What reel capacity calculators do yall use?

[Fishinthefish]

I have no memory of which one I used to use to calculate the capacity for braid on a reel where it isnt listed by the manufacturer. I'm looking to see how much 20lb Smackdown I can get on an Aldebaran 51HG vs a Met 151 MGL XG

[LionHeart]

20 lb. Test mono is 1.7 times the diameter of 12 lb. Test mono or 50 lb braid. (Or roughly 70% bigger)  So 10 yards of 20 lb mono would be the same as 17 yards of 12 lb mono, and so on.  Does that make sense.

 

Take your reels advertised 12 lb capacity in yards, and about 70% of that distance in 20 lb will fit.  Hope this helps dude.

[Delaware Valley Tackle]

There's no standard for diameter/lb test for either braid or mono. The best you can hope for is an approximation. The braid company may publish their opinion of mono diameter equivalent. That's where I'd start. 

[LionHeart]

What DVT said.  A lot of fishing line will have marked on the box, the line diameter measurement.  Since all lb. Test and line type diameter will vary slightly, this information isn't terribly useful for spool capacity.  What I posted above will get you in the neighborhood.  Not precise, but a working estimate.

[J Francho]

I can't think of a single time any of these stats mattered, though it is winter.

 

For the OP, the easiest thing to do, is get a line counter, and start reeling line on each reel.  They're inexpensive, and what I use when I feel like measuring what's actually on the reel.

[Fishinthefish]

3 hours ago, J Francho said:

I can't think of a single time any of these stats mattered, though it is winter.

 

For the OP, the easiest thing to do, is get a line counter, and start reeling line on each reel.  They're inexpensive, and what I use when I feel like measuring what's actually on the reel.

That's normally what I do but  Idon't have hands on access to either reel. I like both, and the only thing its going to come down to is line capacity at this point. The one reel calculator I tried said I could get over 267 yards of 20lb smackdown on the Aldabaren which I knew wasn't even close to right. I'm guessing it's more in the 110-115 range where as the Met MGL will be in the 130-135 range.

[Bent]

15 hours ago, LionHeart said:

20 lb. Test mono is 1.7 times the diameter of 12 lb. Test mono or 50 lb braid. (Or roughly 70% bigger)  So 10 yards of 20 lb mono would be the same as 17 yards of 12 lb mono, and so on.  Does that make sense.

 

Take your reels advertised 12 lb capacity in yards, and about 70% of that distance in 20 lb will fit.  Hope this helps dude.

If you want to do it analytically instead of using a line counter (best option), it's a bit more complicated than that; increasing line radius by a factor of x increases the line volume by a factor of x².  Assuming line is perfectly uniform and lays well enough to fill a spool uniformly (for the record, not a very good assumption because line is not perfectly uniform, and braided line especially can compress given some tension) the line volume follows the same formula as the volume of a cylinder = pi * radius² * length.

 

From that equation,

 

length = spool volume / (pi * radius²)

 

So if I increase line radius by a factor of x, the length that fits on the spool should be divided by x².

 

For example, if my spool holds 100 yds of line and I increase line radius by 5%, only 90.7 yards will fit, in theory.

 

[bigturtle]

http://www.pattayafishing.net/fishing-reel-line-capacity-estimator/

 

i like dealing with metric units so i use this

[LionHeart]

27 minutes ago, Bent said:

If you want to do it analytically instead of using a line counter (best option), it's a bit more complicated than that; increasing line radius by a factor of x increases the line volume by a factor of x².  Assuming line is perfectly uniform and lays well enough to fill a spool uniformly (for the record, not a very good assumption because line is not perfectly uniform, and braided line especially can compress given some tension) the line volume follows the same formula as the volume of a cylinder = pi * radius² * length.

 

From that equation,

 

length = spool volume / (pi * radius²)

 

So if I increase line radius by a factor of x, the length that fits on the spool should be divided by x².

