Broken cam

I have a cam that caught a smallish fall and now gets stuck like it is in the photo. After looking at it closely it appears that the lobe now touches the axle where I’ve circled it. It just binds at this retraction level plus a few degrees either way. It functions normally if it’s more retracted or more open. Any ideas? Fixable or just get a new one? 

If the lobe is touching the axle, is the lobe deformed in that area? You can check it against its neighbor lobe. Also look to see if the lobe is warped.  Contact BD and tell them you have a deformed lobe that's causing it to bind with the axle.  They may replace it under warranty.

You could do a number of things to reshape the lobe to allow it to move freely. However the materials especially aluminum will never be as strong because of the stress inflicted during the fall. Big cams experience higher forces near the axle because the leverage increases as the distance from the contact point of the rock to center of cam increases. The force of your small fall was enough to deform the lobe. Weakening it. There is no way to know how much this will effect its holding power in the future. It could be a useful extra cam for say Indian Creek where you can ensure it is placed in parallel rock with many pieces below protecting you. Unfortunately this happens sometimes with the bigger and more expensive cams. As companies make them lighter… we will see this more. The old Camalots were tanks… but they were also very heavy.

I spent a minute comparing it to my other 3 and sighting down various parts of it. I don’t see anything obviously deformed in the lobe but the whole cam seems slightly out of square compared to my other one. Maybe the damaged lobe is slightly bent in the way that it would bend if it buckled.
There’s also a scar on the very tip of the lobe. It was placed behind a very hollow sounding/flexing flake. When I cleaned the pitch (my partner led it and was the one who fell) I found it to be in a a very parallel sided section behind the flake with the lobes 80-90% retracted. I think what may have happened was in catching the fall the cam flexed the flake to the point where it was almost at the limit of its range of motion before catching the fall. I think it may have buckled slightly in that super tipped out position.
Anyway thanks for the advice. I think I’ll get a new one and keep this one as a back up. 

I'd reach out to Black Diamond.  While I'm not sure how they are under the venture capitalist owner ship, they have always been good to me on working with me on damaged gear.  

it might be a bent axle. one of my old #4 camalots has a bent axle and the lobe rubs slightly on the axle (but doesn't bind).

It's hard for me to tell from the photo. My guess is that the aluminum of the cam has deformed along the axel--like sticking a pencil in silly putty and moving the pencil back and forth to make a cone shape in the putty rather than a pencil shape. You'll be able to tell because you'll be able to wiggle this cam lobe more than the others because of the new conical hole. You might get it straightened out just by straightening the trigger pull wire to the cam lobe and thus not pulling it to the side. With repeated falls, this is a failure mode of cams, especially big cams with skinny lobes; the more cone you deform, the more wiggle, the more wiggle, the higher the torque on the lobe at the axel, and the more cone you deform on the next fall arrest...

I’d look at the axles too. I bent an axle on a #1 several years ago. It didn’t hang up like that, but it just didn’t look right and took me awhile to diagnose. 

A short fall can generate higher forces than a really long fall, especially if there’s little rope in the system. Seems like the lobe deformed. If that’s true, I’d say the cam is toast. See what BD says. Do you see any flat spots? 

I’ll email black diamond and see what they say. It might be a bent axel. It doesn’t look at all bent but it’s hard to see with all the stuff in the way. The fact that it’s only pinching on part of the lobe and not the whole thing makes me think it’s the lobe not the axel. I think it must be very slightly deformed.
Theres no more play in the stuck lobe than any other. Perhaps even a bit less.

The fall was maybe 8’ with 30’ of rope in the system. I was at a semi hanging belay though and probably gave a pretty hard catch. My partner also is probably on the heavy side of average. 

rock climbing wrote:

It did the job it is supposed to do. Keep you alive. Frame it and put it on the wall. 

 I have a collection of gear damaged in falls, the bigger it gets the happier I'm. 

If it ends up being junk, the lobes are great for art projects (cabinet latches on your #sprinter, earrings?) 

You can totally see where the lobe is slightly flattened in the photo. Its the bit thats parallel to the stem when it gets stuck (just about, maybe slightly higher). That thing is toast, the material on one lobe is totally compromised, best to get a new one and scrap that guy. Make some nice paper weights