PhishLI

I just used a caliper to measure the height of the 21 Zillion and a Chronarch from the bottom of each foot to the the tallest part of the top of their frames. Both measured a skosh over 1 9/16" nominally. Both reels have a center ported reel seat, and 34 mm spools (approximately) that are situated on the frame as low as possible due to that cutout. I understand that you simply ball-parked the ABU's frame height as roughly 1/4" lower than your Chronarch, but if your ABU has a 34mm spool it's hard to see the difference being that great. Anyway, the Zillion is the same overall height as the Chronarch. Hope this helps. I'm still a big fan of this reel, as are others on this very thread, but for this exercise most of us are ganging up on @casts_by_fly to get the new Zillion. ?

I'm imagining a stripped, empty peg board, and you shuffling down the isle towards the register murmuring "mine, mine, all mine".

If experience gives you anything it's intuition, and having a feel for where to put a bait. That's the biggest thing there is when hunting these fish. I've explained it like this. All things being equal, like intelligence and creativity, if you put 2 detectives into the same crime scene, one with 20 years on the job, and one with 2, which one will see more clues, or if you like, have a more magnified view? Which will have a better sense of where to look and what to look for? If you have the head for this game that'll happen over time. It just takes some time.

I'm down.

I need this NOW!

Fuego CT/Powell Diesel 734C HF SLX MGL/Daiwa Aird-X 7'3" MH. My brother loves this combo. One night he needed to reposition himself by kneeling up to take a whizz over the side of our jon boat, and didn't realize he'd sent this combo to the depths until we were back at the ramp. I needed to lean hard in the opposite direction with all my weight to keep this giant goofball from flipping us over, so I also missed it dropping in. He had a new one by midweek.

Not sold in the U.S. market. I think one youtoober claimed he got his through a broker in south america,

No worries. I hear her elephantine footfalls as she runs towards the eject button....any minute now.

...and quite entertaining on pain killers.

Then please engineer a reel for @AmmoGuy.?

Not necessarily. Engineers typically want things exactly how they should be. They often get overruled by corporate bean counters and forced into spec'ing things for lower cost. Lower cost is often directly tied to more open tolerances. I've witnessed this with my own eyes more than once. It often comes back to bite the bean counters and honchos. There could be a slight mid run revision that looks identical, but isn't actually, or its just saved for the Gen 2 model if there is one. Most products go through multiple generations through their life cycle. Earlier stages of evolution could be viewed as flawed engineering using your approach. I don't agree if that's the case. Few things are born perfect.

I'll quote myself It was '88. Lots of loose cars, fast women, and spinning backfists to the dome since then. I was there when the article was read. I recall the important points being made about it. The details that mattered were discussed more than once, I didn't say that. Insert two different brands if that's better, but it was definitely an American brand and a Japanese brand producing the same trans.

Not necessarily. Revisions occur all the time.

It's clear that the acceptable range was spec'd incorrectly. Maybe by bean counters. Close tolerance parts are more expensive when quoted out. Somebody stateside made the call, and they were wrong. I came out of a place where the ethos was that tolerances were never used. The owner wanted everything dead nutz to print. I heard him busting chops with another owner once who proudly told him "I'm holding tenths of a thou all day long" on his new machine. My boss turned and said "I'm holding molecules all day long". They both laughed. He was very serious about sticking to the print all day every day, and his rejection rate was non existent. The problem with coming up under someone like him is that I'm deemed difficult to work with by some, or even crazy, but I'm merely competent, and they barely are. Whatever. Nobody will miss me when I'm gone, and the world will keep turning, or grinding.

A little affirmation of your point. I'm going back over 30 years, so if I mush up a specific detail of this report please forgive me. The chief engineer of an R&D team I was on, who was at one time a wunderkind mechanical engineer at NASA, brought us an article to read. He loved quoting the journals. As I remember it, both Dodge and Mitsubishi were building the same transmission here and in Japan. Failure rates of the Dodge transmissions were a problem. Under inspection it was easy to see why. While the parts were in tolerance, many were cut at the end of their allowable tolerance. This condition was rampant. The lash issues accumulated to such a degree they caused failures quickly. The Mitsubishi built transmission's parts were spot on and did not use up their allowable tolerances.

You're probably right here. I designed assembly lines for astronomically expensive products. None of it was or could be automated. Line workers needed to be conscientious and present, but QC of all associated parts was handled upstream. There was no reason for assemblers to be QCing anything.

