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pud
climber
Sportbikeville
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If I choose to buy cheap gear the results of that decision have to be acceptable.
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Melissa
Gym climber
berkeley, ca
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Topic Author's Reply - Dec 3, 2007 - 08:44pm PT
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That cam is anything but cheap.
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paganmonkeyboy
climber
mars...it's near nevada...
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wes - go read dingus's excellent reply to the inmate assertion in the other thread please.
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randomtask
climber
North fork, CA
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I know a guy named Barry. He refuses to climb with anyone's rack that has omega pacific gear on it. He feels the equipment was made under slave labor conditions.
-JR
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Melissa
Gym climber
berkeley, ca
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Topic Author's Reply - Dec 3, 2007 - 08:53pm PT
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"You want me to read, you do the work and provide the link."
Upthread, click on the blue writing that is underlined.
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paganmonkeyboy
climber
mars...it's near nevada...
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whoa.
lotsa love there, eh ? thanks for not being a dick...oh, wait...
Long story short is they are not made using an inmate labor program.
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paganmonkeyboy
climber
mars...it's near nevada...
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Wes - accepted and appreciated, very much so. You get many kudos for that imho...
To condense much of the other thread - there was and is a recall of some units related to cracks in the lobe at the connecting pins
http://www.omegapac.com/op_climbing_notices.html
this unit *could* have failed in a similar manner. The OP rep is very much in the loop, and they are investigating the issue. So far OP is very open and honest on the whole thing.
I am very very glad to see no one was seriously hurt here.
-Tom
edit : and I'm still buying used aliens ;-)
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Indianclimber
climber
Las Vegas
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Inmates may have assembled those but they are not responsible for the metallic strength of the parts.
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Clint Cummins
Trad climber
SF Bay area, CA
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Even without a crack, the lower cams contact the axles between cams for only half of their width. So they are less strong than conventional cams for leveraged situations like the placement in the pocket/pin scars low down on Left Ski Track. [Edit: well that is my theory; ML's tests say they fail with the same range of competitor's cams under those types of loads]
You may recall that a particular model of Friends with rivets on the ends of the axles were recalled because they could fail in similar leveraged loads. (I still have some of those on my rack; fewer people remember the recall these days!)
[Edit: photos located and added]
For "equal time", here are some photos of a broken Metolius Ultralight 00 TCU:
http://www.coolclimbing.com/rockgearbroken01.htm
And of course, biners have been broken occasionally, such as when Goran Kropp died at Frenchman Coulee.
But, yeah, I haven't seen a cam sheared off the axle like that before.
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caughtinside
Social climber
Davis, CA
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definitely a concern, but I wouldn't let one busted cam decide for me that all such cams were dangerous.
Aside from all the alien stuff, there was an incidend at indian creek a couple years ago where a guy decked. One cam pulled, and a trango cam below it basically exploded.
Link cams are great! I wish I had some. But, I got plenty of cams, can't justify purchasing more.
As an aside, funny how people still freak out about the whole prison labor thing. Gee, training guys in jail a trade. What a terrible idea and how socially irresponsible.
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Melissa
Gym climber
berkeley, ca
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Topic Author's Reply - Dec 3, 2007 - 09:25pm PT
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Clint, What metolius cam are you talking about?
If a Camalot spontaniously combusts, I don't think I want to know.
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maldaly
Trad climber
Boulder, CO
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wescrist, OP no longer makes their stuff in the prison in Spokane. They did for many years but for a variety of reasons stopped doing it a couple of years ago. It wasn't slave labor. It was mostly criminals from the blue-collar world who didn't commit any crimes of violence. They were paid a reasonable wage which was placed in savings for them when they got out (I may not have that exactly right but it's close) and they learned a trade while they were at it.
I pretty sure that no LinkCam was ever made in the prison.
Mal
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Prod
Social climber
Charlevoix, MI
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Posts like this do not do much for my false sense of security….
Prod
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rwedgee
Ice climber
canyon country,CA
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Any cam is inherently weaker when pulled off its axis. Imagine placing a cam in a vertical crack but leaving the stem pointing horizontal or even upwards. In a fall, if the lobes can't rotate down(placed in a pod), the force will tend to rip them off the axle instead of pushing then into it. Even more force if it's a rigid stem Friend. The lobe would break at its weakest...link.
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paganmonkeyboy
climber
mars...it's near nevada...
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"Posts like this do not do much for my false sense of security…"
dude - that's what the PBR is for...
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JLP
Social climber
The internet
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" http://www.omegapac.com/op_climbing_notices.html "
Signed by the sales/marketing guy. I'm not impressed, especially given his vested interest in telling everyone everything's going to be just fine (unless of course you happen to be one of the few who gets killed or maimed).
Yet another cam company confused by the differences between a laboratory fixture and a crack climb.
J
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michaellane
climber
Spokane, WA
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Hello, Everyone ...
Two issues look like they're converging here in an unlikely mix.
First is the issue of the broken cam Melissa linked from rc.com. That's being addressed with the owner of the cam and openly on that thread. We (Omega Pacific) got the cam last week and we're conducting tests to determine what may have contributed to this failure. My post on that forum is included below for your reference. It's also the most recent information we have, so far. As more becomes available, we'll be transparent about the whats, the whys and the what-we're-gonna-dos as we always are.
