In reply to brianjcooper:
> I've bought some nice DMM Dragons. Brilliant kit!!!
The soldering or gluing or however it's done on my first generation blue Dragon failed - the stem came loose from the 'head' (?) of the cam - the bit that axles run through. This meant that even though it had been placed at the top of a crag as part of a belay, we couldn't get it out - it turns out it is very difficult to retract the cams when the stem is loose. By the time I could go back with more tools to try and retrieve it, someone else had managed to get it out, although I imagine they would have got it stuck again if they used it without somehow re-sticking the stem to the head. I obviously couldn't return the faulty unit to DMM for inspection because I lost it, so sent a film clip and photos instead to show what had happened. They asked one of their sponsored climbers who lives close to the crag to go and see if he could retrieve it, but he found someone else had also managed to get it out as I had done. They sold me a new one at a reduced price which is certainly better than nothing, but it was still more than a shop would pay trade price, so DMM wouldn't have lost anything on that solution. I was mildly annoyed because I couldn't get it out because of a fault with the cam, not because of the placement.
I do really like the Dragons but they are not perfect.