trinidad 30 DC

[steelfish]

well this my newest acquisition for my personal arsenal, I just got it in my hands, one Unicorn reel, the mighty trinidad DC reel size 30.

for the meantime I will only showing it off  
later in few days I will open it up to check internals but I know its pretty much a normal trinidad 30 with the DC system, clicker dog and taller/bigger ARB, btw, this ARB feels solid as gold!!  the handle turns and feels pretty solid compared to the normal gold trinidad reels which feel pretty smooth but thats it, this one feels pretty smooth but steady and solid
love the drag star, 5x better than the ones used on the gold trinidad ones.
my plan is to do a complete service to it, fill it with some 80# braid and go to the beach (dry sand only) and test the DC system.
I really dont have plans to use it soon since have some reels on the same category of line and drag and also seems that some guys look for them as collection item.

so, what do you guys think ?
this Unicorn is a shelf queen candidate or a weapon of choice for fishing trips?

************  updated the post with pictures  ***************

I will not post tons of pictures of the reel because mainly is pretty similar to the normal gold trinidad or pictures of the cleaning procedures, I will focus on post pictures of this reel the way I got it, then some pictures of the main difference versus the original gold trinidad, which are:

- AntiReverse Bearing (ARB), on DC is double the size and it also have two big plastic/rubber gaskets one on each side of the ARB to prevent saltwater intrusion to the ARB which is the main reason for corrosion that kills the bearing.
- Carbon Fiber drag washers
- Clicking dogs
- DC system
- Forged aluminum frame
- Rubber Padded Metal Clutch Lever (gold trinidad the lever is plastic)
- Forged drag star


well, this particular 30DC reel had an old grease that turned brown color and got pretty thick it feels almost as mud/clay paste and its also pretty sticky, I cleaned all that up and put a light coat of yamaha grease all over the internal walls and gears, etc. in short I Alantanitazed the reel, the bearings of Spool, left side plate and right side plate where opened up, cleaned and left them open  with few drops of WRL 191S OIL (thanks Fred for the oil ), as expected the reel now feels pretty smooth and the big ARB make the handle feels pretty solid, it feels pretty similar to the Talica 16 single speed.


this is how it looked with all the old grease, what a mess right?




with the brown residues of the grease all over the sideplate I couldnt know if there was corrosion at any place until I cleaned everything up with hotwater and dishwashing soap, for my luck I found out everything was in pretty good shape and corrosion is pretty minimal to almost non existent, so, I proceed put a light coat of yamaha grease and called it done




this is another difference against the regular gold trinidad reel, as you can see the left side plate doesnt look as "busy" as the regular gold trinidad, this DC looks cleaner, simpler and easier to service compared to the gold one.








Now, to the holy grail of the reel, the DC System or Speed Digital Controlled system, which is a circuit that controls the speed of the spool when you cast, helping you to prevent backlashes on windy days or just to make you cast without worrying on know how to apply light pressure to the spool to control the speed of the spool, in short, you dont need to know how to cast with this reel, they DC system will make you cast as a professional everytime.

I will separate the the DC system in three main pieces:

- the DIAL knob with 8 control adjustments


- the Circuit at the back of the Set-plate



- the Magnets on the spool, I think (because I never found any information the way the DC system works) seems the copper wire coils create an eddie current that hits the magnets on the spool depending on the speed of the spool making it to slowdown or keeping the spool speed depending on the lure weight, windy conditions, etc.




the other BIG main difference Vs the gold trinidad reels is the size of the ARB, check the next comparing pictures, also in the trinidad DC reels, the ARB housing can be separated from the sideplate by 3 screws while is the gold trinidad reels the ARB fits in the housing that is part of the side plate, in order to clean everything good before taking this reel to the water I separated the ARB housing as a whole, cleaned the rollers of the ARB up, cleaned the two rubber gaskets from each side, added oil to he ARB rollers and coated the rubber gaskets with grease before put them back on their place, that will help better to keep saltwater out from reaching the ARB rollers.











Regular ARB and sleeve tube of the Gold trinidad at the left and Sleeve tube, ARB housing and rubber gaskets of the DC reel at the right side





the reel cleaned up really good, I could get rid of those watermarks on the exterior of the reel and now looks pretty good and silvering shiny






and its already filled with 80# braid to go to the beach and test the DC system and at the 1st fishing trip take it with me to catch a nice fish with it.




