OOAK Table Tennis Forum

The only time I ever have it set faster than 60 bpm is when I'm more or less "playing around" with a partner (for instance, having each of us take one side of the table and hit alternating shots at a target (small piece of plastic or something) on the table to see who hits it 20 times first), in which case we have it set somewhere between 80-100 bpm.

I was wondering how fast to set my machine also. I have the PowerPong 3000. So I took a stop watch and timed how fast a counter hit drill is for the amount of time it takes for the ball to return. For good players the ball comes back at 3/4 of a second. I was thinking that is dang fast. I remember reading somewhere that a world ranked player needs to react in 1/2 second time.

Here is a good video below. I really want to do this drill at the pace he is doing it. I think he's doing this at about a 70 to 80 balls a minute pace.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ejJN1DY_MNY&feature=youtu.be

I timed this and I think it was about 3/4 second pace. So if I did the math correctly. I need to set the pace to about 80 balls a minute. I have to say, damn that's fast. I can't keep up at that pace yet. If I do just forehands its easier. It I do forehands and backhand at that pace I'm just blocking.

Hello Gentlemen,

I'm a new Amicus Pro owner and so far haven't had much luck creating my own drills. Can someone please attach their drills so that I can start challenging myself. It would be great to share with others and I hope someone is willing to share their drills on excel or plain word format.

Also Dave when can we expect your interface controller to the iphone that you're working on? I think it's really amazing that you're able to create all those things you've specified. How much are you selling the app or controller for? Thank you all.

Joseph

ScooterDog, 80 balls a min is about what a good return speed is. For just forehand or backhand, I can turn it all the way up to 120 balls and still get an okay hit. We mixing it up or having it on random, I can't get anywhere near 80 balls a min. I think one of the biggest reason is you can't really read the robot and where they are going with it. When you are playing someone, you can.

So what I will do is usually just rotate between forehand and backhand while keeping the robot firing at the same location at about 80 balls a min. Or have a simple drill that I know the order. Any kind of random placement with a robot is just too hard for me as I can't tell where it is going and I can't react fast enough to get a good return.

Btw, if you hit the "sample" button the speed it comes out is about 80 balls a min.

Jake

My Amicus Pro keeps skipping balls. The two rotating springs seem to fail to feed balls. It is getting more frequent now. If I push balls to where the rotating springs are, it will resume shooting balls. It is really annoying. Do you guys have this issue? I can't see any reading why this even happens...

Are you saying that it skips shots and then resumes on its own? Or that it stops shooting balls because the balls gather away from the ball feeder...? If it's the former, please explains further. fIf it's the latter, this is common. You can help alleviate this by making sure the net and the sheet underneath are taught. And you can try to jury rig something with sheets paper or cardboard under the balls to help them roll into the feeder. A lot of balls get caught up by the cable head on the base, you can try to put something along that to divert them into the feeder.

I've done this some of the time but haven't put too much effort into it. If it happens every 5 minutes or so, I can live with it and just take a break while I shove the collected balls back towards he feeder.

I think it is more of the former because I normally have at least 150 balls that fill up most of the tray. There are balls on top of the feeder when the skipping happens. I hear the two srpingy metals rotating and somehow the balls just would not get fed. It is different than the jam where I can see the robot attempts to resovle it and it normally does. Is it possible that it requires newer balls that have more frictions? My robot balls have been in use for many years played through 3 robots previously.

I think it sometimes skip one or two balls without my intervention and resumes shooting. Other times I wait long enough and get impatient and had to go up to stir the balls and it will start again.

When it skips the balls, it messes up my drills and I am totally out of synch with the programmed drill. It takes me a while to get caught up and then it skips again. Really annoying. Other than that this is the best of all four robots I have ever owned. It is helping me improve my techniques greatly.

Thanks for your information.

That sounds like the "latter" issue to me. You might want to take out some balls. 30-40 balls should be fine. And try my other suggestion. And you shouldn't get any jams. I've used my robot hundreds of times, and have only had a jam once or twice. It could be that your balls are dirty.

Your latter issue is that the balls are pushed away from the feeder where the two springy metals supposed to guide into the holes from rotating and then go up to the motors. Well, in my situation, there are so many balls on top of the feeder with those holes underneath. I do not see sheets of paper or anything else is needed to get balles close to the feeder because balls are already there. I periodially wash balls with my washing machine. The last wash was about 2 weeks ago so the balls are clean. I will try to observe this weekend with fewer balls to see if I can catch the skippings and find if it is because there are empty holes with no balls in them or all holes with balls but not transported up to the motors. My issue seems like motors want to shoot balls and there are not balls to shoot. Say my drill is supposed to shoot 4 balls. If it skips 2, it will resume to shoot the 3rd ball programmed in the drill when there is a ball and continure from there. I know that because I ran the backhand corner when the ball went to my forehand instead...

There is only one hole, not multiple holes for the balls to go into. The way it works is that when a ball falls into the hole, a metal bar comes around on every revolution of the feeder motor, and pushes that ball into the feeder tube, which then pushes all the balls up by one ball's thickness, and the last ball comes out of the feeder tube and is grabbed by the shooting wheels.

What I think is happening to you is that you have so many balls in there that the balls over the feeder area are forming a kind of igloo, which blocks other balls from going in. There is no way that a ball could be in the hole if a shot is skipped. Unfortunately, the robot doesn't know when a ball is shot, it only knows when the feeder motor goes around. So that's why it's skipping balls in your routine.

The manual says you should only use 30 or so balls. Having all those extra balls isn't helping you. If you take most of them out, you won't get the igloo effect anymore. You'll still have the issue I was talking about, but that's when the pieces of paper or cardboard solution will work.

I am going to take a closer look tonight. Thanks!

I have been thinking whether to go for the Advance or Professional version. Could the owners of both please throw some insight which will help me decide? Is the professional worth the extra money? Can i get advance now then think of re-selling to get a professional later?

I have had both the advance and the pro. When I got the advance, I had thought the added price of the pro wasn't worth it, but now I'm not so sure. The remote control that comes with the pro is pretty handy, as is the random feature that the pro has which lets it send a ball to random positions side-to-side. It has other unique features as well, such as programmable delay for individual balls and 8 ball drills (the advance can only do 6 ball drills).

If you do get the advance though, when I eventually come out with my controller upgrade (still working on it!), and you get that, it will have a lot more features than the pro. But please pm me if you want info on that. This is supposed to be a thread for amicus owners.

Hi Dave,

How do I contact you to talk about the controller you are building? I am very interested in this upgrade but not sure what you mean by "pm" me. Also do you have some drills on excell or word format for me to input and program for practice? I greatly appreciate it. Thank you.

Joseph

PM stands for "private message". There is a link at the bottom of every post to pm the poster, or you can do it from the menu on this site.