Banax Kaigen 1000 repair

[Rothmar2]

id want a life time warranty on one of these.
as alan asked about the drag,
does it work well?
if it wasnt extra smooth,would it put more pressure on the electrics(motor)
if you locked up the drag and hooked a large shark would it burn out.
i have never seen an electric reel.
good stuff rothmar2 to have a crack at one of these

The drag works much better now since the metal washers were honed, very smooth. It was a little jerky beforehand. As for actual drag spec's, will try and get some numbers next time I see the reel. At the moment it is quite capable of lifting 2.5kg of sinker, plus a few fish in the 3-7kg range from 450m depth without too much slippage of the drag. It really only slips if you have a bit of swell on, and if the boat rises suddenly to pass over one. The reel will pull in at amost 150m/min with just the weight on at high speed. To wind in manually is pretty hard work after a couple of deep drops, anything over 300m becomes a slog. The motor drive definately makes things much easier, and saves a heap of time.

Here is a little sample, most of these fish were caught on the above reel 2 days after handing it back to the owner.



The majority of these were caught in 350-450m water depth. Quite often they were coming up 3-4 fish at a time, and average weight of the fish pictured is 3-4kg each. A couple of weeks ago, I was on a trip where we were fishing 500m+. Apart from a "fish winch" add on (coupled to a 6/0 Penn Senator), the other deep drop rig was a Shimano Tyrnos. The fish winch was taking about 6-8 mins to come up from that depth, manually winding the Tyrnos was taking 20+mins, depending on who was winding. Its very deflating winding up from that depth and coming up empty handed!!

[Shark Hunter]

Nice Rothmar!
Keep it up and I will have to have one these Kaigen's!

[alantani]

thanks for the great post!  you wrench should be arriving soon!!!!!   

[Rothmar2]

Got another of these handed to me a few days ago, this one with a bad level wind, the line guide would not move from the left end of the worm shaft.
The worm chaser can be removed from reel without a full tear down.
The damaged one is on the left....



Fortunately the owner had been able to source spare parts from Malaysia. He had a new worm shaft, chaser and the line guide. Total for all parts, about $25 AUD, not too bad.

To get to the worm shaft all the covers have to come off (see earlier post) to gain access to the E clips that hold the shaft in place. There is one at each end.
When I extracted the shaft, I also found this....



This had happened to both ends of the shaft. I'm guessing that somehow the braid line had got wrapped around the worm shaft and damaged the parts, (owner had purchased off EBay and used twice before failure).

There was a fair bit of end play on the shaft, so I shimmed under the right end E clip with a 0.2mm washer when fitting the new shaft.....(apologies for poor photo)



Alan had asked about the drag stack, here it is....



Washers appear to be carbon fibre, but not entirely sure. They are 0.4mm thick.

Cleaned and greased with Cal's. Gave the metals a quick hit with some polish on glass, to find they are not very flat. Would like to get the reel back at some stage to hone them properly. Drag slips OK, but is a little lumpy.

Along with the parts changed, complete tear down and grease all surfaces, pack bearings (only 2 on these reels), but left all electrical components alone.
Aside from the drag, the reel functioned very well after servicing.

[Rothmar2]

The Banax I repaired that had the blown MOSFET, caught this today



Hooked in 570m of water, on a squid bait, and multi dropper rig. The fish charged straight to the surface shook its head before diving back down to 300m, where it got tail wrapped by the other hooks and then died. It then took over an hour of patience and careful planing up using the swell and hand cranking, to be able to secure it. Final weight was 80kg. The motor drive was only used for a short time after the initial hook-up. The rest was all done cranking by hand.
While not targeted, or a legitimate gamefish capture, it's still a fish of a lifetime, and highlights the capabilities of these reels if properly serviced and looked after. Note this'll this reel, I had honed the metal washers flat, and the drag was very smooth, unlike the one I recently changed the level-wind on. That one requires attention still.

[Dr. Jekyll - AKA MeL B]

nice catch! i noticed that the eared washers have 4. they should do this on the larger senators IMO...

[kawa0]

HI there,
I recently damaged my level winder and it now occasionally spools line on one side (during a retrieve).
I am wondering whether there is a pictorial guide (similar to the one Rothmar did in this post) showing how to take the Kaigen 1000 apart and replacing the broken parts (ie assuming I have managed to purchase the spares).

