Thanks a lot for this video man. Took my Bearking Zeus apart for cleaning since it’s been submerged a few times and realized I had no idea how to put it back together 😂.
Good tip pointing out the sandwich spring washers orientation! So many different reel’s I’ve serviced for people I had found that at some point they had just jammed them back in only to find the drag is very direct for some reason
Hey boost! Haha yea… it’s an easy thing to overlook for sure. I should probably redo this video as it was one of my super early videos and rewatching it is quite cringe for me 😆. Anywho, thanks so much for commenting and cheers my friend!
@@BFSFISHINGCHANNEL Great channel btw! I’m a mechanic typically elbows deep in an engine only fishing freshwater the weekend’s but I’ve just moved back to the coast and I’m on the water every day now! and it’s great recently discovering two things, fishing on TH-cam and cheap bfs gear online! Well actually 3 things including channels on bfs gear!
@@needmoreboost6369 hey boost! I really appreciate the kind words! I’m no mechanic or expert by any means haha I just enjoy tinkering and sharing what I find along the way. Anywho, if you have questions or want to chat more about bfs come join the Facebook group! BFS BUDGET FINESSE FISHING. Cheers my friend!
Keep up the WORK and your channel will take off. Criticize manufacturers when needed and your voice will improve their products for us consumers. Appreciate you.
Appreciate the feedback David! I aim to be as unbiased as I can in these reviews. That being said, we’re human and so there’s always going to be some bias. My goal is to be up front as possible and just show what’s there and maybe add my thoughts and opinions on things here and there. At the end of the day, I’d like to help empower consumers and help share knowledge. Thanks again for the kind words! Cheers!
When you're used to a certain level of quality and sophistication, its difficult to purchase rods and reels under a certain price point. Having said that, since I am new to the BFS, I decided to purchase the Doviello Soloking Acura in the 7-gear ratio on Amazon for 80$. My first impression, it feels like a smaller version of my 2013 Shimano Mentanium. it's smooth, and light with a solid clutch lever with no play. I spooled it up with 22lb YGK X8 Braid (.171mm). It's amazing what rods and reels you can get under 100$ in this day and age. If this was 10 years ago, I would definitely not have considered it. I will end up pairing this reel probably with the Tsurinoya Dragon Series or the Clever Trout Game Rod. Thanks for the tear town, do you think its worth upgradig to the 834 Roro bearings?
Hey there! Yes I completely agree with you. In the past, I would’ve taken a look at these reels and most likely kept on walking haha. That being said, the CDM brands have really come a long way from even as recent as two to three years ago. It’s very exciting to see what they’re bringing to the market and that their offerings are really quite amazing. If things permit I should have a review of the tsu dragon 2 rod in a couple of weeks. Most likely not any on the water impressions but I’ll at least be able to share the specs and build quality. To answer your last question, yes if you can afford the Roro bfs st bearings then I say go for it. They really bring the reel to life and are a much better quality bearing than the stock NMBs that come with the reel. Thank you again for your comment and sharing your thoughts! Cheers my friend!
In a earlier video, you did a spool spin time test comparing the Aldebaran 22 vs the DWU. I would be interested in a video spin test of the Soloking Acura vs the Aldebaran 22. Also if you get the reel, the Micro Monster vs Aldebaran 22. I know the spool spins times have no real indications to the reels on the water performances, but it doesn't mean we don't like seeing it...lol
I was thinking this over the other day and there’s a lot of factors that go into the overall “performance” of how far a reel can cast; spool weight, “freeness” of the bearings, spoon tension, amount of line on your spool, whether you thumb the spool to slow/stop it when you cast… etc. So does the freeness have any direct indication of performance? Yes and no? Haha. I’ll post a short video or a shorts comparing them no promises on the micro monster though. Not sure I’m all for owning 3 of these variants haha.
Hey oinc! Yep, there should be a little locking lever. You flip forwards towards the front of the reel so that it unlocks the sideplate. Then you rotate sideplate downwards in a twisting action and then it will release. Hope that helps! Cheers my friend!
Thanks for the great video! I recently purchased a micro monster reel with a lot of back play in the handle. Just curious do you know the size of the anti reverse bearing for replacement? I assume that should do the trick Thanks for your time!
Hey there! I actually don’t know the size of the AR bearing. However there are two options that I can think of for you: 1. Try removing the AR bearing and if your issue is due to figment tolerance issues you can try shimming your bearing with some thin tape. 2. If the AR bearing is just starting to fail then you might try reaching out to the Soloking aliexpress store and see if they might sell you a spare AR bearing. I believe they have several aliexpress store fronts; soloplay, master tackle and Doviello. Let me know how things work out! Cheers!
