Bad chinese spool reel

[Roberto Inzerillo]

I think I might share my disappointing experience with a reel bought at Aliexpress that may help others buy this stuff knowing its pros and cons beforehand.

I thought a smaller reel would be easyer to store, so I bought this one:

It's being sold at less then 5euros (plus shipping), it has a 5.5cm external diameter, it's 3.5cm wide and the hole diameter is 2.5cm. The overall quality is fine but ... there's really not much room for winding the line :-(

After winding a bit less than 15m of a very fine (veeery fine!) line it did cover the lateral holes almost entirely, so much that there's no room left for attaching a double ender anymore, not even a small one!

So, unless you need a spool reel with less than 10m line, I would stay away from it.

 

[divad]

What is the spool made of? The line looks really fat/wide.

 

[tridacna]

What were you planning to do with this reel? Intended deployment?

 

[Wibble]

Cheap crap is cheap for a reason. Mainly that they stole the Intellectual Property from the original developers.

Apeks spent a lot of money developing and testing their reels. They are very good, but have very special string (and need all sorts of special "knitting" to ensure a double-ender doesn't unclip!). This Alexpress = Chinese rip-off has no knowledge of the original in the copy. Wonder what it'll look like after being used in seawater! Looks like boot laces.

Best I had was a cheapo aluminium dive torch that literally dissolved in seawater. Think it lasted 10 dives!


Political statement: I'd personally like to see a surcharge put onto these types of items when imported into "the west" to represent the theft of the IP, lack of safety standards, and the costs of shipping. Appreciate that might not go down too well.

 

[Roberto Inzerillo]

What were you planning to do with this reel? Intended deployment?

Dsmb

 

[OTF]

Cheap crap is cheap for a reason. Mainly that they stole the Intellectual Property from the original developers.

Apeks spent a lot of money developing and testing their reels. They are very good, but have very special string (and need all sorts of special "knitting" to ensure a double-ender doesn't unclip!). This Alexpress = Chinese rip-off has no knowledge of the original in the copy. Wonder what it'll look like after being used in seawater! Looks like boot laces.

Best I had was a cheapo aluminium dive torch that literally dissolved in seawater. Think it lasted 10 dives!


Political statement: I'd personally like to see a surcharge put onto these types of items when imported into "the west" to represent the theft of the IP, lack of safety standards, and the costs of shipping. Appreciate that might not go down too well.

Agree wholeheartedly.

 

[Roberto Inzerillo]

Looks like boot laces.

Agree. That line is way to thin in my opinion as well.

Winding a proper line on that reel provides even less room through the holes :-(

 

[Wibble]

Agree. That line is way to thin in my opinion as well.

Winding a proper line on that reel provides even less room through the holes :-(

The Apeks spool suffers from that when you've arrived at the surface. I always clip it off with two clips (the double-ender and the SMB clip) prior to handing up to the boat.

When you're mid water and have clipped off the double-ender, you'd be wise to add a twist or two to the double-ender prior to clipping on to the spool, and make sure the double ender's got a cave wrap around it. Otherwise the double ender can easily pop out when waves make it bounce.

The Apeks reels are easy enough for jumps because there's just a line with a stiff end to push through the holes and clip to the double-ender.

I like that a 60m spool easily fits in the pocket. That definitely won't be the case with the Chinese knock-off.

 

[ginti]

Agree. That line is way to thin in my opinion as well.

Winding a proper line on that reel provides even less room through the holes :-(

Thin maybe (I can't say from the picture without a visual reference) - but very fat!

Did you actually try to use a proper line? Again, without visual references is hard to say anything, but maybe it can fit better

 

[ChuckP]

Is what it is, put "normal" cheap line on it and you'd probably get 30m on there. There's cheap aluminum knock offs of the Apeks sold in the US too - I have Apeks, knock offs and cheap plastic ones - they all serve a function