Bantam A

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arrowslinger1
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Re: Bantam A

Post by arrowslinger1 » Sat Jan 22, 2022 5:22 pm

Mike son wrote:
Sat Jan 22, 2022 7:28 am
Cranky wrote:
Sat Jan 22, 2022 7:01 am
Tough crowd. First low profile reel to get infinity drive plus 150 size MGIII spool, and line guide moved forward to replicate Antares casting. It’s basically a low profile flagship Conquest at a lower price (of which a 150 size doesn’t exist). I also agree on the weight and rod balance. This one is a workhorse winner to me.
This. The Bantam has been a polarizing reel, you're either in or out.

Edit: What exactly is infinity drive? I'm reading it on Shimano JP but don't quite understand it's improvement.
Infinity drive is two stacked bearings on the inside of the drive shaft I believe.

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Re: Bantam A

Post by russ57 » Sun Jan 23, 2022 10:47 am

did they move the line guide forward a bit?

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Re: Bantam A

Post by Cranky » Sun Jan 23, 2022 11:03 am

Shimano Japan quote (translated):

“ …and by moving the line guide a little forward, a long cast feel reminiscent of 19 Antares has been acquired”

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Re: Bantam A

Post by DirtyD64 » Mon Jan 24, 2022 7:48 pm

arrowslinger1 wrote:
Sat Jan 22, 2022 5:22 pm
Mike son wrote:
Sat Jan 22, 2022 7:28 am
Cranky wrote:
Sat Jan 22, 2022 7:01 am
Tough crowd. First low profile reel to get infinity drive plus 150 size MGIII spool, and line guide moved forward to replicate Antares casting. It’s basically a low profile flagship Conquest at a lower price (of which a 150 size doesn’t exist). I also agree on the weight and rod balance. This one is a workhorse winner to me.
This. The Bantam has been a polarizing reel, you're either in or out.

Edit: What exactly is infinity drive? I'm reading it on Shimano JP but don't quite understand it's improvement.
Infinity drive is two stacked bearings on the inside of the drive shaft I believe.
Someone else asked about Infinity Drive, I said the same as you. After further investigation, the new Bantam MGL has identical bearing count as the previous model so that is not what it is. The Conquest however, does in fact have an extra main shaft bearing to facilitate smoothness and power. I read more about Infinity Drive and discovered on a spinning reel at least, the interior of the pinion is coated/sleeved with a polymer and a coating on the rotor shaft to help fluidity. As far as a casting reel, I assume the interior of the pinion is coated as is the spool shaft to achieve the same result. I wouldn't think they would sleeve the interior of a brass or aluminum pinion, and I really doubt they would put anything extra on the spool shaft (other than a coating). So maybe the Conquest just has this and the Bantam uses a different tech to qualify as Infinity Drive? Would love to hear the real answer from a Shimano engineer.

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Re: Bantam A

Post by Cranky » Tue Jan 25, 2022 5:07 am

“ Infinity Drive uses a new main shaft supporting structure to eliminate friction within the pinion gear and delivers up to a 26% increase in winding torque under load.”
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Re: Bantam A

Post by LowRange » Tue Jan 25, 2022 5:20 am

Seems like they tweaked the pinion support and gave it a name. Sort of like how daiwa slightly changed the gear teeth and called them hyper drive?

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Re: Bantam A

Post by tdm » Tue Jan 25, 2022 6:04 am

LowRange wrote:
Tue Jan 25, 2022 5:20 am
Seems like they tweaked the pinion support and gave it a name. Sort of like how daiwa slightly changed the gear teeth and called them hyper drive?

I posted a couple of pictures for the 18 and 22 Bantam spool shafts, please take a look cause I think it starting to make a lot of sense now. viewtopic.php?f=32&t=87501&p=704280#p704280

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Re: Bantam A

Post by LuS » Wed Jan 26, 2022 10:03 pm

I can see the logic here… under load from casting, when the spool is being pulled in the direction of the line guide, given the tolerances, the shaft may rub against the inside of the pinion rather than make it spin with the bearing consistently throughout the cast cycle. If I’ve read this right, infinity drive basically just cuts the pinion out of the shaft support equation, gets the shaft directly on the bearing, which cuts any rubbing to near 0. Small win, but a win no less. Been wanting a bantam for a while so maybe this is an excuse to try one out…
Potential downside to this is that now, under cranking load, the thick end of the pinion is relying on the shaft for support, likely adding a tiny amount more play (ie <0.0005”). Probably a small trade off for the casting performance gain…
As for the line guide, anyone tempted to see if the new one will fit and work on an 18 bantam? I’m presuming they altered the shape of the line guide itself instead of physically moving the worm forward 5 mm. If they didn’t move the worm, this could be a relatively cheap upgrade if the line guides are interchangeable.
Luca :)

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Re: Bantam A

Post by Cranky » Thu Jan 27, 2022 5:25 am

Its for cranking power efficiency. I think we just need to let Shimano stick with designing the reels. :lol:

I vastly prefer the infinity drive cranking power of the new vs old Conquests and I’m sure the same will be true on the Bantam. The new Bantam upgrades look great to me.