The other potential issue it might be is that your handle main shaft bearing might have poor tolerances… if you have another similarly sized bearing maybe try swapping that out to see if that fixes the problem.
@@BFSFISHINGCHANNEL Appreciate the quick response :) when you say the handle main shaft bearing are you referring to the one above the arb bearing? Is it pretty simple to remove the arb bearing from the side plate ?
@@rpl4eva29 watch my teardown video of the Soloking Acura reel. You’ll basically be removing your handle and then right before you remove the handle side plate you can give your reel a good shake and the bearing that is supporting the main shaft should pop out. I wonder if this bearing has poor tolerances and that this may be causing your handle to feel wobbly.
@@BFSFISHINGCHANNEL Got it! I will report back with hopefully good news. Keep up the great content it’s extremely helpful to have a knowledgeable person explain things the way you do. God bless
Hi mate great vid as always.A WORD OF WARNING, regarding this reel and its variants the Dark Wolf Ultra, Black Knight 2 and Kingdom Micro Monster.Be extremely careful when removing the main gear, or the drag washers.On the top washer on the drag stack there is a tiny little hole that houses a microscopic spring and pin. This is an integral part of the drag clicker mechanism and easily falls out without you even noticing and its that tiny you will never find it. Say good bye to your drag clicker if this happens.The way youll find out its gone is you reassemble the reel and the drag is silent.By some miracle I found mine sitting on the table, and it had fallen out just by removing the main gear,it can happen just by the top washer moving as you remove the gear. In this vid you can see it looking closely at the black ring on the top of main gear, its the little ball you pointed out , which is actually the end of the pin that sits on top of the tiniest spring youve ever seen. Cheers
Hey James! Appreciate the heads up and warning. I’m glad you were able to find your spring and this is precisely why I am in search of a better work station setup… I feel like a magnetic mat of some kind would be beneficial but I haven’t been able to find many that are brightly colored(easier to see tiny parts). On a side note, from what I’ve read in the soloking description of this reel on aliexpress, if you need any spare parts they can help provide you with them. You just need to reach out to them somehow. Anyhow, thanks again for the comment and view! Cheers!
@@BFSFISHINGCHANNEL Cheers for that .Yeah I reassembled my reel and no drag clicker.Opened it back up tho find the spring in but no pin .As I said by some miracle the pin was sitting on the table ,so lucky as it's that tiny . I haven't got one but wondering whether a screwdriver with magnetic tip would be beneficial for working on reels?
Hey! Build quality seems fine to me. I feel like it did need a slight cleaning and initial teardown but nothing out of the ordinary for an aliexpress reel. The paint and gloss finish is nice but not perfect. The printing is on the cheaper side ie it’ll rub off with use probably sometime soon. Components wise it is virtually, if not exactly, identical to the DWU. Imho, these reels are worth their $70-80 asking price. The extra bearing that this has over the DWU is the one worm gear bearing. The handle side of the worm shaft still uses a bushing and so that is something to consider upgrading if you get bored and want to do a “mod”. It isn’t necessary though. Anyhow, hope that helps and thanks for the comment and view!
@@BFSFISHINGCHANNEL Thanks. This video great and appreciate you doing all this. I think i'll get one just to play around with as well. Man, odd that the shaft went with on bearing only. Again thnx, subbed,
@@coleus hey thanks for the sub!!! Much appreciated. As far as your question I’m not exactly sure what you’re referring but did you mean the worm shaft and it only having one bearing on the gear side? The worm shaft bearings don’t really affect casting performance. They just make retrieving/turning the handle a “smoother” experience. If you were referring to the spool, that has essentially three bearing supporting it; the side plate bearing, the spool bearing and the spool tension knob bearing. Hope that helps!
@@BFSFISHINGCHANNEL If the only difference is is the extra bearing in the worm gear, one would think the casting performance and distance should be about the same as the DWU.
@@zankyou101 the braking system is quite different as well. Acura has the traditional static while the newer DWU has the fixed brake shoe static system and I also reverted that system to be able to go back to the dynamic system.
Hi Eric! That is the tentative plan. I am aiming to compare the new DWU in static and dynamic form, to this soloking. Thanks for following along with the videos!
Hello, nice review! Can i ask have you had a problem when the line goes in between spool and frame? My friend got this problem with Tsu Dark wolf but this problem disappear when he uses thicker line. So wanted to know have they fixed this issue on this reel or not... Thanks
Hi there! I personally have not experienced this but I am using 0.6goh PE which is about .128mm in diameter. What diameter line do you plan on using? Cheers!
