Reel Gearing Vs Inches Retrieved : Turn Of The Reel Handle And Mechanical Advantage

[aavery2]

TiNuts and Timsford described this far better than I can.

 

It's like two bicycles with fixed sprockets, both with 6:1 gearing, say.  The pedals are the same distance apart, too.

 

One bicycle has 20" tires.

 

The other bicycle has 26" tires.

 

The 26" tired bike will go faster because its overall ratio is greater.

 

Josh

This is not a good example, it would be the equivalent of increasing the spool diameter to gain IPT. It does nothing to show the effect of increasing the length of the handle.

[timsford]

He is referring to length of travel of your hand(dependent on handle length) to length of line retrieved as overall gear ratio. What josh is referring to as overall gear ratio has nothing to do with gear ratio of the reel. A reel with slower 5.4:1 gears, short handle, and large spool could have a faster overall ratio(joshs term) than a 7.1:1 reel with a long handle and small spool.

[aavery2]

He is referring to length of travel of your hand(dependent on handle length) to length of line retrieved as overall gear ratio. What josh is referring to as overall gear ratio has nothing to do with gear ratio of the reel. A reel with slower 5.4:1 gears, short handle, and large spool could have a faster overall ratio(joshs term) than a 7.1:1 reel with a long handle and small spool.

I understand what he is trying to explain, I have had this conversation with him before. What he is measuring is closer to efficiency. With a short handle your input - the distance your hand must travel to complete one complete rotation is shorter than that of a longer handle, to gain the same output IPT. Or as he describes it the amount of line retrieved as compared to how far the handle travels.

[rippin-lips]

I'll use his bicycle reference in a different way. You have 2 bikes with 20" rims. There are 175mm cranks on one bike and 185mm cranks on another. Distance traveled with one full rotation of the pedals is the same.

[aavery2]

I'll use his bicycle reference in a different way. You have 2 bikes with 20" rims. There are 175mm cranks on one bike and 185mm cranks on another. Distance traveled with one full rotation of the pedals is the same.

This is a good example, and makes it easy to see that although you have to peddle in a larger circle to achieve the same distance, you now have the advantage of leverage on your side with the longer crank length. Also makes it easy to see that you have done nothing to effect gear ratio.

[Tim Kelly]

A narrow spooled reel will give different results to a wide spooled reel of the same diameter as the line level will drop a lot lower on the narrow spooled reel at the end of a long cast than it would on a wide spooled reel.   

 

There are so many variables that it's not worth getting caught up in the maths of it all. Once you have a reel from a manufacturer you soon know how it fishes. You can easily judge what difference going for a similar sized reel with a different gear ratio will be.

[SirSnookalot]

Post # 10 first paragraph by WRB is as complicated as it's needed to be.  The IPT changes with the amount of line on the spool.  I don't know how anyone else fishes but I work my lures with twitches and pauses, the retrieval speed varies quite a bit, IPT isn't that significant to me.  Sure when using a spinnerbait or crankbait the speed is more constant, I've never thought past reeling faster or slower, which is usually done by feel with no thought invloved.  Is there a case for IPT when landing a fish, at times yes.  When a fish is swimming back at you with some speed a 34" IPT compared to a 30" will take up the slack better, again something I give little thought to.  A longer handle I believe does give more cranking leverage, but how often do I need that extra leverage.  Even some of my smaller inshore reels have the same handle length as a typical bass reel. 

 

Whether you have a 1# or 100# fish on the line, nothing to think about except landing it and that technique is built in to each of us.

[deaknh03]

Or you can think of it like planets around the sun. Earth takes 365 days for one revolution. Pluto takes 90,000 days to make that same revolution.

pluto is not a planet..

[Delaware Valley Tackle]

pluto is not a planet..

He's a dog. Everyone knows that. These are the kind of threads we usually start in Feb. when cabin fever has set in. 

[Catch and Grease]

This thread is a mess, what's even being debated now?

 

All I know is a bigger handle doesn't effect IPT at all.

[J Francho]

I feel like I'm on another planet.

[K_Mac]

I get a kick out of these threads. Trying to quantify subjective terms like 'effective ratio' may excite the mathematicians, but it serves no useful purpose IMO. How far your hand travels to complete one turn of the handle certainly doesn't change IPT, but changing the handle length does change the way a reel feels to fish. The amount of work done during the retrieve does not change. How the energy required to perform that work "feels" based on handle length is why actual use is the only reliable way to quantify user satisfaction.

[Josh Smith]

pluto is not a planet..

 

I heard they just reclassified it as such in a vote of scientists.

 

I've not followed upon this.  It was on the radio news a few weeks ago.

[Catch and Grease]

Pluto is whatever you wanna call it.

Buut, in 2006 IAU had a vote to see if Pluto was gonna to be called a planet and it lost because it didn't meet one of the three requirements of being a planet, 8 years later they revisited the question "what is a planet" and had another vote and Pluto won that time around.

[J Francho]

What's the planetary status of Uranus?

[MarkH024]

 

Sorry, had to do it.  

 

Go fishing...

[Delaware Valley Tackle]

What's the planetary status of Uranus?

Surrounded by Klingons that should be wiped out.

[J Francho]

Exactly.

[Josh Smith]

This thread is a mess, what's even being debated now?

 

The debate is that the ratio of the length of the circle described by the handle in one full rotation to the inches per turn of line retrieve is a much more meaningful representation of reel speed than is gear ratio. 

 

Inches per turn can only be changed by changing gears or the spool diameter.  That's not the debate.

 

I contend that because, 6.3:1 of manufacturer A doesn't necessarily equal the 6.3:1 of manufacturer B, that a much more meaningful ratio would be the length of the circle described by the reel handle to the inches-per-turn of line retrieve.

