UKC

Hi, just broke my blue Alien revolution and looking to replace. The revolution broke at the plate the the trigger wires attached to, this snapped in half. 

The Classic looks to have a beefed up plate that the trigger wires are attached too. Does anyone have experience with these cams? Are the a total copy of the original aliens? 

Im keen on the alien as I like the cam lobe metal used compared to other small cams on the market.

Cheers

I have some Fixe Alien Classics, Revolutions, some original CCH ones and totem basics.

the Fixe classic is pretty much a carbon copy of the CCH but with a few upgrades, they’re really good (probably better than CCH) and I think better than the revolutions.

If I was buying new again now, I would probably be tempted by the Z4 or Dragonfly as I think they have some serious design improvements for small cams. The un-anodised aluminium on the Dragonflies bites just as well as the Aliens. 
 

I think the alien ones I have are the alien classics, as I bought them after the original, original aliens had stopped being made. But I'm not 100% sure (they look identical to google photos of the classic though).

I have 2 blacks, 2 blues and a green. They are pretty great pieces of kit, getting into really tiny, crap placements. I have used the blacks and blues quite a lot but I don't think I've ever fallen on them. The green one broke when one of the ferrules at the end of the axle came loose and fell off and that means the lobes can just full of the axel, so it's toast. The blue and black ones are still going strong. If I had to identify an irritation, it would be that the trigger wires bend from their manufactured shape to more or less straight after you've pulled the trigger back firmly a few times, which means when the trigger is released, the lobes go past the intended start position and invert somewhat (there being no camstops), it doesn't make the cam any less safe, just looks a bit strange and means you must be sure to pull the trigger at least far enough to get the lobes back past their fully open position before you ram it in the crack (otherwise, if you just ram it in without pulling the trigger, the placement could be with all the lobes inverted, which won't do jack when you fall on it).

Edit: Worth looking at the ranges too. The alien classics have a fair bit better range on each cam than the dragonflys, for example. (Though I couldn't find range data on all the cams LucaC spoke about and I'm too lazy to spend more time looking!)

I've never used Aliens but I did read that the new wild country zeros use the same or very similar alloy for that extra bite. They also have a similar camming angle so a big range like the Aliens. Having said that I've never used the new zeros either

I bought a WC zero way, way back, I think shortly after they first came out and my friend bought a 3 or 4 of them at about the same time. I hope the new ones (probably mk 4 or 5 by now?) are a complete redesign on the mk1 because the mk1 ones were the most terrible cams I've ever used, let alone owned. But obviously we are talking like 15-20 years ago.

Hi Luca, I've used the dragons and still seemed to think the Aliens Totem basics seemed to bite better. 

Hi Andy, Aliens use Alloy 6061 and Zeros use 6082. 

Thanks for getting back to me there. I think Ill get the classic blue and see how it goes. 

I stand corrected then.