thanks to christina for helping with the video!!!!
https://youtu.be/_HF7ogh8_Z8
Another great video Boss. What comes odda a 4 degree grind down? More gradual drag ramp-up?
Yeah, nice, smooth and even.
Thanks Alan, great idea, if you wished to finnish it of a bit smoother, one of the bright boy discs, would vertually pollish it, cheers Don.
Alan,
I worked on three cams freehanded for my 12VISX, 16VISX, and 30VISX. The 12VISX works perfect. On the other hand, I'm having major loss of freespool and handle binding issues with 16VISX and 30VISX. Was hoping you might have some insight into this.
What I have now is similar (but worse) to 1min:40sec in your 50VISX video:
Appreciate any advice.
Any time that the handle binds as you increase the drag, it's almost always the pinion bearing. Once that is replaced, then look at the cam. It should be cut to degrees. For both reels, make sure that the bellevilles are 0.038". For the 16 visx, add another belleville to make the stack "(()". For the 30 visx 30, you will likely have thinner bellevilles. Switch the thicker bellevilles from the visx 20/50 and see.
https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=328672862736987&id=100067828264550
Really appreciate the suggestions, Alan. I was also thinking it might be something along the lines of spacers/washers/bellvilles. Good news is I have a bunch of new parts arriving tomorrow. Will give em a try and report back.
We need to look at something. I have been a bit reluctant to get involved, but I started making cams around twenty-five years ago.
When striving to achieve an even rotary to linear movement, as in this case,
the cam needs to be truly helical. What is being accomplished here, is not a helix. This is only a simplified straight-line approximation of what a helix should be. The resultant total rise of the cam may be similar -after all, the line goes from a to b- but, the progression of the axial movement is not linear.
Now, there is nothing inherently wrong about this form of cam in itself; i have used it myself on occasion, depending on the type of cam and not leastly depending on the type of cam follower.
In this case, the cam follower is designed to ride the planar surfaces of the cam lobes, distributing load evenly across their width.
However, the straight-line approximation, cut-across-a-cylinder technique also alters the geometry of the planar surfaces, so that the cam follower no longer properly follows them or distributes load and wear evenly. The cam followers now choose to concentrate on a path from the inside radius to the outside, with a small section in the middle of the arc where full contact is made. This effect can be seen by looking at the wear tracks in the pic below.
CA5E293D-9A7B-4EB3-AE19-78D11906CFC0.jpeg
This is a rig i sometimes use to grind cams. The cylinder you see is internally threaded over on the right hand side, and will when rotated thusly follow the axial movement as dictated by the thread, which in this case happens to have a pitch of 3 mm. Over at the left-hand end of the cylinder, there is a pocket in which to place the cam to be ground. Above this, there is a high-speed spindle with the milling ttol or grindstone mounted at 90 degrees to the surface to be worked. The chuck at the extreme right of the picture can be rotaded 180 degrees, alternating as needed to cut the facets, or ramps, of the cam. The entirety of this rig is mounted to the table of a horizontal milling machine, which means that the cam-to-be can be advanced towards the cutting tool a few hundreths of a mm at a time, until reaching a predetermined dead stop, thusly ensuring that both facets of the cam are cut equally, and are truly helical.
433C52FE-9D88-4D6F-A8FE-912756CA63B1.jpeg
So, another look... here we have a cam-to-be, on the milling machine, with the freespool notches already cut, and the cam ramps having been milled at at an angle, resulting in the straight-line, cut-across-a-cylinder form desribed above.
9F8228A4-C84A-4CA0-9FEA-5885577E5708.jpeg
We then color it with marking blue, and move it over to the grinding jig. As we begin grinding, we clearly see the pattern described above.
F7A21C6A-547A-4DBC-9C33-9E12AF38DD4F.jpeg
As the grinding process continues, truly planar helical cam ramps will develop.
D2FC8AE1-32B3-46B6-A128-BC7A1ECA796D.jpeg
I was going to clarify the difference in cam shape by documenting how the curve progresses, but decided that i had other things to do.
2BC7BA4F-89BE-4073-9B89-FFE19A3FF1A9.jpeg
The sum total rise of active portion of the cam, excluding the freespool groove, should not exceed 75% of the sum total of available belleville spring travel. Otherwise, the belleville springs will bottom out, resulting in an immediate and drastic spike in drag pressure. (75% of spring travel is a general recommended engineering parameter used in such situations)
This happens to be a favorite sore spot of mine. For years it has seemed perfectly obvious to me, that a reel should be able to achieve a full range of drag across the range of its lever.