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Re: Bantam A

Post by LuS » Thu Jan 27, 2022 6:18 am

Cranky wrote:
Thu Jan 27, 2022 5:25 am
Its for cranking power efficiency. I think we just need to let Shimano stick with designing the reels. :lol:

I vastly prefer the infinity drive cranking power of the new vs old Conquests and I’m sure the same will be true on the Bantam. The new Bantam upgrades look great to me.
Ok, last time I try to pick things apart on that front, but now I gotta ask about how exactly it increases efficiency on cranking under load; that sounds like they’re saying friction somewhere in the system was costing cranking torque, and this design improves that.
There is a fairly simple and positive connection between pinion and shaft already in the drive pin in the shaft; where and how is it bleeding off torque input to the pinion? If I recall correctly gears are a pretty efficient way to transmit torque and I can’t see the pin being any less efficient pinion and shaft. Also, when cranking, the spool shaft doesn’t rotate relative to the pinion - they’re engaged, they can’t rub against each other by any great amount so I need some help here to see where the losses are coming from.
Clearly I’m missing something; please illuminate.
To be clear, still looks like a fantastic reel, but now I need to know more about the physics here.
Luca :)

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Re: Bantam A

Post by DirtyD64 » Thu Jan 27, 2022 6:26 am

Concerning Infinity Drive, I think it is best explained by a tighter fitting spool shaft into the pinion. Some have complained about Daiwa reels having play in this area, you can test it during disassembly by putting the pinion and spool shaft together and feeling the gap. I have never personally had this issue, but noticed my Steez A spool shaft (base, not the spool pin) was much wider than the Zillion SVTW spool I use in it. So with Shimano Infinity Drive, it is just a very secure spool pin and spool shaft fit into the pinion. Eliminating any play there would improve cranking power, fluidity, gear/pinion life, etc.

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Re: Bantam A

Post by DirtyD64 » Thu Jan 27, 2022 8:52 am

Here is a picture I had before I mailed off the Steez A. I assume the new Infinity Drive Shimano casting reels will be like the Steez A spool on the right (by the way, this was not the issue, Bryan from TT said it was levelwind worm gear shifting under retrieve). Still though, it cannot be a bad thing to have a tighter fitting pinion and spool pin/spool shaft connection...

Image

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Re: Bantam A

Post by LowRange » Thu Jan 27, 2022 9:11 am

DirtyD64 wrote:
Thu Jan 27, 2022 8:52 am
Here is a picture I had before I mailed off the Steez A. I assume the new Infinity Drive Shimano casting reels will be like the Steez A spool on the right (by the way, this was not the issue, Bryan from TT said it was levelwind worm gear shifting under retrieve). Still though, it cannot be a bad thing to have a tighter fitting pinion and spool pin/spool shaft connection...

Image
That would be nice on the higher end Daiwa platforms to stop the clicking and clacking of the spool pin in the pinion yoke when reeling with no load. Beyond a certain price point I'm paying for niceness and that clacking isn't very nice.

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Re: Bantam A

Post by DirtyD64 » Thu Jan 27, 2022 11:04 am

LowRange wrote:
Thu Jan 27, 2022 9:11 am
DirtyD64 wrote:
Thu Jan 27, 2022 8:52 am
Here is a picture I had before I mailed off the Steez A. I assume the new Infinity Drive Shimano casting reels will be like the Steez A spool on the right (by the way, this was not the issue, Bryan from TT said it was levelwind worm gear shifting under retrieve). Still though, it cannot be a bad thing to have a tighter fitting pinion and spool pin/spool shaft connection...

Image
That would be nice on the higher end Daiwa platforms to stop the clicking and clacking of the spool pin in the pinion yoke when reeling with no load. Beyond a certain price point I'm paying for niceness and that clacking isn't very nice.
I remember you mentioning this... problem is the spool pin is the same size. It still has a tiny amount of play. I have always thought this could be totally eliminated pretty easily by making the spool bin much larger on one side for a more secure fit.

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Re: Bantam A

Post by dirtygeary » Thu Jan 27, 2022 3:45 pm

Cranky wrote:
Tue Jan 25, 2022 5:07 am
“ Infinity Drive uses a new main shaft supporting structure to eliminate friction within the pinion gear and delivers up to a 26% increase in winding torque under load.”
Thank you for adding. Saved me the trip to look up. 😁

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