OOAK Table Tennis Forum

OOAK Shop now deals directly with DHS in Shanghai, and they've kindly agreed to an interview. So if you have questions about the company, or some of their elusive rubbers and blade, here is your chance.

I prefer you post your questions here, but if you prefer to remain anonymous, PM me your questions.

So what are your questions?

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OOAK Table Tennis Shop | Re-Impact Blades | Butterfly Table Tennis bats
Setup1: Re-Impact Smart, Viper OX, Victas VS 401 Setup2: Re-Impact Barath, Dtecs OX, TSP Triple Spin Chop 1.0mm Setup3: Re-Impact Dark Knight, Hellfire OX, 999 Turbo
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As one of the largest manufacturers and directly suppliers to the CNT why are you relying on ESN for new product development and manufacturing? One would assume DHS has adequate resources to accommodate internal innovation, would this be a better move for the long term development of the company?

Do you supply special rubber to the CNT that is not available to anyone else?

Is it pre-boosted by you?

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Retriever (sometimes golden, but often leaden)
Moderator, Inverted Retriever Technique sub-forum - http://ooakforum.com/viewforum.php?f=74

1. You sponsor many of the top Chinese table tennis players, but you also make equipment for several other sports. How big is the table tennis part of the DHS business?

2. What's the relationship between DHS and Li-Ning?

3. Some of your rubbers, like Hurricane, have a sponge hardness on the package. Is this hardness measured for each rubber sheet, or do you make a large quantity of rubbers with all the same hardness?

4. Do you have different equipment to make the National and Provincial rubbers, or are these rubbers selected from a production run of commercial rubbers?

5. It's widely reported that there are many fake DHS rubbers and blades on the Chinese market. How do you fight this?

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OOAK Table Tennis Shop | Re-Impact Blades | Butterfly Table Tennis bats
Setup1: Re-Impact Smart, Viper OX, Victas VS 401 Setup2: Re-Impact Barath, Dtecs OX, TSP Triple Spin Chop 1.0mm Setup3: Re-Impact Dark Knight, Hellfire OX, 999 Turbo
Recent Articles: Butterfly Tenergy Alternatives | Tenergy Rubbers Compared | Re-Impact User Guide

I test table tennis equipment and try and make the tests relevant and am working on devising tests which will give consistent and useful results across brands. I am going to start testing rubbers across brands and within brands to ensure a generic speed, spin rating. To do that I'd like to learn from your experiences of testing equipment please.

1. How do you test your rubbers to come up with speed, control and spin ratings? For example what do you attach the rubber to (different types of wood blade impact on the performance of the rubber so you need as neutral a surface as possible to test only the rubber and not what it's glued to as well? What format do the tests take. What software, hardware do you use to measure and record speed and spin ratings. Lot's more questions on this but don't want to clog the post up. Same type of questions apply to blades as well.

2. Do you test equipment when new and again after "X" numbers of hours or are these ratings for when a rubber is new?

2. You make your own plastic balls. There are only 5 manufacturers but over a 100 authorised plastic balls. What is the difference between each brand of plastic ball you make and sell?

3. I want to conduct friction tests on table tennis rubbers, to do that I'm looking to source a flat plastic sheet of plastic (about 1m long and 50cm wide) - the same plastic used in your balls - to act as the surface table tennis rubbers will be tested on. Is it possible to buy this from you and if so how do I do this please?

4. You sell rubbers much cheaper than other brands, like Butterfly. How do you manage to do this and still make a profit?

Thank you

Not a message for DHS, but I would be very interest in Mr Debater's results. Too much opinions, not enough objective data in TT equipment. I would like to see an eventual camera lens MTF curve like result for each blade/rubber.

BTW, instead of a flat piece of ball material plastic, any controlled material will work. Or even just use a clamped ball affixed to a scale. There will be variations between balls used, but hey, rubber QC discrepancy is massive, not possible to be that precise.

