Captains Log / KOBO Testing

Key KOBO features

Development stories

INTRO

During development we spent a large amount of time on our drag performance. This falls into three main areas - the readout on the screen, the robustness of the drag, and the smoothness.

Readout
For our readout we needed to develop an accurate calculation based on line diameter and amount of line on the spool. If you want to have an accurate readout the spooling should be done properly. See our unboxing and spooling video on how to set up your reel.

Robustness
Since we started development, we strive for no field failures. We needed to make sure there were NO edge cases. While lab testing we could induce failures when pushing the reel to the extreme. This is hours and hours of continuous use - high load, speeds, and extremer temperatures.

We would redesign and retest to make sure no catastrophic failures would be seen by the user. We feel we've achieved that. Our test rig can be seen below. A solenoid will actuate the motor, the drag lever will be engaged/disengaged by a stepper motor, and an extension spring will pull out a spool revolution before the motor reengages to pull 45+ lbs of tension. This puts stress through the drag, motor, board, shafts, and just about everything else in the system. This test will run 12hrs per day for over a month and still there are no failures.

We believe this will conservatively be a decade of use if not longer out of the reel.

Smoothness
This has been something we have yet to put a true metric on. The drag is very smooth on the reel, as smooth as many conventional reels in our opinion. To ensure this over the life of the product we wanted to make sure to put as little power through the drag as possible - hence our Smart Motor feature.

In our opinion no electric reel is a winch. If a fish holding in the thermocline and not rising, the motor should not be running. If we ran the motor continually it would be like driving down the highway with your foot on the accelerator and brake - excessive heat and power being put into your brake system.

Our robustness testing has ensured there will be no failure but we want to keep peak performance at all times. Our goal was too keep the system as smooth as possible for years of performance.