I havent tested the drag on this one but in that part is identical to its sibbling the gold trinidad, so, pretty much it would be identical; I need to say that I loving the sensation of the ARB compared to my trini16, the 30DC feels like the talica single speed or the accurate Boss reels not a single hiccup in the handle if you try to move it backwards, so, No, trinidad DC reel is not just the gold trinidad reel with the DC system on it.


PS: I will use the reel as is, but I still can add the Cals drag place from my trini 16 to this one, it supposed to add more steady drag pressure to the drag stack, btw, the trini16 is gone but I kept the Cals drag plate that it was installed on it.

Cals drag plate top at the left and stock trinidad drag plate at the left


Bottom side, which have more flat bed to to have more contact area with the last carbonfiber washer

[Swami805]

You need to fish with that one, made for casting,no point in it being a dust collector

[Gfish]

Nice!
Just me, but I'd line it up for one trip, have fun testing/fishing it, then shelf-it after disassembly, cleaning and re-lube, as you planed.

[MarkT]

If it were a NIB 20 DC I'd put it away as my kid's college fund.

[steelfish]

OK, understood, These boots are made for walking and that's just what they'll do 

I will use it and check if I will liked it that much to consider it a keeper, after a complete service the reel feels and looks a lot better, all inside the reel there was a kind of brown mud/grease/clay it was all over the gears and bearings but it helped to protect the metal parts from corrosion so, after a good clean up, open the bearings, clean them and leave them open with some drops WRL 191S OIL on them now the reel feels 3x better than before.

Because I search everywhere I couldnt found any pictures of the interior of the trinidad DC reels to check the DC circuit system, I will add some pictures on the 1st post of the thread of the interior of the reel just for consulting and also comparing few parts from the regular gold trinidad reel Vs this trinidad DC reel, I always though the only difference was the DC system, but the Antireverse Bearing is 2x bigger and stronger (shimano should have used this same parts on the regular trinidad reels), the star drag assembly is the same as the one used on the "new" Tranx and trinidad A series of reels, with that said, I think this trindiad DC reel should be considered as a step above the regular gold trinidad and before the new breed of tranx, trinidad A, torium HG reels.

[Cor]

When these reels just became available I was given one to try.     It was my first experience with a reel using an adjustable magnetic cast control system.
I still don't know what the electronics are supposed to do, but I concluded that the mags worked very well and you could cast it and not be able to get a birds nest, no matter how hard you tried.

With proper adjustment is cast well and hardly sacrificed distance.

These reels never became popular here, perhaps they were too expensive but I think it is a good quality reel.

I unfortunately had to give the reel back to its owner

[steelfish]

If it were a NIB 20 DC I'd put it away as my kid's college fund.

I dont know if I rested value or added value to the reel with the deep service I just did on it, but it really needed asap, it was a mess inside.
but since is not a NIB reel, its better having it properly protected than keeping it with the stock factory lacking grease.

[MarkT]

It looks much better after servicing. Ya done good kid!

I have those DC spring loaded dogs in both my old Toriums!

[oc1]

I've always wondered if that little electric generator thing could stand up to saltwater use.  Hopefully, if it gets wet it will hold up better than an i-phone.

[steelfish]

hey Steve, I still havent tried the reel to check if the DC thingy is still working but seems to be covered with a coat of rubber/urethane or something alike, pretty sure the engineers of shimano were sure to add something to protect the electronics.

when cleaned the reel on that part I tried to use minimal water there and used just a damped cloth to cleat the sides from the ugly brown grease and bit of saltwater crystals.

[steelfish]

Took the reel to the beach today and made few cast with 3oz and 4oz weights on the dry sand, I used a 8ft okuma shadow stalker XH rod   1.5-4.5oz lure, all I can say is... Im a believer LOL

it cast like a dream, after playing with the settings of the DC knob a bit on which I never used any higher than #4 setting from 8 adjustments to max.

