2 Comments

1. Beebe says:

   October 23, 2009 at 3:39 pm

   I read through Dr. Bill’s CCS methods, and after graphing the ERN vs Cents, the graphs are not quite linear. Which is frustrating.

   I have to agree with the Australian guy (who commented here somewhere) about converting to grams. As far as I can tell, ERN is just another way of reporting weight/force that was developed for fly rods so a balanced setup had the same Effective Rod Number (ERN) and Effective Line Number (ELN) for AFTMA fly lines.

   To me ERN is just not a very useful number, grams is much more intuitive. For a fly rod relating ERN to fly line weight rating is useful, but for a casting/spinning rod its basically meaningless. I’m confused as to why Rod Power cant just be reported in grams…

   I noticed that Dr. Bill’s formulas for calculating casting weight range produce negative numbers at the low end of the cents range, which was weird (but I probably wont be fishing or making any rods that light).

   But I do appreciate the effort you guys have made of measuring and publishing these values. Action angle in particular is very telling of a rods action and impossible to guess previously.
2. Jason says:

   October 27, 2009 at 6:53 pm

   Beebe—Yes, the graphs are not linear, but at least we now have the charts to get us into the big stuff without having to use a calculator. North Fork is planning on helping the CCS cause forward in that area by producing a high-quality set of Dr. Bill’s charts (in PDF and some printed format). Dr. Bill is also looking to do the gram conversion, so that should be of use to those who using grams.

   I think that it is also fairly simple to use grams, etc., but the ERN at least produces a direct number that can be obtained using various types of weights (despite non-linearity). For fly rods it is quite obvious, of course, while the idea of an ERN23 Mag Bass may not come across as well. We’ve used pure cents for some of larger measurements and it has worked nicely, too. We’ll have to see how it all evolves…

   NFC is also trying to offer any feedback we can on the CCS as we go forward. There are a few potential ideas, but I think it would be best for us to get through all NFC blanks first and then mess around from there.

   AA is interesting (and useful), but I like to also be sure I know a bit more about the overall flexure profile that got me out to that AA than just the pure number itself (thus a deflection board).