Vibration analysis between '20 Met and '21 Zillion

[doomtrprz71]

So quick update on trying to capture sound waves.

It's not really going like I thought. I'll list my issues so far and if anybody has any (cheap, easy) ideas to fix them, I'm all ears.

Basically, I downloaded some oscilloscope apps for my iPhone that just use the internal microphone to log dB values over time. I was going to do the same thing as the vibration study where I just reeled for 20-30 seconds and then see what the FFT's said.

So the first problem I've noticed is the I can't get a consistent signal to show up on the FFT's that would signify the reel noise over the regular ambient noise.

For the accelerometer data, I was pretty confident in the results because the data was repeatable over and over again even after changing things like vise grip pressure, reel constraint positions, location of the accelerometer, etc. Well, the oscilloscope FFT's are first of all, not showing any major spikes at consistent frequencies, and second of all the peak values are changing at seemingly random intervals of time. It's almost like the reel noise isn't changing the overall pattern of sound waves generated by the air around it.

My guess is either iPhone microphones are appropriate for this study, or I need to somehow create a dead silent room.

I don't think the phone microphone works correctly because I think it tries to filter out the noise as background noise, most cell phone app decibel meters don't work correctly and it's why most shot timer apps don't work right either.

[CFDoc]

I don't think the phone microphone works correctly because I think it tries to filter out the noise as background noise, most cell phone app decibel meters don't work correctly and it's why most shot timer apps don't work right either.

I think you nailed it!

I did some searching on Apple forums and it's a pretty common issue. I'm almost certain the microphone is sensing the reel noise and then filtering the signal.

One more day of frozen tundra here. I think what I may do next is work on a consistent way to impact the reels near the seat and measure vibrations at the top of the frame. Just to try to eliminate gear vibrations as the major source of the signal and isolate the frames themselves as the only component responsible for the output.

[MardukFIN]

Very intresting data indeed!

Can you make same with 20 Met vs Daiwa Steez SV ? Magnesium/brass compared to magnesium/aluminium?

[adam lancia]

I'd be interested to see where an OG Steez stacks up against the new Met, especially since you can get the same gear ratio, they're both magnesium frames, and they both have aluminum drive gears.

Did you have the reels under load when you were reeling? I might have missed that part of your methodology.
What about testing vibration through the frame while not reeling...?

[CFDoc]

Very intresting data indeed!

Can you make same with 20 Met vs Daiwa Steez SV ? Magnesium/brass compared to magnesium/aluminium?

I don't own a Steez SV. I do have a Steez CT. I'll do that one today (and probably a good many other reels as well). But I don't currently have a way to test a Daiwa Magnesium frame with a Shimano Magnesium frame at the moment.

I'd be interested to see where an OG Steez stacks up against the new Met, especially since you can get the same gear ratio, they're both magnesium frames, and they both have aluminum drive gears.

Did you have the reels under load when you were reeling? I might have missed that part of your methodology.
What about testing vibration through the frame while not reeling...?

No OG Steez in my arsenal at the moment.

But your next point about reeling under load is something I tried to think about. However, I can't seem to find a good way to setup a known, consistent, non-varying load under reeling. I can put tension on a large spool of line, but I don't have a good way to make sure the tension on the spool is "exactly" the same at all times.

Finally, your question about isolating the frames only is exactly what I hope to do today. I experimented yesterday with trying to impact the reel seats while measuring vibrations at the top of the frame. It was just very difficult to make sure the method for impacting the reel was "exactly" the same between each reel.

I think I have a solution though. It dawned on me that since we feel the vibrations in the frame through inputs on the rod, I think a good way to test this would be to put the reels on the same rod, and then find a way to impact the rod the "exact" same way repeatedly.

So more to come...

[CFDoc]

Okay update on trying to isolate the frames only to determine which one transmits more vibrations.

This is to try to answer the possible scenario that maybe Shimano gears are just rougher than Daiwa; therefore, the more vibrations in the Metanium were solely due to the gears being more "bumpy".

The Setup

Without typing too much, I originally thought I could come up with a way to impact the seat of each reel consistently and just measure vibrations at the top of the frame. Long story short, I couldn't.

So what I ended up doing is fixing a Poison Adren 7'2" M rod in a vise and putting each reel into the rod. From there, I came up with a way to "drop" light weights on the same spot, from the same height, on the rod over and over again. The weights are nothing more than wooden sticks from my gun cleaning cabinet. I took a picture to try to help describe the setup.



The weights were all dropped from ~2" above the rod and about 6" from the reel seat. This method ended up being extremely repeatable and I would say I dropped over 100 weights per reel. I was actually surprised at how consistent the results were using this method. Plus it was very easy to just keep pushing sticks off the board to keep logging more and more data.