 

For example, if my spool holds 100 yds of line and I increase line radius by 5%, only 90.7 yards will fit, in theory.

 

Kinda what I was trying to say except just use lb. Test and get a rough idea.  Worst case you will be off by a few yards.

 

The reason I wouldn't bother getting more complicated than a rough estimate is simply because advertised reel line capacity is only in a generic lb test, and doesn't specify actual line diameter.  Since we have no way of knowing the actual line diameter the manufacturer used for the capacity rating (you could call them, but good luck on that), I'd rather keep things simple and be off by a few yards.  

 

Off topic now, but how would increasing line size by 5% decrease line capacity by approx. 9%? Please speak slowly and use small words.

[Deleted account]

None. 

[Deleted account]

50 minutes ago, Bent said:

If you want to do it analytically instead of using a line counter (best option), it's a bit more complicated than that; increasing line radius by a factor of x increases the line volume by a factor of x².  Assuming line is perfectly uniform and lays well enough to fill a spool uniformly (for the record, not a very good assumption because line is not perfectly uniform, and braided line especially can compress given some tension) the line volume follows the same formula as the volume of a cylinder = pi * radius² * length.

 

From that equation,

 

length = spool volume / (pi * radius²)

 

So if I increase line radius by a factor of x, the length that fits on the spool should be divided by x².

 

For example, if my spool holds 100 yds of line and I increase line radius by 5%, only 90.7 yards will fit, in theory.

 

If you spool up at near the speed of light, you'll be able to fit an infinite length of any diameter line you'd like, just don't try it with flourocarbon...

[WRB]

The fact that every line maker publishes the diameter per lb test on the spool clearly indicates the differences between them. Has anyone reading this measured line diameters? Braid isn't a ridgid round material, it's soft and deforms nearly flat or oval under the pressure of being spooled or measured. 

Monofiliments that include mono, copolymers, fluorocarbon polymers are round and ridgid enough to measured accurately and the diameter varies with a few yards of length, it's not always consistsnt depending on the quality control being used.

Braid deforms and mono varies in diameter, no formula can factor in the variables in addition what is a full spool.

Tom 

[Deleted account]

7 minutes ago, WRB said:

The fact that every line maker publishes the diameter per lb test on the spool clearly indicates the differences between them. Has anyone reading this measured line diameters? Braid isn't a ridgid round material, it's soft and deforms nearly flat or oval under the pressure of being spooled or measured. 

Monofiliments that include mono, copolymers, fluorocarbon polymers are round and ridgid enough to measured accurately and the diameter varies with a few yards of length, it's not always consistsnt depending on the quality control being used.

Braid deforms and mono varies in diameter, no formula can factor in the variables.

Tom 

Oh great, so now you want me to do calculus to spool my reels...

[J Francho]

You have to use differential calculus, though.

[Deleted account]

53 minutes ago, J Francho said:

You have to use differential calculus, though.

You can't give Dennis Miller to a Larry the cable guy crowd, literate, iterate, potato, potato, I don't think it will function....

[LionHeart]

To the OP.  I didn't realize that smackdown was braid.  20 lb braid is similar to 6 lb mono diameter so using that logic,  I'd say you can fit roughly twice as much if not more 20 lb braid on a spool as you could 12 lb mono.  I keep referring to 12 lb mono because that is one of the more commonly listed line capacities on a fishing reel so you should already know those numbers.

 

My question is,  what are you fishing for that you need that much line capacity?

[Fishinthefish]

King Salmon. I fish for them on bass rigs with 20lb braid to make the fight last longer when they go into the piers on lake michigan. 

[MassYak85]

I used to have an Excel file where I could plug in the backing line diameter and braid diameter and calculate how much I would need if I wanted to use half a 150yd spool of braid. But like others said there are too many inconsistencies for it to stay consistent to my liking. I don't use it, what I will do is take a spool to a field and actually halve the spool.