem.

Same question here. I thought that the Totems were just a hair larger than the original CCH Aliens. The specs for the Totem blue are not up on their website yet.

I don't have a blue alien to compare, but according to Fixe's spec, they should be the same. The red totem is a hair smaller than the red alien, all other sizes are the same. I remember reading the Totem blog that all the basic cams will get the same updated finish.

i like the little bearing cam stops. looks pretty good.

slim wrote:i like the little bearing cam stops. looks pretty good.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but those are trigger cable terminations, not cam stops.

you are correct, but they are also doubling as cam stops (obviously not full strength, but they keep the lobes from getting wonky, like some of the old aliens would).

Um, look closer. The wire terminations aren't stopping anything; rather the top plate is bottoming out on the head and the lobes are limited by the length of the wire, just like the old ones.

interesting. it looks like it is using the single wire for 2 lobes, like some of the older aliens. i hated this design in the old aliens, as the trigger wire would slip through the trigger bar and the lobes would have excessive rotation and wouldn't be square when you went to place it. some of the newer old aliens split the U cable into 2 individual strands and added terminations behind the trigger bar to address this issue.

i'm not following you on the top plate.... it looks to me like the wire terminations are in contact with the head casing.(?)

Looks nice! I've also defaulted to the metolius TCU often on that size, but I don't like the instability of the the TCUs. An updated floppy, thinner headed alien is awesome.

slim wrote:i'm not following you on the top plate.... it looks to me like the wire terminations are in contact with the head casing.(?)

Sorry Slim, dunno what else to call that part and got in the habit of calling it the "top plate of the trigger" since it was literally a plate swaged into the top trigger sleeve fitting of the original Aliens. In the pic above it's the blue thing at the top of the trigger sleeve, and yup, looks like just 2 wires, with each controlling 2 lobes. Depending on use the old ones could get out of whack pretty easily. I'm kinda curious why they didn't go with the later 4 solid pins design, but assume they had their reasons (likely centered on getting the lengths equal on assembly being a total PITA).

Aric Datesman wrote: I'm kinda curious why they didn't go with the later 4 solid pins design, but assume they had their reasons (likely centered on getting the lengths equal on assembly being a total PITA).

It's a single wire mesh connecting both lobes, but with a ball crimped in the middle so the wire can't slide too far on either side. I think the flexible wire mesh, though slightly bulkier, is better than solid pins, as if/when a small cam lobe gets sufficiently smashed, it'll prevent the pin from freely rotate against the lobe (which will then impinge lobe movement & make the cam track out much easier). I've had to retire a Metolius cam (& probably should retire a C3 as well) because of that.

slim wrote:i hated this design in the old aliens, as the trigger wire would slip through the trigger bar and the lobes would have excessive rotation and wouldn't be square when you went to place it.

I think Totem has added a swaged cable stop at the midway point of the trigger wire that keeps it from getting "wonky" and keeps everything square. I love the Totem aliens. My only complaint is that the cable feels floppier and more prone to bending when trying to place desperately than the older units I have.

interesting. i'll have to take a look at them some time.

This is great news. I am a big fan of Totem's cams, and have been waiting for them to extend their lower size range. Their craftsmanship and attention to detail are amazing. The minor adjustments that Totem have made to the Basic cams compared to the Fixe Aliens make the Totems superior in my opinion. Given that they're $10 cheaper, it's a no brainer for me.

reboot wrote: It's a single wire mesh connecting both lobes, but with a ball crimped in the middle so the wire can't slide too far on either side. I think the flexible wire mesh, though slightly bulkier, is better than solid pins, as if/when a small cam lobe gets sufficiently smashed, it'll prevent the pin from freely rotate against the lobe (which will then impinge lobe movement & make the cam track out much easier). I've had to retire a Metolius cam (& probably should retire a C3 as well) because of that.

Sorry Reboot, but in practice the individual pins worked out to be the better solution because of binding in the top plate and the possibility of the thin diameter wire rope kinking in the wrong place and throwing the lobes askew. The pins allowed individual lobe movement, but on occasion (depending on size) would cause them to jam in a half-extended position. No good ever comes of me rehashing this, so if you're really interested there's a thread or two on this subject (with pics) here on MP. And FWIW I've not played with either Totems or Fixe Aliens, so can't comment on how they work in comparison other than to say they both look to have gotten the quality control issues taken care of, which was really my only beef with CCH.

Crotch Robbins wrote: I think Totem has added a swaged cable stop at the midway point of the trigger wire that keeps it from getting "wonky" and keeps everything square. I love the Totem aliens. My only complaint is that the cable feels floppier and more prone to bending when trying to place desperately than the older units I have.

You know, Crotch, now that I'm on the computer and not looking at the pic on the phone I think you're right... there is a ball swage there under the top plate in the pic in the OP. Sorry to have missed that, and yeah, that would nix the wonky thing. Unfortunately it opens up another bag of worms if the cables get kinked and no longer pass through the top plate smoothly, as it will result in binding that will effect the other pair of lobes (like the individual pin solution does on occasion.

Well, this got me off the couch to dig original Aliens with balls on the wires out of the bucket, so may as well post some pics...

This is what can happen when the originals didn't have enough clearance in the top plate to allow the cable to slide through or the cables got kinked (happens regardless of it being cable through the lobe like the Totem Blue in the OP or swaged to a pin like in the pic):

Similar size with pins instead:


Thing is, as the pins slide through their range WRT the top plate there are spots where the heads of each pair of pins will jam on each other and lock that pair of lobes in place. Don't have a pic handy, but it should be obvious how it happens.

And for comparison, here's Blue-ish CCH Aliens from the early 1990's (possibly earlier... They didn't date stamp the early ones. Also have a couple with plastic trigger bars) through 2005, which mostly used the pin-swaged-to-wire thing:


And a Purple, Blue and Clear that used swage balls in some fashion (late '90's for the Blue, 2005 for the Clear and Purple). Also of note is the odd brazed screw fittings on the Clear. Never seen that on another Alien, looks factory and like they brazed the wire into an Allen-head grub screw.


Really thought I had a couple other CCH Aliens with ball swages and wire rope though the lobes, but didn't see them in a quick dig through the bucket. Not all that interested in taking another look (probably 75 or so in there...), and in any event a single wire per lobe pair passed through the lobes with a ball swage on either end is nothing new.

Aric Datesman wrote: but in practice the individual pins worked out to be the better solution because of binding in the top plate and the possibility of the thin diameter wire rope kinking in the wrong place and throwing the lobes askew.

You are talking about a new cam. When you take a sufficiently hard fall on a cam & the lobes deform to the extent that it binds the rotation of the pin (which is pretty easy to do b/c the pin is so close to the lobe surface on smaller cams), then a rigid pin can bind the lobe. Regardless, in the situation you've illustrated, if the old alien had a flexible wire/cable all the way thru (Totem basic, master cam, X4), it'd be fine.