Line Stiffness Testing
I am. I actually spent several hours on it yesterday. I’ve been struggling on how to deal with the line curl. I spent many hours messing with a scale and trying different stuff. I did a bunch of research on astm test standards. The closest test I found was a fabric stiffness test where a square of fabric was pushed through a hole in a plate and the force was measured. I had the idea to push the fishing line into a slot and measure the force. It was very close but the line would “Pop” and go sideways and the test would fail. I tried to anchor one side but It was not ideal.
I had an “Ah HA” revelation idea at work last week. It’s such a simple solution I was like Duh!. I put a little slot for the line to sit in and that traps the line when the blade pushes down.
I tried several 15lb lines yesterday and saw a range of 30 – 60 grams of force depending on the brand using a 1/4″ slot. That seems like it will be a great measurement span to be able to distinguish stiffness of different lines.
The next steps are to figure out how to get my rs232 port on my scale to output data to an array in excel so I can accurately get a max value. It wont be based on me trying to watch the scale and hope I see the highest value. Then I need to build a machine with a linear actuator to push the blade in the slot so it will be exactly the same every time.
I was super excited yesterday seeing my prototype producing good values. I’m still likely a month or 2 away from making the final machine but I now have my proof of concept.