Everol has achieved this for six decades. Why is it so difficult for others?
Interesting!
I was curious as to how much actual difference there would be for the equivalent rise helical cut compared to a 4 degree flat cut.
I used a CAD program to draw up both, and superimposed the helical (yellow) on the flat cut (red)
(https://alantani.com/gallery/36/11927-050622231917.jpeg)
Came out to be a bit more than I would have guessed. As to whether it matters or not, dunno. If the lever operates smoothly, the only other issue should be wear over time. If the follower is hard enough and has enough contact surface area, the assembly might wear toward the proper shape.
-J
yeah, straight line was the best i can do. :-\
Too bad manufactures can not provide improved cams.
Shimano offered a bunch of different cams for the Torsa's.
Quote from: Robert Janssen on June 05, 2022, 05:58:48 PMThis happens to be a favorite sore spot of mine. For years it has seemed perfectly obvious to me, that a reel should be able to achieve a full range of drag across the range of its lever.
Everol has achieved this for six decades. Why is it so difficult for others?
Nailed it on the head. Totally agree!
My diagram shows a full 180 degree of travel, but in real life, it looks like sunset is more like 150 degrees or so from the freespool notch. Where there is actual significant clamping load and frequent use in the 60 to 120 degree range, the difference between helical and flat is not that huge. I am wondering if flat cut is that much worse. In a piece of machinery that is in constant motion, we would want a real helical cut cam, but in a reel, this is not a very demanding application. Mostly from freespool to strike a couple dozen times a day at low speed, with the occasional swing into sunset if you get lucky.
Another thought:
I presume that all lever drag cam ramps are linearly progressive. Belleville springs are pretty much linearly progressive as well, as long as we keep below the 75% of maximum compression that Doc mentioned. So the combo should also progress linearly unless you bottom out the bellevilles.
By using stronger (i.e., thicker) bellevilles, you get more clamping load increase per degree of lever swing, and vice versa. Same effect as changing the cam rise. So theoretically, in a hypothetical reel with a ton of room for bellevilles, and with a big selection of bellevilles to choose from, you could tune just the belllevile stack in place of tuning the cam.
Back in the real world, it seems that cam swapping/grinding is easier than belleville tuning, and you don't have to worry about space for extra bellevilles. But you can't totally disregard belleville tuning, and getting the bellevilles sized right means a wider range of drag strike settings without a sudden ramp up.
As to why they never bothered to sort this out in the stock reels, dunno. The problem might not have been as big with the original settings used with mono by the average angler?
I think that I may be repeating a bit of what Alan and Doc have already posted, but I am working my way though this whole cam thing. Never thought about it much until now. Appreciate any corrections if I got something wrong here.
-J
I'll chime in with more of a question than anything. The difference between the linear cut and the helical cut seems to be the surface area of contact between the cam and follower. So with the helical cut you have more contact which would result in more friction but with the linear cut you have less contact with less friction which but would result in more wear on the cam ending up with a helical cut by all the wear. In the end would any of it really matter? Ok I'll stop talking now 😆
Some parts came today. Tried various things with no success.
Quote from: alantani on June 04, 2022, 03:00:39 AMFor the 16 visx, add another belleville to make the stack "(()".
Added a third belleville "(()". Two towards the sideplate and one towards the drag assembly. Stack became too thick. Can't screw on the knob without engaging some drag. Zero freespool after reassembly.
Quote from: alantani on June 04, 2022, 03:00:39 AMFor the 30 visx 30, you will likely have thinner bellevilles. Switch the thicker bellevilles from the visx 20/50 and see.
You are correct that the bellevilles I have are thinner (0.031"). Don't yet have the ones for the 50 VISX. It was a total waste of time, but I tried various combinations of 2 bellevilles + shims, 3 bellevilles, and even 4 bellevilles. Really hope the 50 VISX bellevilles will do the trick. Expect them to arrive within the week.
Think I finally got the 16VISX worked out. Installed two heavy bellevilles (key #18HH), one light belleville from a TRQ25NLD2 (key #18L), and a 0.008" spool shim (key #154BB). (|))
Then, added a two 0.012" spool shims (key #154B) right before the drive plate bearing (key #26). Also, in an abundance of paranoia, I stripped all the grease from the drag washers and drag plate.