Second is the prison issue ...
We used to participate in the US D.O.J.s "Prison Industry Enhancement Program" which permits companies in participating states to move their operations inside a qualifying medium-security prison and employ inmates as workers, clerks, shippers, etc.
We did so for nine years and it was (is) an incredible program. It wasn't slave labor. In fact, it wasn't even cheap labor. We were audited by Washington State annually to ensure we were paying our employees the same wage we'd pay any other worker on the outside for the same job. The program was demonstrably responsible for lower recidivism rates. It kept families together while their husband/father/breadwinner was incarcerated as most of our employees sent their wages back home to their families. They paid federal income tax like you and me. They paid into the state's worker's comp program like you and me. A portion of their wage went to victim restitution. Our employees in that program were as equipped, trained and qualified as any person in any climbing company in our industry. In fact, they were principally responsible for earning our company its ISO 9001 status in 2003.
In 2004, however, Washington State withdrew from that program and forced our relocation and the replacement of our workforce.
It was AFTER the move to our new location and the hiring of our new workforce that we even began building Link Cams ... not that it would matter, though.
Our previous crew was obsessive about building and maintaining a "Zero Defect Culture" and we enjoyed an excellent quality record during the time we were inside the prison. They took it more seriously than you think. And they did understand what we were making and how important it was to get it right, believe me.
The move to our new facility was a struggle in a lot of ways because we lost all that history and knowledge and it took some time before we were back to where we were. But we did get back and part of that success was our hiring of former employees who'd worked for us while they were incarcerated but were since released. Approximately eleven or twelve percent of our current labor force are former employees, in fact. We are proud of the fact that we are carrying on the spirit of the program even if Washington forced us out.
But all this is old news, really, and completely irrelevant to the issue of this cam. I bring it up only to set the record straight. We are completely open about our involvement and support of this program and are more than happy to discuss it personally with anyone who's interested. Give me a call, if you'd like more information about it. I take a lot of pride in being involved with the program and the employees we worked with.
As for this cam, please see the post below ... we'll share more information as we complete our investigation and QC provides its report. I'd recommend you spend a few minutes reading the thread as there is a lot of good information there.
As always, if you want to reach me about this, give me a call or drop me an email: 800.360.3990 or info@omegapac.com
--ML
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Michael Lane
Sales & Marketing Director
Omega Pacific
Airway Heights, WA
Hi, Everyone ...
As Dirtme has stated, he and I have been in contact ... several times, actually ... and although we don't have a lot to go on, yet, we've begun our investigation and done what testing we can in advance of tomorrow, when the cam is due to arrive.
Many of you have posted good questions and we'll do our best to test to as many of them as possible and we'll be forthcoming with the answers as soon as we can. The fact is, though, that there may not be too much to share until the entire process is complete.
I was a climber before I worked for the industry, though, so I understand the need for info.
So, this might answer a couple of questions but it must be understood that this may or may not have any context to the issue Dirtme had last week.
We have tested the assembled links for what we call "over-edge" strength. That is, we set up a perpendicular force on one end of a set of outstretched links with the opposite end anchored, stressed over an obstacle, or edge at the mid-points to test the ultimate strength of the hinge points. For comparison, we also purchased and disassembled competitors' cams (four different brands representing all other major players in cams on the market today) and tested their solid, single-piece lobes in the same manner. Our linkage assemblies fail right in the center of the four other brands: some broke at greater levels of force and some broke at lower levels. We performed multiple tests for each brand. You'll have to trust me that these were brands we all know and trust. Deservedly so, I should add, as none of these failed at levels that would alarm anyone.
It must be recognized that there is no standard nor any required strength rating for lobes or links to meet when tested in this manner. Likewise, there is no standardized testing to determine same. It was done solely to confirm earlier, similar tests performed during our R&D phase and to establish--as best we can--some sort of consensus for similar products.
At this point, there isn't anything to suggest that this is not an isolated event. Obviously, there are a number of factors involved in Dirtme's incident. We'll work as best we can to account for them and to determine the cause of the failure.
Hope this helps for now. More to come.
Regards,
--ML
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paganmonkeyboy
climber
mars...it's near nevada...
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Thank you Michael for addressing these concerns.
-Tom
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dirtineye
Trad climber
the south
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Well Gee, I don't go to RC.com any more either, but I do think I wrote about something like this possibly happening to those cams a long time ago.
It looks like the cam torqued in the crack, being tipped radially around its long axis and levering the cam lobes almost perpendicular to their flat faces, or am I wrong about that?
So does anyone know how this cam was placed? Could it be that the stem was sticking straight out of the wall, (or nearly so) as in, perpendicular to the face of the wall?
Normal cams just rotate in this circumstance, and walk in or out, sometimes with dire consequences. I don't see that it matters if the cam comes out of the crack or just plain breaks, as either way you're in trouble.
Thanks to the OP woman for her post.
Much better than CCH.
Congrats on helping prisoners turn their lives around!
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