It would help me greatly. Thank you.

[Tightlines667]

The Banax I repaired that had the blown MOSFET, caught this today



Hooked in 570m of water, on a squid bait, and multi dropper rig. The fish charged straight to the surface shook its head before diving back down to 300m, where it got tail wrapped by the other hooks and then died. It then took over an hour of patience and careful planing up using the swell and hand cranking, to be able to secure it. Final weight was 80kg. The motor drive was only used for a short time after the initial hook-up. The rest was all done cranking by hand.
While not targeted, or a legitimate gamefish capture, it's still a fish of a lifetime, and highlights the capabilities of these reels if properly serviced and looked after. Note this'll this reel, I had honed the metal washers flat, and the drag was very smooth, unlike the one I recently changed the level-wind on. That one requires attention still.

Wow.  Looks like the greased CF drags are getting it done again. 

This is the type of fish that can truly test the gear.  It might be prudent to do a quick post-battle tear down to see how the antireverse system, and drive train held up under stress.  Did you notice if the star became hot during the fight? or if there was any noticeable 'surginess' with the drags, or any noticeable grinding, roughness, or binding when cranking?
 
I guess there is no real need to tear it down, it appears to have gotten the job done.  I recommended this reel to a friends dad for deep drop fishing for Tilefish, but wouldn'T envision this reel being ideal for big game fish like that Sword.  It must have been a struggle pulling that dead weight up from the deep.  I imagine some handlining was involving.

John

[Rothmar2]

These two posts today are quite timely.....

The reel that pulled the sword up is actually on my desk at the moment..........with a faulty level wind.
This is the second time this reel has had that problem, and I have seen two others that have exactly the same problem.

What it boils down to is the stock plastic level wind guide (the bit that goes back and forth) is simply not up to the task. It is too thin a section where the the main guide shroud (which contains the worm) passes through the guide. These guides split through the thin section far too easily. IMO, they are no-where near strong enough to deal with the side loads exerted on them by the mainline under high tension.

For the reel currently on my desk, I have fabricated a stainless replacement guide, and it's about 80% complete. I was actually going to update this post when I get home in about 3 weeks time.
John, the sword was hand cranked most of the way, and took about an hour and a half of very careful work under a pretty heavy drag to plane it up.

I'm sorry to say kawa0, but you will need at least a new guide, pawl and worm parts.

If you can wait, I will post a detailed "how to" when I get home. And while I'm at it, we'll have a look at the drags and other internals and see how it's holding up.

The level wind is a MAJOR weakness in this reel. So much so, I cannot recommend using this reel beyond 150-200m water depth.

[Frigate Sales]

If you need parts, get in touch with me.  
I've got US stock.  I'd be interested in seeing your revised design.

Take a look at the tanacom levelwind, it's not any better.  The key is never pulling the line through the levelwind, it is almost impossible to get it re sychronized.  This will generate very high sideloads.  

I have a presentation on my website showing far more detail on the components. 
http://www.frigatesales.com/support-documents.html

Keep in mind, this is an entry level deep drop reel, not intended for the loads of swords.  It is priced the same as a T1000, and is very competitive in this segment. 

james@frigatesales.com

[Rothmar2]

Thanks for your comment Frigate Sales.

I agree, these are "entry level" deep drop reels. And yes the Tanacom also has a plastic level wind mechanism similar (but not the same) to this Kaigen reel. I have done pre-services on 2 of these Tanacoms now, and while they have different internal mechanical layouts, I believe they are similar in abilities and limitations.

The failures in the Kaigen's levelwinds that I have seen are thus...

1. The one on my desk currently, the second time now I've had to replace the guide. The first time happened a fair few trips after the sword capture, but agree it would have been compromised by the stress of winding up the sword. The second time (now) only a handful of trips, (single day, maybe 1/2 doz at most) new part, probably only hauled up 15-20 fish over that period, none of those lifts would have had any more than 10-12kg combined weight of fish and drop weight. Maximum depth approx 500m.