Another great vid! Do you or anyone else know where I can purchase the shallow spool and brake part #8 off the schematic? Thanks for any help if anyone has any info.
Hey Abel! Can you reach out to Soloking on Aliexpress? They should be able to help you get those parts. Let me know if you can’t and I’ll try to reach out to them too. Cheers!
Hi! Are you referring to the spool shaft? If so, and you’re comfortable with using your thumb to assist in braking the spool then, for the best performance, you want your spool tension knob to allow for a tiny bit of side to side play in the spool. If that’s not what you’re referring to please let me know. Cheers!
I would say yes but there’s always the chance you may end up damaging the shallow spool from too much drag from bigger fish or running out of line. If you go with the deep spool option you should be fine. The manufacture lists the max drag setting at 8.8 lbs. so try not to go over that and don’t spool yourself and you should be good!
@@Cjmm007 I haven’t had the opportunity to test out the micromonster but I’d imagine they are similar with the Acura being smoother due to the 11 bearings compared to the 9 the micromonster has. I hope that helps!
@@BFSFISHINGCHANNEL well unfortunately Amazon won’t have doviello acura until November 9th now so I won’t be ordering there. So now AliExpress has quicker shipping than Amazon. Crazy. I know. So it’s either the Acura 8.1 left hand or the kingdom micro monster 7.1 left hand. Prices aren’t much different although they’d both get here by October 23. Hard to decide. Not much info online. Was hoping this Joseph grossman ^ would comment back because I think I saw him say he had both reels.
Thanks a lot for this video man. Took my Bearking Zeus apart for cleaning since it’s been submerged a few times and realized I had no idea how to put it back together 😂.
Hey tango! Haha my pleasure! Glad you were able to get good use out of the video 🙌🙌🙌. Cheers my friend!
Good tip pointing out the sandwich spring washers orientation! So many different reel’s I’ve serviced for people I had found that at some point they had just jammed them back in only to find the drag is very direct for some reason
Hey boost! Haha yea… it’s an easy thing to overlook for sure. I should probably redo this video as it was one of my super early videos and rewatching it is quite cringe for me 😆. Anywho, thanks so much for commenting and cheers my friend!
@@BFSFISHINGCHANNEL Great channel btw! I’m a mechanic typically elbows deep in an engine only fishing freshwater the weekend’s but I’ve just moved back to the coast and I’m on the water every day now! and it’s great recently discovering two things, fishing on TH-cam and cheap bfs gear online! Well actually 3 things including channels on bfs gear!
@@needmoreboost6369 hey boost! I really appreciate the kind words! I’m no mechanic or expert by any means haha I just enjoy tinkering and sharing what I find along the way. Anywho, if you have questions or want to chat more about bfs come join the Facebook group! BFS BUDGET FINESSE FISHING. Cheers my friend!
Keep up the WORK and your channel will take off. Criticize manufacturers when needed and your voice will improve their products for us consumers. Appreciate you.
Appreciate the feedback David! I aim to be as unbiased as I can in these reviews. That being said, we’re human and so there’s always going to be some bias. My goal is to be up front as possible and just show what’s there and maybe add my thoughts and opinions on things here and there. At the end of the day, I’d like to help empower consumers and help share knowledge. Thanks again for the kind words! Cheers!
When you're used to a certain level of quality and sophistication, its difficult to purchase rods and reels under a certain price point. Having said that, since I am new to the BFS, I decided to purchase the Doviello Soloking Acura in the 7-gear ratio on Amazon for 80$. My first impression, it feels like a smaller version of my 2013 Shimano Mentanium. it's smooth, and light with a solid clutch lever with no play. I spooled it up with 22lb YGK X8 Braid (.171mm). It's amazing what rods and reels you can get under 100$ in this day and age. If this was 10 years ago, I would definitely not have considered it. I will end up pairing this reel probably with the Tsurinoya Dragon Series or the Clever Trout Game Rod.
Thanks for the tear town, do you think its worth upgradig to the 834 Roro bearings?
Hey there! Yes I completely agree with you. In the past, I would’ve taken a look at these reels and most likely kept on walking haha. That being said, the CDM brands have really come a long way from even as recent as two to three years ago. It’s very exciting to see what they’re bringing to the market and that their offerings are really quite amazing. If things permit I should have a review of the tsu dragon 2 rod in a couple of weeks. Most likely not any on the water impressions but I’ll at least be able to share the specs and build quality. To answer your last question, yes if you can afford the Roro bfs st bearings then I say go for it. They really bring the reel to life and are a much better quality bearing than the stock NMBs that come with the reel. Thank you again for your comment and sharing your thoughts! Cheers my friend!