Cranked down the preset until freespool starts to get hindered. Straight pulls on the spring scale produced:
Full - 40lbs
#4 - 35lbs
#3 - 30lbs
#2 - 20lbs
#1 - 10lbs
Super happy with the results but the drags are dry. Going to regrease the drags with some fresh Cal's tomorrow. Hopefully the drag output doesn't change. Next up are the 30VISX and a bunch of TRQxxLD2s.
Thanks again Alan for sharing these golden nuggets of knowledge. No way I would have figured it out without your help.
Good job staying after it! Bill
yeah, make sure that the drags are greased. i doubt that it will change the drag range at all. great work!!!!
Argh... I finished greasing up the drag and was dialing in the preset level with the spring scale. Think I only got to around 30lbs at Full when I started hearing some intermittent grinding noise as line was being peeled off the spool pulled under load.
Took the reel apart again to inspect the pinion gear and bearing. There is the tiniest amount play. Seems the bearing is munched and allowing some movement between the inner and outer rings. Will inspect further when I get more time.
I guess one brief episode of 40lbs at Full was too much for the pinion bearing to deal with? Shaking my head disgust. >:(
i found this same problem in a visx 12. i went after the frame with a dremal. problem solved..... :-\
Took another look at the pinion bearing. It's totally fine, just as it was a couple of days ago.
So, extracted the spool assembly along with the spindle and pinion. Held the spool tight and with the pinion in place I hooked my index finger over the the threaded end of the spindle and pulled. There is definitely some movement. Can see the pinion rocking back and forth a little when I apply pressure. Not sure if the spindle is actually bending, but it sure seems like it. Whoa.
Do you remember how much material you had to remove from the 12VISX with the Dremel? If I do it, I'm thinking I'll need to gouge out a pretty good amount. Grind away perhaps a few mm's?
i just hacked away until the grinding stopped. :-\
Thanks for the reply Alan. Just back from a trip catching nothing over 70lbs. The only heavy reel to see any action was the 16VISX, but only for 30 seconds or so until the fish came unbuttoned. Only pushed up the lever to 20lbs of drag so there weren't any issues. For now I've nothing else on the calendar so there should be plenty of time to keep troubleshooting these reels.
Happy New Year folks! Was doing the year-end cleanout, which reminded me to throw up an update for this thread.
A couple months back, the folks at Penn were nice enough to try to fix my 12VISX and 16VISX under warranty. They sent the reels back to me from Philly with replaced frames and spools. Nothing else was done or replaced, which I found odd.
The gold anodized finish of the replacement parts on the 12VISX matched somewhat, but the 16VISX looked like Frankenstein and performed even worse at just 20# of drag before grinding. Clearly, the service techs are color blind and don't actually drag test any of these reels before sending them back. Thankfully, Penn decided to send me brand new 16VISX.
I listened carefully for spool grinding when setting drags to avoid damaging the frame/spools again and then backed-off until there was no hint of grinding. So now, the repaired 12VISX tops out 33# and the brand new 16VISX tops out at 38#. I believe should be the truth-in-advertising numbers. Hopefully others find this information helpful.
Bumping this because people may have more experience with these reels since Alan first did his tutorial.
I own seven of the 50VISX, which are our trolling reels for the Northeast Canyons here in NJ and I'm very happy with them for this use. I went with the VISX over the VISW for the higher maximum drag figures and a slight weight savings (I find these reels a bit less cumbersome than the Wides for standup applications).
I find, as Alan and others do, that a more gradual drag curve over the course of the lever's travel would make these reels even better for my application.
Has anyone tried dropping in the 50VISW cam into the 50VISX to see whether the former would make the drag curve more gradual?
Secondly, would it be possible to get the correct drag geometry based upon one of the successfully ground cams and have a new prototype cam machined from stock to be a drop-in aftermarket part?
If so and if there is interest, we could do some kind of up-front crowd-funding of the project to make the effort worthwhile. I'd be in for at least seven units.
Quote from: Squidder Bidder on November 28, 2024, 12:46:04 AMSecondly, would it be possible to get the correct drag geometry based upon one of the successfully ground cams and have a new prototype cam machined from stock to be a drop-in aftermarket part?
If so and if there is interest, we could do some kind of up-front crowd-funding of the project to make the effort worthwhile. I'd be in for at least seven units.
I have been thinking about this some more..Glad that you resurrected this thread.