The Output

For the output, I basically used the FFT's again to see what was going on. However, since I was just sort of dropping the weights at random time intervals and logging minutes and minutes of data, I had to be a bit more careful with the FFT windows and such. Again, without rambling too much, I did a lot of different things with the FFTs including sampling over long periods that included many drops, short periods that only included single drops, and even looked at some way to minimize RMS values over a specific set of drop.

The good news is, even after viewing the output many different ways, the same general trends were apparent regardless of what I did. I've got a couple images below that tell the story. These images are from data that was somewhat over a time window that hopefully captured 5-7 consecutive, consistent drops. If you're just super curious about individual drop data, or long time FFT data, just ask and I will try to post that as well.

The Analysis

And now for the show. The first image is a 10 second FFT window from drops on the Metanium.



Next, here's the image of another 10 second FFT window on the Zillion.



See the difference? I think it's pretty easy to conclude that the Metanium frame is more sensitive to vibrations than the Zillion. About 5 times more sensitive from what I was measuring.

A couple other interesting findings are the consistent frequencies that get transmitted from the rod to the top of the frame. Both reels have spikes around 21Hz and 35Hz. I'm sure this would change with a different rod, but this really speaks to the consistency in the data.

[y2k88]

Nice work again.

Haha, now you've just added another variable to rod reviews

[MardukFIN]

Nice! This is awesome. I mostly using magnesium framed reels and this test supports my thoughts.

[anteman]

Intresting but would it translate into any real fishing benefits?

[IlliniDawg01]

I wonder if I would notice much difference in use. I feel most vibrations with the hell of my hand where it grips the rod just behind the reel.

[rando]

Spectacular work.
How about quantification of rod sensitivity with different variables?
For example: rod, reel, line. Place the sensor where your hand would be normally resting on the rod. Letting some line out (10-20 feet?). Initiating some form of ‘tick’ on the line or directly on the rod tip and measure vibration transmitted.
Would that be feasible?

[DirtyD64]

So much for silent tune...

The silent tune makes it so quiet you can hear everything else better. Just kidding, would love to see the identical test with same reel but different ratios...

[CFDoc]

Intresting but would it translate into any real fishing benefits?

Since when did these start to matter?

How about quantification of rod sensitivity with different variables?
For example: rod, reel, line. Place the sensor where your hand would be normally resting on the rod. Letting some line out (10-20 feet?). Initiating some form of ‘tick’ on the line or directly on the rod tip and measure vibration transmitted.
Would that be feasible?

I've thought a little bit about a rod sensitivity measuring setup. You're hitting on a lot of the things that I think would make that analysis quite difficult. Constraining the different rods in a consistent manner seems like a difficult thing to do. I'm afraid the experimental setup would be such that you would end up affecting the data too much with the particular constraints instead of the impulses used to generate the vibrations.

I wasn't as concerned with the rod constraints when measuring through the reel because (a) the rod didn't change, (b) the rod constraints didn't change, and (c) there was nothing in-between the impact point and the top of the reel frame to interfere with the data.

Here's some more images from accelerometer data of just reeling various reels with different gear ratios. Hopefully I get all these displayed correctly.


First up is just a repeat of reeling from the 7.1:1 2020 Metanium and 7.1:1 2021 Zillion for comparison sake.

2020 Metanium 7.1:1


2021 Zillion 7.1:1


Lews HyperMag 8.3:1


2019 Steez CT 8.3:1


Lews CustomLite 7.5:1


Lews Pro-Ti 7.5:1


2004-ish Rick Clunn 7.1:1. This one was just for fun-zies. Wife's reel, lol. Very rough. Notice the handle gear (first peak) is the highest reading. Not the main gear (second peak). All the other reels have the main gear as the largest source of vibrations.


So feel free to pour over the data and draw your own conclusions.

Couple things stick out to me. The graphite frame on the Lews looks like it transmits vibrations really well too. Like a Magnesium frame (both Shimano and Lews magnesium). I need to put it in the impact test to see if it's more Lews gearing or the actual frame doing the vibration transmission.

Another interesting thing is that the Lews Pro-Ti looks very similar to the Zillion as far as vibrations are concerned. Both are aluminum frames with aluminum gears. And I'm a big fan of the Pro-Ti reel; however, even I will freely admit, the Zillion "feels" much smoother than the Pro-Ti when reeling. My guess is I need to find a way to measure sound properly. I'll bet we perceive "quietness" and "smoothness" as the same thing. And I'm 99.9% sure the Zillion is a good bit quieter than the Pro-Ti even though the vibrations felt by your hand are very close.

[CFDoc]

So much for silent tune...

The silent tune makes it so quiet you can hear everything else better. Just kidding, would love to see the identical test with same reel but different ratios...

I have all three Met models. I'll provide those a bit later.

[adam lancia]

Love it, this is great stuff! I'm nerding out for sure.

what about clamping line from the reel between two books or blocks of smooth wood, measuring the amount of resistance needed to pull the line through prior to reeling and tweaking it to be consistent from one pull to the next via the clamps...?