I'm putting my bet on same production line, but more human review/choice for the top shelf stuff. If they have the capability to make "better" versions for "pros" on "pro" machinery, there is no reason why they would not do it for mass production. I as a consumer would be very disappointed in the company, not to mention they will be in violation of ITTF approvals. In any case, I doubt we will get a straight answer from them on this.

In case someone doesn't know, Double Happiness stands for two "happy occasions" in the year 1959:
-10th anniversary of China (PRC).
-Rong Guotuan won the first ever World Championship for China.

I think I can come up with some pretty good educated guesses at some of these but I'd love to hear DHS's replies all the same..

#4 for instance. It's simply that stuff (wages, industrial equipment, land, capital, etc.) is vastly cheaper in China than in Japan or Europe, where people earn so much more and prices for EVERYTHING are much higher. #2? No difference other than the logo (making all balls the same gives you economies of scale, making several different kinds of balls is expensive), but would they actually say that? I'd like to know. They might not even admit to making balls sold under other brands. Doesn't mean they don't... but OEM relationships are often secret, even if they are open secrets. Same reason why they probably don't test every sheet of sponge for hardness - it's expensive and time consuming. They probably test batches, though (since batches probably vary quite a bit). Sheet going to the CNT, though.. those get tested individually. #1? I'll bet they don't bother - they get focus groups of players to rate them (and the ratings are approximate in any case, and besides, there's always variation - not to mention the marketing people probably also have a say in it..). But again, I'd like to hear what they have to say about it. Actually, if I were the marketing people at a Chinese table tennis company, and someone asked me questions like this, and I was just using focus groups, I'd start making stuff up to make it sound better than it is, if I'd answer at all..

What would _I_ ask? Historical questions. Like what equipment did Rong Guotuan use? What about Chuang Zedong? Who made it? Did Rong actually use sandwich rubber (pips out), as specified in the 1960 rules, or was he actually using hard rubber? Or bare sponge, maybe? Or if he had pips out, was the thickness under 4mm? What color was it? (Remember, the rules weren't in place yet..) Is there a table tennis museum in China where Rong Guotuan's equipment is preserved? (I doubt it.. he got purged during the Cultural Revolution.. but you never know.) Also, maybe something controversial - is it true that the CNT regularly and ubiquitously boosts their rubbers? (I really wouldn't expect them to reply to this, or if they do, I wouldn't know whether to trust the answers...) Is it true that each CNT player gets rubbers custom made for them? (They'd answer "yes", because 1. it's probably true, and 2. it will help them sell more of these "National" rubbers... )

Iskandar

Not sure which world champions used DHS (based in Shanghai), but 729 (based in Tianjin) claims many world champs used 729, including Guo Yuehua, Deng Yaping, Wang Nan, and Liu Guoliang, plus many more:
https://www.729sports.com/en/col.jsp?id=114&

Since "729" means "September 1972", this means that it couldn't have been used by anyone who won the WC before that date. It doesn't mean that RITC didn't exist before then, of course - there's the curious case of "563" (did this mean there was medium pips in the mid-1950s, before they even passed the rule about sandwich rubber, when people played mainly with hard rubber or bare sponge?).

I'm pretty sure Rong Guotuan and Chuang Zedong used pips out - that was the national style. Even Liu Guoliang (WC gold medal 1999) used pips out.

Iskandar

On which basis do you collaborate with Nittaku in Japan and Donic in Europe and what is the full extent of these collaborations? Is it solely distribution, and/or rebranded items (such as balls, blades and tables) or more?

The DHS Interview was already been posted here: viewtopic.php?f=56&t=35876

The DHS Staff member that answered our questions has joined this forum, so if you ask your question in the interview thread, you might get an answer (if it's not commercially sensitive).