 

That, and Pluto might be a planet again.  (http://lmgtfy.com/?q=pluto+is+a+planet+again)

 

Josh

[Smallmouth Hunter]

Dude your math is so far off..

C=pi * d, but d is not d of handle'a rotary motion, but rather the spool! The length of the handle has nothing to do with length per turn! You could put a 100ft long handle on a 30 ipt reel, and it will always be 30 ipt. Or you could put a 5 mm handle on it and it would still be 30 ipt.

No offense tho. It is a common misconception.

[Smallmouth Hunter]

Line per turn has to do with the diameter of the spool. Some reels have taller spools than others, which explains the variation in line per turn among various 6.3:1 reels per say.

[I.rar]

Lol. Why so serious?

I'll use his bicycle reference in a different way. You have 2 bikes with 20" rims. There are 175mm cranks on one bike and 185mm cranks on another. Distance traveled with one full rotation of the pedals is the same.

I'm going with this explanation.

It takes longer to make one full revolution with the pedals but the gearing and distance traveled is still the same.

[Josh Smith]

Dude your math is so far off..

C=pi * d, but d is not d of handle'a rotary motion, but rather the spool! The length of the handle has nothing to do with length per turn! You could put a 100ft long handle on a 30 ipt reel, and it will always be 30 ipt. Or you could put a 5 mm handle on it and it would still be 30 ipt.

No offense tho. It is a common misconception.

 

Hello,

 

You're misinterpreting what I'm saying.

 

What is the distance a reel knob travels in one full turn of the reel handle?

 

Josh

[J Francho]

 

I contend that because, 6.3:1 of manufacturer A doesn't necessarily equal the 6.3:1 of manufacturer B, that a much more meaningful ratio would be the length of the circle described by the reel handle to the inches-per-turn of line retrieve.

 

Are you suggesting that manufacturers misstate gear ratio?  That's NEVER been an issue that I know of.

It's IPT that varies.  Why?  Different spool diameters.

 

So how would this measurement read?  How would you know what is better for a particular presentation? How would this "ratio" read?  Inches per inches?  Aspect, like for tire fitment? 

I'm sorry, I'm struggling to get where your going here.  So, I'll use a real world example - A reel and two handles I own.

 

Zillion TDZLN100SHA

 

Gear ratio: 7.1:1

Line retrieved: 31.6"/turn or ~803 mm/turn

Handles: 85mm JDM stock, Hawgtech 94mm straight

 

So with the 85mm handle, the circumference is ~267mm, assuming we're measuring this on the centerline of the knob posts.

That's 267:803

 

With the 94mm handle, that same "ratio" is 295:803.

 

I'm gonna just assume you misspoke, and reverse the two measurements when you made up this ratio, since it's easier for we westerners to read left to right.  Reduced to 1, that gives us these stats:

 

85mm is ~ 3.0:1

94mm is ~ 2.7:1

 

Okay, we have some numbers.  What do these mean?  What is more useful about this?  Let's assume we go with this as the "new standard" for rating reel retrieve.  How do I know which reel is better for burning baits, or for slow rolling a deep diving crankbait?  Is the higher number the faster one?  Wait, I have to move my hand slower with the higher number, right?  Wait, what?

 

Help me out here.

 

Why so serious?  Because I feel seriously stupid not being to see why this helps anyone in any way.  I'm a Business Intelligence analyst by trade, and data, stats, measurements, and the like are the things I know.  Please enlighten.  Let me be clear, this isn't a flame war.  I'm curious where this helps.

 

Last fact.  The difference in travel between the two handles is 1.1 inches.  Not much.  In fact, I'd be hard pressed that there is any speed advantage, either way.  The distance your hand moves is by no means a good measure for efficiency and speed.  I play drums, and I can tell you, I can move my hands a lot faster using longer swings than tiny ones.   But anyway, the point is that nominal difference has plenty of effect on how the reel feels when used.  So much, many have strong opinions on what is better.

 

I don't think your "math" equation helps anyone decide what's better to them.

[Josh Smith]

Are you suggesting that manufacturers misstate gear ratio?  That's NEVER been an issue that I know of.

 

I am not saying this.  Not at all.  I would never say anything of the sort.

 

 

 

Zillion TDZLN100SHA

 

Gear ratio: 7.1:1

Line retrieved: 31.6"/turn or ~803 mm/turn

Handles: 85mm JDM stock, Hawgtech 94mm straight

 

 

85mm is about 3.35"

94mm is about 3.70"

 

Gear ratio and line retrieve in inches per turn are not easily changed, and therefore considered constants.

 

With the 3.35" diameter handle, the distance of the reel handle knob moved in one full rotation is π • 3.35, or about 10.5" per 31.6" of line retrieved.

 

With the 3.70" Hawgtech 3.70" handle, the distance the reel handle knob moves in one full rotation is π • 3.70, or about 11.6" .

 

Therefore, the stock handle moves a circumference of 10.5" for every 31.6" of line retrieved.  Agreed?

 

The Hawgtech handle handle moves a circumference of 11.6" for every 31.6" of line retrieved.  Agreed?

 

Reducing:

 

10.5 / 10.5 : 31.6 / 10.5 = 1 : 3.01  (Do we agree here?)

 

and

 

11.6 / 11.6 : 31.6 / 11.6 = 1 : 2.72  (Do we agree here?)

 

With the stock handle, for every inch of handle movement, you retrieve 3.01" of line.

 

With the Hawgtech handle, for every inch of handle movement, you retrieve 2.72" of line.

 

Do you agree with the above?

 

Regards,

 

Josh

 

Edit: Done editing.