In a earlier video, you did a spool spin time test comparing the Aldebaran 22 vs the DWU. I would be interested in a video spin test of the Soloking Acura vs the Aldebaran 22. Also if you get the reel, the Micro Monster vs Aldebaran 22. I know the spool spins times have no real indications to the reels on the water performances, but it doesn't mean we don't like seeing it...lol
I was thinking this over the other day and there’s a lot of factors that go into the overall “performance” of how far a reel can cast; spool weight, “freeness” of the bearings, spoon tension, amount of line on your spool, whether you thumb the spool to slow/stop it when you cast… etc. So does the freeness have any direct indication of performance? Yes and no? Haha. I’ll post a short video or a shorts comparing them no promises on the micro monster though. Not sure I’m all for owning 3 of these variants haha.
Just purchased one, no instructions. How do you open the magnetic palm side? I am used to Abu baitcasting reels, screws.
This thing rotates?
Hey oinc! Yep, there should be a little locking lever. You flip forwards towards the front of the reel so that it unlocks the sideplate. Then you rotate sideplate downwards in a twisting action and then it will release. Hope that helps! Cheers my friend!
Thanks for the great video! I recently purchased a micro monster reel with a lot of back play in the handle. Just curious do you know the size of the anti reverse bearing for replacement? I assume that should do the trick
Thanks for your time!
Hey there! I actually don’t know the size of the AR bearing. However there are two options that I can think of for you:
1. Try removing the AR bearing and if your issue is due to figment tolerance issues you can try shimming your bearing with some thin tape.
2. If the AR bearing is just starting to fail then you might try reaching out to the Soloking aliexpress store and see if they might sell you a spare AR bearing. I believe they have several aliexpress store fronts; soloplay, master tackle and Doviello. Let me know how things work out! Cheers!
The other potential issue it might be is that your handle main shaft bearing might have poor tolerances… if you have another similarly sized bearing maybe try swapping that out to see if that fixes the problem.
@@BFSFISHINGCHANNEL
Appreciate the quick response :) when you say the handle main shaft bearing are you referring to the one above the arb bearing? Is it pretty simple to remove the arb bearing from the side plate ?
@@rpl4eva29 watch my teardown video of the Soloking Acura reel. You’ll basically be removing your handle and then right before you remove the handle side plate you can give your reel a good shake and the bearing that is supporting the main shaft should pop out. I wonder if this bearing has poor tolerances and that this may be causing your handle to feel wobbly.
@@BFSFISHINGCHANNEL
Got it! I will report back with hopefully good news. Keep up the great content it’s extremely helpful to have a knowledgeable person explain things the way you do.
God bless
Hi mate great vid as always.A WORD OF WARNING, regarding this reel and its variants the Dark Wolf Ultra, Black Knight 2 and Kingdom Micro Monster.Be extremely careful when removing the main gear, or the drag washers.On the top washer on the drag stack there is a tiny little hole that houses a microscopic spring and pin. This is an integral part of the drag clicker mechanism and easily falls out without you even noticing and its that tiny you will never find it.
Say good bye to your drag clicker if this happens.The way youll find out its gone is you reassemble the reel and the drag is silent.By some miracle I found mine sitting on the table, and it had fallen out just by removing the main gear,it can happen just by the top washer moving as you remove the gear.
In this vid you can see it looking closely at the black ring on the top of main gear, its the little ball you pointed out , which is actually the end of the pin that sits on top of the tiniest spring youve ever seen.
Cheers
Hey James! Appreciate the heads up and warning. I’m glad you were able to find your spring and this is precisely why I am in search of a better work station setup… I feel like a magnetic mat of some kind would be beneficial but I haven’t been able to find many that are brightly colored(easier to see tiny parts). On a side note, from what I’ve read in the soloking description of this reel on aliexpress, if you need any spare parts they can help provide you with them. You just need to reach out to them somehow. Anyhow, thanks again for the comment and view! Cheers!
@@BFSFISHINGCHANNEL Cheers for that .Yeah I reassembled my reel and no drag clicker.Opened it back up tho find the spring in but no pin .As I said by some miracle the pin was sitting on the table ,so lucky as it's that tiny .
I haven't got one but wondering whether a screwdriver with magnetic tip would be beneficial for working on reels?
