OOAK Table Tennis Forum

thanks for all the information about the amicus, and Dave - please keep up with your work.

As there is some space in the basement, i'm really looking forward to buy an amicus.
I really was impressed by what the mechanics can do, but a litte sad about the setup.

This is even more surprinigly as there is so much potential, and butterfly doesn't use it.

Setting up drills to download, even let them by made, shared, exchanged by the community,
offering weekly training drills for footwork, looping etc...

as far as i know you can even set up drills with the pc with the robo pong.


so please dave succeed an amicus basic with personal drill setup and spin indicator would really the best thing to have

regards,
bernd

I'm very tempted to look into buying an Amicus Pro (it seems like if I'm ever serious about TT at all, there's little point in spending $1300 and not just jumping to $2000 for the Pro). The Amicus Pro seems like the best robot on the market currently.

I'm new to TT and would be able to record my strokes in my home "playing" and practicing against the robot, or downtown at my golf facility (we have a TT table in the basement lounge area).

The only downside as I see it is… that my TT table at home is the cheapie kind that sits on top of my pool table. It's a 9 foot Olhausen, so the TT top isn't TERRIBLE, but it's 3" taller than a TT table is normally and, more importantly regarding a robot… doesn't have any real way to hook on. The pool table is a little bit longer than the TT top, and wider too, so there is no way to just attach the robot or control panel to the table.

Is that a big concern? Is there some sort of relatively non-jury-rigged work-around?

Why, for $2k, can't the robot count down five seconds before it starts spitting out balls?

_________________
Erik J. Barzeski
Newb in Erie, PA

Tibhar TEXO All | 1.8 999 Juic Elite x 2
Ross Leidy ALL Blades (x2) | 1.8BH/2.0FH Juic 999 Elite
Butterfly Amicus Pro

Erie TTC • Erie TTC Facebook
TST • GE • 5SK • LSW

The controller doesn't really need to mount to the table, you could put it down somewhere next to it. Mounting the robot to the table is more of a problem. You could definitely build some kind of mount by attaching a piece of plywood to the table, but that could get messy. Would it work to just slide the pong table off the end of the pool table, so it overhung enough to mount the robot? You could also slide it to the side so you could mount the controller, actually.

Good thoughts but… it's just the TT top. 3/4" boards or whatever they are, sitting directly on the pool table (with some foam pads for protection). Plus the pool table is already longer than the TT top, so, overhanging it even more would lead to the pool table sticking out (on my end) more than the few inches it already does.

_________________
Erik J. Barzeski
Newb in Erie, PA

Tibhar TEXO All | 1.8 999 Juic Elite x 2
Ross Leidy ALL Blades (x2) | 1.8BH/2.0FH Juic 999 Elite
Butterfly Amicus Pro

Erie TTC • Erie TTC Facebook
TST • GE • 5SK • LSW

Yes, I realize that. Was just wondering if you could live with standing a little further from the end of the table. Other than that, I'm not sure what you can do. But good luck! It's a great robot and a lot of fun.

To all amicus professional/power pong 3000 owners. Use caution whe you use the max setting on long pips. I tried blocking with my gd talon on max settings and in just minutes it made my talon unusable. The pips did not break but the base rubber that broke as you can see in the photo. Lesson learned, never going to that again.

_________________
Dr N Firewall Plus
Hurricane 3 neo provincial
Yasaka 007

Dave - any updates on the programming work ?


Still no floor in my sportsroom - so there is some time left, until i have to buy one

Making great progress! The real value add in this is the software, and I only have a rudimentary version of the software so far. I'm still working on building the electronics so I have something for the software to talk to. I'm done reverse engineering the robot and how to control all the motors in it via the cable that plugs into the existing amicus controller. I have a prototype Amicus controller built for my software on the iPhone to talk to. I'm still tweaking and testing the prototype controller. I think in the next day or two I will be able to program shots and drills from the iPhone. Once I have that, I can focus on making the iPhone software do all the cool stuff we have been talking about!

Whoo-Hoo, Good on YOU!!!
tOD

And if anyone has any thoughts as to how they would like this to look or work, please let me know - either here or via private message. I've already gotten a few, but keep them coming! Also for people who would actually want one, any input on what a reasonable cost would be helpful. Right now my prototype is made of mostly off the shelf components. I can make it a lot more cheaply if I desigh it around my own circuits, but that would take a long time and delay availability. This really will make an Amicus Basic much better than an Amicus Pro though!

Did figuring out the protocol turn out reasonably simple? How did it work? PM if that's more appropriate. Thanks.

Try cyber2014. At checkout at megaspin. Hurry.

Just wanted to say thanks for all the information in this thread. I'm really new to table tennis, and just ended up purchasing an Amicus Advanced that I just got yesterday (along with a table of course).
The only issue I have so far is that the balls will often pile up and along the edges but not necessarily fall into the ball feeder. I'll be running a drill for sometime, and it'll get to a point where it can't play another ball. At that point, I put the ball/min back to 0, and use my paddle to shovel the balls back into the feeder, before restarting. I'll probably just make some small modifications to see if I can make the ball catcher feed the balls down better.

Besides that, I don't have any complaints.
It's great exercise, and even after 1 day I feel a lot better about grooving my strokes.

The other thing I wish was a place where people would share their settings/drills for different shots. Especially for people that just get the robot, it would be useful to be able to lookup a particular shot or series of shots that someones confirmed are realistic, and be provided with all the settings on your Amicus. Something like:

Average forehand topspin:
height: second ring from bottom
trajectory: -4
speed: 11
spin: 2

Something along those lines.

Sharing drills is one of the features that the thingy I'm working on will have.

As far as for balls piling up, I have the same problem. I'm planning on going to Home Depot and getting something cut to put along the bottom of the catch net. Something hard that balls will roll down into the ball feed well. I'm not quite sure what it will look like yet, but something like that is necessary. The little cable that connects the ball collection box to the motor post is also a place where balls will collect.

Another thing that would be nice would be something you could put on the table in front of the robot - some kind of wedge shaped thing, that would deflect balls to the side and into the catch net. Right now, you can hit a lot of perfectly good shots that carom off of the robot head and off the table.

I have to admit sharing drill is really attractive. My professional was ordered yesterday. (there's a coupon at megaspin i've noted in the past ) and having to go thru programming a bunch of drills seems like a headache. compare to the newgy I have now.