Two thoughts:
1. It is useful to keep the effect of friction from moving line in water in mind. The amount of line in the water, and how much of it is being pulled sideways (and at what speed) changes the load on the fish end of the line without changing the load on the reel end. The difference can be substantial. Not to mention how much drag increases at the reel as line fill diameter decreases.
So until you get the fish on a short line, the effective drag is not what you have set and is constantly changing, even if you don't touch the lever.
This is not to say that folk might not find value in a more linear ramp, just that there may not be as much functional value as we are putting on it.
2. To get a specific linear load increase, the ramp progression of the cam has to match the load to compression ratio (low much force it takes to compress a certain distance) as load increases on the Bellevilles, as well as any change in the ratio as load increases.
As Robert has noted, as long as you keep Bellevilles under 70% or so of the maximum load, the progression will be pretty linear. But when you start messing with orientations of the stack and/or mixing Belleville thicknesses, it gets a bit sketchier and the progression can turn into a curve earlier.
To get this desired magical linear ramp over a specific drag range requires a combination of a specific cam shape and a specific Belleville stack.
I wouldn't be surprised if a "linear drag" kit for a given load range would require a cam, a set of Bellevilles and flats/shims, and a diagram for stacking up the washers.
Here is a nice writeup on the effect of different stack orientations. If you are willing to do the math, you can even map out the load to compression curve, or shell out some money for some software:
https://www.bellevillesprings.com/stacking-disc-springs/ (https://www.bellevillesprings.com/stacking-disc-springs/)
-J
It might not be truly "linear" but Alan's re-contoured cams do not ramp up as rapidly past strike as OEM cams and if one puts number stickers on the reel it gives you a reference.
Some people slam their reel to strike right after getting bit, I rarely do and adjust the drag as needed, with the exception of my smaller FTH/TRQ 15Ns and 10XN on larger fish, like 50#-70# tuna. I tend to go to full (15#-18#) shortly after the hook set with them and keep them at full bue to limited line capacity.
I have 70vis 50visx and 30visx reels
Looking at the schematics all 3 have 50 visx drag cams. ( although I suspect my 30visx has a 50 visw drag cam)
The 70vis and 50visx ( and for that matter the 50 visw ) also have exactly the same drag plates.
( the reason the 70 vis makes less drag than the 50visx with the same cam and drag plates is therefor due to its larger spool diamiter )
When i set strike (setting 4) at 30 on the 70 vis I get 45 at full
( 20 at 3 and 10 at 2 and maybe 1lb at 1) I really like this drag curve
And have caught big bluefin tuna on this reel and I like it a lot
My newest addition is a 30 visx
When I set 12lb at strike (setting 4) I get 20lb at full
I get 8lb at 3 and 4lb at 2
Again I am very happy with this ramp up for the billfishing I will be using the 30 visx for
I believe (but could be wrong) that if I increase strike on the 70 to 35 full will become 50 ie there will always be 15 lb difference
And if I increase strike on the 30visx to 20 full will become 28
Ie there will always be an 8lb
difference
Question
Is this true or does the difference increase as strike drag is increased
Note penn schematics online say the 30 visx has a 50 visx drag cam but the 20 visx has a 50 vis drag cam
I think my 30 visx has a 50vis cam because of the difference between strike and full
(I know they only make a 50 visw)
Ps I know I go on a bit
the only way to know for sure is to try changing the settings and then pull with a scale. remember that there are two things that determine the drag profile. one is the cam. the other is the bellevilles. the visx 30 has lighter bellevilles.
yeah, just gotta pull with a scale and see.
Interesting thread.
My takeaway is that changing one factory part will affect other parts.
I remember guy's would modify their factory hot rod engines to increase horsepower and speed. A mod such as shaving the heads might increase compression ratio, but that would put more pressure on parts not factory-designed for it, e.g. head gasket, piston parts and the crankshaft assembly. Expensive engine Blueprinting might eventually be needed after too many problems.
The cam-ramp thing sounds like if it were done right, paired-up with other mods, it might make the drag system last longer than normal and be much easier to use.
Has Penn ever addressed this issue? I like my 16 and 20 **so** much better after grinding the cams. I can see no advantage to a cam the way Penn ships them.
penn has not. that much has been disappointing. :-\
Changing the design probably means renegotiating production contracts. Contractors love change orders.
With CNC it only takes a few minutes to change the drawings and they could make a minimum run to see if they sell.
We have reps on here who are kind. Why don't we (you) ask?
I did six last week that would benefit significantly from reprofiled cams...
(https://alantani.com/gallery/39/39774-8260-Penn80W.png)