@@chepachii that they are but not every part of a reel is ferromagnetic. Springs and screw should be though so they will help with that.
How do you feel about the build quality? Worth the $80 bucks? Also, I didn;t catch what extra bearing it had compared to the DWU.
Hey! Build quality seems fine to me. I feel like it did need a slight cleaning and initial teardown but nothing out of the ordinary for an aliexpress reel. The paint and gloss finish is nice but not perfect. The printing is on the cheaper side ie it’ll rub off with use probably sometime soon. Components wise it is virtually, if not exactly, identical to the DWU. Imho, these reels are worth their $70-80 asking price. The extra bearing that this has over the DWU is the one worm gear bearing. The handle side of the worm shaft still uses a bushing and so that is something to consider upgrading if you get bored and want to do a “mod”. It isn’t necessary though. Anyhow, hope that helps and thanks for the comment and view!
@@BFSFISHINGCHANNEL Thanks. This video great and appreciate you doing all this. I think i'll get one just to play around with as well. Man, odd that the shaft went with on bearing only. Again thnx, subbed,
@@coleus hey thanks for the sub!!! Much appreciated. As far as your question I’m not exactly sure what you’re referring but did you mean the worm shaft and it only having one bearing on the gear side? The worm shaft bearings don’t really affect casting performance. They just make retrieving/turning the handle a “smoother” experience. If you were referring to the spool, that has essentially three bearing supporting it; the side plate bearing, the spool bearing and the spool tension knob bearing. Hope that helps!
@@BFSFISHINGCHANNEL If the only difference is is the extra bearing in the worm gear, one would think the casting performance and distance should be about the same as the DWU.
@@zankyou101 the braking system is quite different as well. Acura has the traditional static while the newer DWU has the fixed brake shoe static system and I also reverted that system to be able to go back to the dynamic system.
I'll be interested in your opinion on how this reel casts compared to the DWU.
Hi Eric! That is the tentative plan. I am aiming to compare the new DWU in static and dynamic form, to this soloking. Thanks for following along with the videos!
Hello, nice review! Can i ask have you had a problem when the line goes in between spool and frame? My friend got this problem with Tsu Dark wolf but this problem disappear when he uses thicker line. So wanted to know have they fixed this issue on this reel or not... Thanks
Hi there! I personally have not experienced this but I am using 0.6goh PE which is about .128mm in diameter. What diameter line do you plan on using? Cheers!
Another great vid! Do you or anyone else know where I can purchase the shallow spool and brake part #8 off the schematic? Thanks for any help if anyone has any info.
Hey Abel! Can you reach out to Soloking on Aliexpress? They should be able to help you get those parts. Let me know if you can’t and I’ll try to reach out to them too. Cheers!
great video..... Doc1/5
Appreciate it Joseph!
hi do you have any end float on the main gear shaft?
Hi! Are you referring to the spool shaft? If so, and you’re comfortable with using your thumb to assist in braking the spool then, for the best performance, you want your spool tension knob to allow for a tiny bit of side to side play in the spool. If that’s not what you’re referring to please let me know. Cheers!
What the handle size? 8x5? 7x4?
Just measured it 8mm x 5mm. Cheers my friend!
Can this reel handle a 1/2 oz lure?
I would say yes but there’s always the chance you may end up damaging the shallow spool from too much drag from bigger fish or running out of line. If you go with the deep spool option you should be fine. The manufacture lists the max drag setting at 8.8 lbs. so try not to go over that and don’t spool yourself and you should be good!
My 7.1 was in New Jersey yesterday so it should be here by Thursday. Send me an email and I'll send it out. Doc 1/5
Hey Joseph! Where should I send an email to? Thanks again!
How do u like Acura compared to micro monster? One smoother than the other? Or are they the same except for looks?
@@Cjmm007 I haven’t had the opportunity to test out the micromonster but I’d imagine they are similar with the Acura being smoother due to the 11 bearings compared to the 9 the micromonster has. I hope that helps!
@@BFSFISHINGCHANNEL well unfortunately Amazon won’t have doviello acura until November 9th now so I won’t be ordering there. So now AliExpress has quicker shipping than Amazon. Crazy. I know. So it’s either the Acura 8.1 left hand or the kingdom micro monster 7.1 left hand. Prices aren’t much different although they’d both get here by October 23. Hard to decide. Not much info online. Was hoping this Joseph grossman ^ would comment back because I think I saw him say he had both reels.
@@Cjmm007 I understand now. Yea I haven’t heard from Joseph at least in this channel in some time. I hope he sees this and respond!