Any process where hot metal is made into a shape, like a precision casting, it's going to twist to some degree when it cools. Machining critical surfaces where multiple parts operate together solves that issue for the most part. The problem here is that a casting needs to be held in place in a fixture under pressure during the machining process. Because of the inherit incongruity of all castings, the pressure of securing it untwists the part during the machining process, but that twist is once again reflected once it's unclamped. There are clever and sometimes expensive ways to reduce this phenomenon of "springing" after machining, but it's difficult to eliminate completely, especially in budget price point gear. Because of this issue, you can start with two seemingly identical frames, then two identical sets of pinions, gears, etc, that are measured by a wizard on a shadow graph, and shown to be identical regarding size, shape, and tolerances, but once assembled and used one reel remains smooth, but one doesn't due to slight misalignment issues found in the frame. This is just one example of many that could cause issues where reels coming off the same line might not "feel" the same in use.

Quantum PT reels have metal frames and double bearing supported crankshafts and pinions, and a reliable, consistent friction brake. They offer these features starting with the $100 Accurist PT. They're all good reels. Sneaky good. Some are exceptional performers. They offer these features starting with the $100 Accurist PT. I have 6 PT reels. They get fished a lot. None have fallen off a cliff regarding their initial gear meshing feel, and all of them have cranked in 5+ pound fish. This is where a reel that's bound to have gear meshing "feel" issues eventually will get pushed over the edge quickly. Pick up a Vapor PT from the auction site from simmons for low$ and test the waters for yourself before buying a wally world clamshell special.

But this is @AmmoGuy's main complaint with a percentage of his reels up to $250, so that's why it was addressed. Purchasing reels up to that price point has been hit or miss for him. Personally I haven't had that problem, so my advice was to go up and get happy, or go way down and forgive the sins and forget about it. The new Zillion G is a slam dunk recommendation on the higher end. I believe the OP has done this to one of his troublesome Coastals, maybe even the gear set too, and not much changed in that particular reel. Just bad luck I suppose. He can correct me if I'm mistaken. Bull, It's just getting derailed into one of those threads yet again. The OP has had complaints about mechanical niggles in his reels up to $250. That's all this thread was supposed to be about.

If in a fantastical fever dream where a mystical force comes down from on high, pokes its finger in my chest and says. "Listen, Massmole, you'll have nothing but Fuego CTs forevermore", my world will keep turning. Wouldn't skip a beat really, but my 4 year old Fuegos remain very solid. @AmmoGuy is batting .500 on the misery index. I think it's safe to say he needs to move up, up, up to find happiness. On the flipside, he can remove high expectations from the equation completely and go budget, then tune out whatever creeps in over time. At least he'll get what he paid for if/when things go wonky.

Sounds like you have a sensitivity level higher than the average bear. I lived the same life as you many years ago, so I get it. We can assume parts like pinions and main gears on higher $ reels get QC screened and sorted with greater scrutiny, hence the higher prices. Cast or forged frames get machined too. Those are nearly always prone to "springing" to a certain degree during the process. If there's an accepted rejection rate with higher$ model's frames, which factors into pricing, it's probably overlooked on mass production products and they get pushed through. Perhaps parts where the tolerances are used up in one direction or the other on the +/- scale get kicked down to the lower priced high production products. Put a pinion and a main gear together where the +/- tolerances are used up to the limit in the wrong direction and you get a geary reel, or one that becomes geary quickly. Insert the next scenario where dumb luck loose tolerance parts are mixed randomly, and favorably, and you get a smooth Tatula CT that stays that way. You sound like a candidate for at least known, proven entry level high end stuff at the very least. You're in manufacturing, so you know the facts. If the average person knew what the true total cost is of manufacturing a reel retailing for $200, including multicolor packaging and inserts, they'd fall over. With a little education they'd also understand that there's only so much total energy converted to cost that a manufacturer can put into a product without going out of business.

Not so. The only Tatula with that feature is the 300, and the usdm Zillion is the entry level FFS type, so by default it has a dual pinion support.

There are plenty of very good reels you could pick up anytime, but with the exchange rate being what it is, getting something special is within reach, and the Zillion is special. Just get it and find a place for it. I seriously doubt you'll regret doing so.

You're SOL on this one. Pass him a banana. Yup. I have mine on an Ark Essence 7'6" spooled with 12lb copoly. Fishing in the dark I keep the brakes set on 7, and sling 1/4oz cranks to 1 oz rats, and anything in between effortlessly, trouble free, and far. This isn't an over-braked Tatula SV. Distance casting is fantastic.

Nowhere local to me, but we have a few natural lakes 70 miles east of here that have the depth. At least one private spot is spring fed and has an outlet stream to the salt that allows alewife to migrate into it to spawn. I don't get out there much, but when I do I'll be ready. BTW, this crank is absurdly huge. I should've read the fine print more closely.