OOAK Table Tennis Forum

Since all my practice partners are all on vacations, I am stuck at home playing with the robot, kind of boring after a while. Remember seeing some return board videos and decided to build one myself, but need to be different, otherwise, it won't be fun.

I had a lot of used or unused long pip rubbers, (mostly 1615 and 755), so I decided to paste them (11) on an homemade return board, named as "LP return board". We have just completed some bathroom remodeling, there were construction green boards lying around, I tested one out and the ball re-bounce were very good. Clean it up, reinforced with tapes all around the edges, and started cutting the rubbers by trimming away all labels and about an 1 1/2 inch from the top to make them attach to each other.

Now that I have decided to switch my forehand to short pips, I also have a lot of used or new invert rubbers too, might as well not wasted them. So, I collect 11 of them and did the same thing on the other end of the green board, named it as "invert return board". Some invert lovers may hate me for this, because I just cut up some expensive invert rubbers for fun, these included BRYCE, TANGO, HAMMOND X, HAMMOND ALPHA, MORRISTO, etc. Of course, the rest are H-3, 730 and 729.

Anyway, I seldom play with a LP player who block my top spin or forehand drives and return with heavy down spins, this LP return board allows me to have that chance. Experimented the board angle with the table several times and decided to place it at about 75 to 80 degrees for a good drive ball and a fast low return for third ball attack.

For the video you were about to watch, please noted the several yellow stickers on the edges and in the middle, those are my markers to aim. For some reason, my drives tend to have counter clockwise spins, that's why the returned balls (heavy under spin) always bounce back to my back hand side at a sharp angle. I have to bend down low to hit them effectively, good exercise for the OLD legs.

Enough said, here is the uncut version of the video. (Fosssil, if you are reading this, I have tried to edit the video to cut out some loose balls or miss feeds, unfortunately, the edited video has poor quality with broken audio, can't do).

BTW, the "invert" return board just returned top spin balls, no tricky stuff. Unless I serve or hit with the LP drive first, then the returned balls had some funny stuffs in it.

After watching, may be some of you could suggest some other exercises that I can do for fun but worthwhile.

http://www.veoh.com/videos/v143007776D5Jw4aj

Tat, you should buy more rubbers and cover the whole board. You're not really hitting the rubbers much. And the ones that hit the rubbers, because they are lined up so low on the board, don't return to you but end up catching the net.

Also if you have different rubbers I think the return would be too inconsistent unless that's your aim.

Also you practice in your socks?? I see you're really bored.

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Galaxy K-4/ Xiom Vega Pro/ Xiom Vega Pro

Yep, I am really bored, and I need contribution of more used and , damaged LP rubbers, any kind will do.

Two more weeks before the guys will be back from Hong Kong and China and I am also waiting to join the San Diego table tennis club in July just to save a few $$$$.

I wear socks instead of shoes because the new epoxy floor is really clean, have never parked my cars on in it and the friction allowed me to wear socks without too much problem.

Say, that's a good idea, tatlwai -- contribution for member's return boards...very interesting use for used rubber...

I'll start hoarding the used rubber instead of throwing them away then.

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Viscaria. H2 Neo 2.15. Tenergy 05 1.9.

Thanks, Yuzuki, contribute enough used LPs and used inverts so that I can cover the whole return board making it one of the best in town.

Because my first balls always generate under spins balls to my backhand side, I can't practice hitting my forehand without running and hopping fast to the backhand corner. I just has an idea of how to force the ball either to the middle or to the right side, since the angle of incidence equals the angle of reflection, I could move the angle of the board more to my forehand side, then the returned balls will surely go that way, practice more for my SP forehand.

You could split it in two.

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My whole set-up costs less than a sheet of Butterfly Dignics

MNNB, thanks for the suggestion, boy, you do know how to use the graphics, how did you do that? Did you draw it separately and imported here?

However, since the natural spin of my opening shots are counter clockwise, I think the outside edge of the board on the right hand side facing me should be off the table instead. The angle that you have shown will make the ball re-bounce off my left side of the table. Remember, friction LPs are subjected to spins.

I just linked to the image at returnboard.com. I have one of these, by the way. Useful for practicing against no-spin.

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The MNNB Blog has had some pretty amazing stuff lately. Just click this text to check it out. | My OOAK Interview
Table Tennis Video Links: itTV | laola1.tv | ttbl | fftt | Challenger Series | mnnb-tv

My whole set-up costs less than a sheet of Butterfly Dignics

Interesting site, I've never seen that...

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What kind of material is the return board? What kind of opening shots you made to have no-spin returns? Did you do top spin serves? No spin serves(meaning just taping /bumping)? You see, I made this board with LPs because I want to practice hitting against no spin balls, but it turn out it iis easier to create heavy fast under spin balls.

I have all kind of experience hitting against top and under spin balls, but tough to create no spin balls for practice. Much appreciated if you can help.

With the returnboard, I drop the ball about two feet onto the table and hit it off the bounce. It goes back with little spin which gets diluted by the returnboard and comes back no-spin. Each progressive hit has a little more spin on it, so by five of six hits the spin is getting pretty heavy and I have to ease back a bit.

What's nice is I get varying spins and since the returnboard is on the edge of the table, I have to react faster than in a real game, which is good practice.

It looks like you have a Newgy robot, as I do. Knowing what I know now, I never would have bought the Newgy (or any one-wheel robot) because it can't do no-spin. Plus it repeatedly delivers the same amount of spin every time, which is unrealistic.

I live in an area where no one plays and I drive 60 miles each way once a week to get a few games in at the closest club. As a result, I end up doing a lot of one-person practice.

The main problem with this is that I don't get the stimulus of seeing the opponent hit the ball. So while I have the mechanics of hitting every shot down pat against the robot or returnboard, I sometimes have slow recognition in identifying those exact same balls in a live game because I'm not used to seeing a real person hitting at me. The feedback of the opposing player is so important, and that's the main ingredient missing in my individualized practice sessions.

I'm sure that's part of the reason I have way better results when I slow the game down with my "specialty" rubbers.

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The MNNB Blog has had some pretty amazing stuff lately. Just click this text to check it out. | My OOAK Interview
Table Tennis Video Links: itTV | laola1.tv | ttbl | fftt | Challenger Series | mnnb-tv

My whole set-up costs less than a sheet of Butterfly Dignics

Thanks a million for a quick and detail reply, I'll have to try that tomorrow.

I guess I am a lot more luckier than you regarding practice partners, they all come to my garage, sometimes one after the other, 5 days in a row. Of course, now that they are all enjoying summer vacations, I'll have to wait for them to come back and hence the building of return board.

Regarding the Newgy robot, this is my second one in many years, and this one is 2040, so far so good. However, I don't mind buying this machine even if they can't produce no spin balls. Without this machine, I wouldn't be able to practice and experiment the lifting and looping against under spin balls, or hitting, looping and chopping against top spin balls. Yes, it is kind of boring after the third ball at the same speed, same location and same height, but I am starting to make the oscillating speed faster and feeding speed higher, together with the speed of the ball at 6 and 7 (top spin only), I can do a heavy close to the table work out.

No machine can replace a live person hitting balls at different speeds, spins and locations, but having a machine is far better than none.

Thanks again for your quick reply, really appreciated.

Hi
Can I use The rubber Taichi (giant dragon) for my hand made returnboard?
thx

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