2. The reel with the damaged worm/pawl posted earlier in this thread. I didn't realise it at the time, but the guide was also cracked. The reel owner had sourced the parts from Malaysia (worm, pawl and guide) which I exchanged as a matter of course. Savvy owner. Reel still giving good service since replacement, has had a suspected sword on it in that time. I expect to see this reel again sometime soon.

3. A reel handed to me that someone had tried to strip down to repair a faulty levelwind. Let's just say they botched the tear-down, and ended up giving up, went and bought a much more expensive all metal reel ($2k worth!!) and told me to keep the box with the reel in it, and do what a liked with it. Now a parts reel. Guide was split. Only been used to catch fish similar to that posted at the top of this page, in similar water depths. No swords hooked on this reel.

Unfortunately (!) in our waters the chance of hooking a sword in our waters is quite high when deep dropping. I understand what you mean by pulling line through the guide and de-synchronizing the line lay with the guide, and the load this creates. But there is enough to suggest that even regular winching work without the line loss will eventually fatigue and weaken these plastic guides. For a reel that retails in Australia for $800-900, I feel a metal guide should be fitted as stock.

I will post up a pic of the stainless piece I am making when I get home from work in a couple of weeks.

[handi2]

I have and use 3 of the Daiwa electric reels. 2 Tanacom Bull 1000's and 1 of the newer les expensive non bling ones you can get for around $599.00 fully spooled.

With the Daiwa reels you cannot get to the levelwind pawl without taking the reel apart. There is a bar underneath to stop the pawl cap from coming all the way off.

I have repaired a few non motor related issues but nothing major has come across the table. The drags are typical Daiwa "paper" type material and I always change those to Carbontex. The working parts of the reel are typical Daiwa star drag. They do have waterproofing seals around the gear sleeve and on top of the main gear.

The main and pinion gears are not as thick and large as the aforementioned reel.

[Frigate Sales]

I now have in stock an upgraded level wind pawl.  This part wears over time, as it sees a lot of travel over the use of the reel.  Banax has done some testing, and found that replacing this part with ceramic has greatly increased the level wind reliability.  This will be included with all new production runs.

The new level wind pawl is supplied with all reels I ship out, I've retrofitted my inventory. If anybody needs one, let me know.

The upgrade can be done without disassembling the reel, 5 minutes and a flathead. 

[Rothmar2]

To follow up as promised. But this one has ended in frustration.

The reel I had on my bench had a faulty levelwind. Two things wrong, the shaft is damaged



And the guide was cracked, it actually snapped the pawl cover sleeve clean off when trying to access the pawl



Here is another cracked guide from a previous reel that also had a faulty levelwind, and the entire worm/guide/pawl assembly was replaced.



It's these guide failures that prompted me to attempt to make a stainless one.

I had roughed down the part from an M16 SS bolt on a 4-jaw chuck at work, and drilled the holes while at work. The rest of the guide was shaped by hand filing. The pawl cover was  machined from some 10mm SS Rod, and threaded M8.





All holes were honed with wet/dry of several grits, 220-800.



And also polished with  Autosol by spinning it in on a drill bit.



The SS guide support rods were also given a polish with Autosol. While everything seemed to slide OK off the reel



There was binding at the end of travel at both ends, which even after carefully honing the bores several times, I couldn't improve. It seems as though the stainless would gall onto the guiding rods. I thinned down some grease with Corrosion X, and coated all parts, but no improvement could be achieved.

In hindsight, I probably needed to make some delrin sleeves to slide over the guiding rods, but that would require re-designing the guide to accommodate them. There is not much room to play with under all the cover shrouds. Alternatively, the guiding rods could have been skimmed down on a lathe.

For now, the reel's owner has decided to cut his losses and look into the purchase of another reel, type/brand undetermined at this stage.

So there you have it, I don't always succeed with my projects.

Now I have a bunch of Tiagras to service......

[Robert Janssen]

Cool. A for effort.

There was binding at the end of travel at both ends, which even after carefully honing the bores several times, I couldn't improve. It seems as though the stainless would gall onto the guiding rods.

Actually, I would venture to guess that the holes themselves and rods are fine, but the holes c/c distance is ever so slightly off. Which is understandable because, to be honest, drilling perfect holes on a perfect c/c is in fact more difficult than it may seem.

Maybe you could figure out which one (sharpie + rub mark test?) and enlarge it a bit; make it work, so you win the game.

.