Just got this from Mammut :

The Snowpulse cartridges for the 2Inflation System 1.02 have a defective pressure gauge and must be replaced. Cartridges from the current 2011/12 winter season as well as all Mammut airbag products are not affected by this recall.

On July 1, 2011, Mammut Sports Group AG acquired the Swiss avalanche airbag specialists Snowpulse AG. In the meantime, that company’s production and quality processes have been analyzed and brought up to the level of Mammut’s own quality standards. In the process, it was found that the measures Snowpulse AG had previously taken to assure quality with respect to this problem did not meet Mammut’s high standards.

The Snowpulse cartridges (also called cylinders) are equipped with a pressure gauge, also known as a manometer. For some Snowpulse cartridges, after a certain amount of time a critical defect can appear. In these cartridges, this pressure gauge has developed a leak over time that leads to a drop in air pressure and sometimes to all the air escaping. This can mean that the airbag blows up only insufficiently or not at all. To completely rule out the possibility of this risk occurring, Mammut Sports Group AG has decided to immediately recall and replace all Snowpulse cartridges that were sold of the first generation (Inflation System 1.0).

Information
Mammut Sports Group AG has set up a special help desk for the Snowpulse cartridge recall program.

E-mail:

Telephone:
+41 62 769 81 82 (Monday - Friday, 8 a.m. to noon / 1:30 - 5 p.m. CET)

Telephone in USA:
1-800-451-5127 / (Monday - Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. EST)

Telephone in Canada
1-250-344-5060 (Monday - Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. MST)

Furthermore, you can find complete information about this precautionary recall of the Snowpulse cartridges on the website http://www.snowpulse.com.

Good on Mammut for pointing this out, could be nasty. Wouldn’t the pressure gauge show the air had gone?

Coupled with the new incompatibility between ABS and Mammut/Snowpulse cartridges you really need to keep a check on all this technology

http://www.wildsnow.com/6503/mammut-abs-compatibility/

ABS found their original hollow pin design was occasionally getting plugged with copper from the burst discs. So they moved to a solid design. In 2010, following a non-deployment, they thinned their burst disks from 0.3mm to 0.2mm and this seems to cause problems with the Snowpulse/Mammut system which still uses a hollow pin.

davidof - 24 January 2012 10:30 AM

Good on Mammut for pointing this out, could be nasty. Wouldn’t the pressure gauge show the air had gone?

I think it does but they’re saying “The cartridges can lose pressure at any arbitrary time” which I take to mean it’s a sudden failure not a slow bleed of air.