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OOAK Table Tennis Shop | Re-Impact Blades | Butterfly Table Tennis bats
Setup1: Re-Impact Smart, Viper OX, Victas VS 401 Setup2: Re-Impact Barath, Dtecs OX, TSP Triple Spin Chop 1.0mm Setup3: Re-Impact Dark Knight, Hellfire OX, 999 Turbo
Recent Articles: Butterfly Tenergy Alternatives | Tenergy Rubbers Compared | Re-Impact User Guide

For the last 6 years family and health have been a priority. That and coaching TT. Testing had taken a back seat. My circumstances are changing which will allow me time again to move towards testing but as this is a hobby and not a "paying" activity I have to manage my time and finances accordingly.

At the moment I'm converting a room that has become spare in to my filming, editing and testing "studio". I'm also researching applicable testing methods, borrowing ideas from other sports and how they test for spin rates, speed etc and then comparing those with what I'd like to do / can do and what I think would be interesting (I've contacted golf manufacturers of "flight simulators" and using them is a "no go" as their hardware/software relies on algorithms based around a golf ball and not a table tennis ball. Plus with golf the ball is static at impact so it's much easier.

In the photos you'll see some of the testing equipment I've invested in including a vibration meter and the table tennis robot I'll be using (TenniRobbo) which Sergey kindly adapted slightly for me. TenniRobbo will allow me to vary speed and spin of the feed independently and consistently and things like the vibration meter will be good for testing sweet spots and "feedback" or "feel" of bats and there's other testing equipment I've got / will get or will build/make including my own acrylic bat for testing purposes and I'll have to source and cut down a table tennis table top (width wise, not length wise so I can duplicate the tests I've done in the past in my own room). I've also now got 3 cameras capable of filming at 1000fps. They are the same as the ones I used in my testing videos about 10 years ago. The resolution at high speed is poor and I need to sort out lighting so I can film indoors but they do let me shoot video for a long enough period in one go. Chronos and phone cameras don't shoot high speed in long enough bursts for my filming needs and practicality of filming is very important for me. Unfortunately the HighSpeed camera company I was liaising with about purchasing a couple of their cameras went in to liquidation.

In addition I reached out to a company regarding comparisons of rubber surfaces. They've kindly agreed to use their industrial testing equipment and can help with surface texture/roughness measurement of pimple tops, inverted rubber and balls themselves. It's been almost a year since I spoke to them about this type of testing (they have in their arsenal of testing equipment something called the "Profilm3D" which would be great for measuring surface roughness and could also give an indication of quality control) so they may not be so open to helping me now because of the delays but we'll see.


A sample of some of the rubbers I've got for testing are also laid out (some direct comparisons, some same rubber different sponge thickness or colour or sponge hardness - LP, and inverted). I've been planning this for so long some of the rubbers are no longer "authorised" but they are still unopened and the results should still be valid for what I want to test. I've still got my test bats custom built for me to my specifications for direct comparisons on the affect different veneers and blade core composition make and lots of other "shop" ones.

Throw in my need to learn new video editing software (DaVinci Resolve instead of Adobe Premier who I left after having purchased Premier Pro and then they introduced subscription payments service only which is no good to me as I edit only when I film so it's intensive sporadic editing rather than every month something being done) and there is a way to go. It's also not something I'm going to rush and family, finances and my coaching commitments passion have to come first.

Thank you for your feedback on the testing methods. Obviously I cannot discuss everything here on an open forum and there is still a very long way to go but at least I'm trying to move in the right direction but it's not my priority right now.

ed. not got the table top I needed - picture added

I am conscious though that this is the DHS interview questions topic so I think it best not to pursue this type of conversation here

Do you need a whole sheet of rubber for testing the surface? I'm asking because I get tons of cutoffs from assembling bats, which may be big enough for testing?

_________________
OOAK Table Tennis Shop | Re-Impact Blades | Butterfly Table Tennis bats
Setup1: Re-Impact Smart, Viper OX, Victas VS 401 Setup2: Re-Impact Barath, Dtecs OX, TSP Triple Spin Chop 1.0mm Setup3: Re-Impact Dark Knight, Hellfire OX, 999 Turbo
Recent Articles: Butterfly Tenergy Alternatives | Tenergy Rubbers Compared | Re-Impact User Guide

I'll pm you direct haggisv - thank you