3oz weight cast so nice and smooth and without a single chance of an overrun or backlash so, the small irons or heavy spoons will fly on this reel, but it was on 4oz weight when I felt the rod was "charged" better and actually bent it on the cast to catapult the weight further, I never measured the cast but counted around 70-80 average handle turns to recover the weight, if the reel retrieves 46" per crank and I counted lets say 75 cranks that gives me 3,450 inches/12" = 287ft / 3 =  95 yds, I know its not a correct way to measure the cast but I was casting with 80# braid and the spool was full to the brim not much line was out to reduce the IPT 46" average, anyway, 85-95yds without effort and without a single backlash on 30 cast or more is a winner, the DC knob was on #4 and #3 setting depending on the weight used, just to check it out I put the DC knob to the lowest setting 1 and I got a bad backlash trying with a more powerful cast with 4oz to the windy on my face but nothing that I couldnt untangle in 15 seconds or less, just to be sure I put it again on the 4 setting and Voilá again I made another 10 hard cast with no backlash, then to finalize my test, I tried some surf fishing casts like using the reel for shore fishing the same way I cast the saltist 20h, I tried few Pendulum cast, OTG cast and powercast and same deal, not single backlash on #4 setting, with more weight surely I would need to use a higher setting.
Now I know what the trinidad DC users where saying about the "singing sound" of the reel on the cast and I can confirm the DC is in 100% working condition.

PS: I had hard time "Telling" my thumb to stay away from the spool when casting, I couldnt brake the muscle memory of the hand from touching the spool on the 1st casts, I had to keep my eye steady and looking at the thumb like ordering to dont move LOL and that made me lost the moment of the weight landing and causing some line to overrun 1 or 2 complete turns of the spool, after few casts I learned how to keep the thumb away all the moment and check the moment when the weight touched the sand and stop the spool. 

[Cor]

................ I never measured the cast but counted around 70-80 average handle turns to recover the weight, if the reel retrieves 46" per crank and I counted lets say 75 cranks that gives me 3,450 inches/12" = 287ft / 3 =  95 yds, I know its not a correct way to measure the cast but I was casting with 80# braid and the spool was full to the brim not much line was out to reduce the IPT 46" average, anyway, 85-95yds without effort and without a single backlash on 30 cast or more is a winner, the DC knob was on #4 and #3 setting depending on the weight used, just to check it out I put the DC knob to the lowest setting 1 and I got a bad backlash trying with a more powerful cast with 4oz to the windy on my face but nothing that I couldnt untangle in 15 seconds or less, just to be sure I put it again on the 4 setting and Voilá again I made another 10 hard cast with no backlash, then to finalize my test, I tried some surf fishing casts like using the reel for shore fishing the same way I cast the saltist 20h, I tried few Pendulum cast, OTG cast and powercast and same deal, not single backlash on #4 setting, with more weight surely I would need to use a higher setting.

PS: I had hard time "Telling" my thumb to stay away from the spool when casting, I couldnt brake the muscle memory of the hand from touching the spool on the 1st casts, I had to keep my eye steady and looking at the thumb like ordering to dont move LOL and that made me lost the moment of the weight landing and causing some line to overrun 1 or 2 complete turns of the spool, after few casts I learned how to keep the thumb away all the moment and check the moment when the weight touched the sand and stop the spool. 

4 COMMENTS
1)  I think as a rough calculation your distance is close to correct, perhaps the shortish rod makes me think it could be slightly overstated but you are probably stronger than me

2)  Using a heavier weight is generally better to cast as it has more momentum and pulls the line out better/faster, reducing the possibility of too much loose line and a resultant overrun.

3)  I really struggled with the "thumb" when I started using magnets and found that if I so much as touched the spool it slowed it down too much.    Casting nice and steady using the rods "sweetspot" made that I could
     make perfect casts.    Wind changes are best to be aware of and nearly always need tighter mag setting if in your face.

4)  This reel is the near perfect conventional casting machine.

[steelfish]

I went again to the beach but this time with a camera, I forgot the 4oz weight and used 3oz, so the distance wasnt as long than previous day but still wanted to film the reel casting on different settings of the DC knob.




next time I will use my RS SUR1505 surf fishing rod 12.6ft with 5oz or 6oz weight and check what this can do, Im not for the longest cast but for the Anti-backlash system of the reel on proper surf rod.

[Swami805]

Love the distictive sound of the DC working!  You should get more distance with a longer rod

[steelfish]

Love the distictive sound of the DC working!  You should get more distance with a longer rod

loving sound, isnt it?  well, you never expect to hear that sound coming from a fishing reel, my other long casting reels make the more normal sounds of the bearings spinnings thousand times.

a longer rod and heavier weight, this okuma stalker inshore rod 8ft is 4.5oz lure as max weight but pretty sure it can handle more, the previous day I was using 4oz weight and I never felt the rod like passing the sweet spot or stressing but 5oz might be pushing it.