Robot Reviews !

Great review Rich. You seem to have gleaned more from the robot than I have in weeks lol! you definitely live up to your title. Those are some nice videos, thanks for the link...

incidentally, if there are any other FQJ-4 owners or even version 2 or 3, if you have favorite settings to post that would be great.

Thanks shamoo and alexcsibi (pm sent)  

alex, I would seriously talk to someone that has used the Amicus 3000 pro before you make the decision that it is the best.  I have no actual experience with this robot, but have talked to several that have.  Most regretted the purchase and wished they had spent less than half on another robot. The biggest issue was setup and dealing with the catch net.  They were tired quickly of the setup time for home use going from playing with partner to setting up robot..to playing with partner again.   But for club or training facility, it may be more appreciated. 

I will be doing a review on the new Oukei TW 2700-S9 dual head in the nest  month or so. At half the cost of the Amicus, it may be a much better alternative.  Oukei does a fantastic job of making controls.....but I am not much of a fan of their foam throwing wheels and "tunnel" deflector.  Butterfly and Oukei are the exact same heads in this regards. 

sonydn....thanks for your support!

The 989E and the Oukei 08 robots will not do as you wish unfortunately.  

ausinator,  good guestion.  I always wondered that too.  When I did the review for it, far east sports called it a donic.  There were no Donic logos or names on the box or any lititure.  Maybe it was something lost in translation. 

The company is called DDNO in China.   DDNO WEBSITE

 Its basically a Y&T type build with a real nice digital control pad.  Very nice robot.  It looks like the changed the ball pushing mechanism on the new colored versions (DL 263-DL 261) from a piston device to a cork screw one like Oukei uses.  I believe it is the same robot otherwise. 

Far East Sports is the only place with English I have ever seen it sold.  Let me know if you have any other questions about it. 

Aus....  The prior year models are DL163 and DL161.  The new ones are almost identical except for the mechanism that pushes the balls up to the head.   The only other change I can see is the color of the new DL263 and DL261.  The 263 has 2 throwing wheels, and the 261 only has 1 throwing wheel. 

When I did the review on the DL163, I had a Y&T 989E.  The DL163 seemed to have faster throwing wheel motors.  Like I said in my review, this is the best bang for the buck!  


Yes, they sell worldwide and prices are in US currency. 

We talked a year ago about robots and am using a friends Newgy. I see that AMDT came out with a new robot and Y&T is also suppost to come out with one. Any new info? review in the future? thanks ELi

Some update about using the FQJ-4..

Definitely lots of functions to sift through. One thing that I was surprised to learn is that the robot isn't really capable of doing alternating full back to top spin. it can do full right to left, in either top or backspin, but it can't go from top to back alternating (as far as I can figure out anyway). A little disappointing but the other functions make up for it I think. It does, however, have the ability to do a short backspin serve followed by a topspin shot.

I still haven't explored all the functions yet.. but I did a combo today of alternating right and left topspin with short back-side spin serves mixed in, alternating 2 balls to forehand 1 ball to backhand. that was definitely a tiring workout!

The Y&T and Oukei Dual Head robots are now available, but it may be January before I will be able to do any reviews on them.  They do look pretty promising from what little technical info I have learned lately. 


 

GenomicsKnight wrote: @Rich I see AMDTrading has a dual head robot too.  Is that the same as Oukei one you mentioned?  Thanks.

Yes, this is the new Oukei TW2700-S9. 

Vikroda wrote:    I was thinking to replace the foam throwing wheels of the Amicus with something with a little more grip.  The double snake throwing wheels look that they would be better than the Amicus wheels.  I've also been looking at some model airplane wheels http://www.servocity.com/html/precision_disk_wheels.html  (I also want to upgrade the Amicus  motors and add something to make it automatically rotate for side-spin or to compensate for the side-spin that's induced by the deflectors.  By the time I'm done I'll have almost a completely new robot ^^)

Sonydn,  basically on the foam wheels, they wear down and thus have to be adjusted.  While this may not happen very quickly for some, it may happen faster for others pending on how many hours the robot is used (such as clubs, training centers, etc.).  Just seems like the design could of used a hard rubber type wheel. 

As for the tunnel deflectors.......they make the robot loud and the ball spin off the wheels gets changed. But a good point on them is that they allow the control of up and down to be set from a control pad with the build design, and not from the manual adjustment at the head of the robot with other designs.  But also, the Y&T 989G and all the Double Snakes robots have this up and down control set by the control pad and not a manual adjustment at the head of the robot.  Double Snakes is far the best designed and implemented in the control factors for moving the head to various places with the control pad. 

hi
will you do a review for oueki s-9

Hi,
I have been searching for a good robot for quite a while. Based on the many helpful reviews here on the forum, I tend to see the Double Snakes FQJ-4 as the option for me. However, I would have some open questions before buying it.

- It was said that the robot was capable of doing top- and back-spin within the same sequence. However, alternating full top- and back-spin would not be possible. Shamoo even mentioned that the only combination of top- and back-spin he found was a short back-spin serve followed by a long top-spin. Does this mean that a long back-spin serve followed by a long top-spin for instance is not possible? How about alternating no-spins and top-spins?

- How is the sequence short back-spin serve - long top-spin generated? By turning the head 180 degree or by inverting the wheels' rotation direction?

- A more general question I have is related to the wheels: are they capable of rotating in both directions?

I know these questions are very technical. I hoped that one of the newly presented double headed robots would convince me. This hasn't happened so far. I consider the one head's configuration flexibility (FQJ-4) as more useful than the fact that I can alternate back-spin and top-spin. In a real game scenario, I don't think it happens very often that I have to play top-spins and back-spins alternating, unless I am some sort of a defense player. In my opinion, a long back-spin followed by an unlimited number of top-spins is a more typical scenario. That's why I hope that the FQJ-4 supports this combo.

pbirchmeier,  let me address a few of your questions and concerns.

The Double Snakes robots are in a league all their own as far as ability to control all the movements and motors of the head from the control pad. No other robot comes close in my mind with Double Snakes abilities in this regard. 

I never got to use the Double Snakes FQJ-4 long enough to do anything but a simple test and quick review.  So I never had a good chance to figure out all the advanced button functions and how they interact to make possible backspin to topspin combinations.  I have a contact in NY that got the FQJ-4 in the past month or less.  I am going to contact them at some point soon to see what they have figured out with the advanced functions. 

It's rather odd to me that most of the robot manufactures are not including exact data or a complete breakdown of their programmed sequences built in to the robot.  The Double Snakes FQJ-4 and the Oukei S-9 are the 2 that stand out the most to me in this area as far as this need.

As far as the ability to program a few of the sequences you have described, such as no spin to top spins, or alternating different spins on consecutive balls, I'm not totally sure the FQJ-4 will do exactly what you want here. But I would like to find out more about the FQJ-4's full abilities before I can make any claim in this area of the robot.  It does cost a lot more than most of the other advanced robots, but there are many factors about it that makes it so enjoyable to use compared to other high end robots.  It is still the one robot that I wish I owned. Like the Y&T robots, the Double Snakes robots excel at quickly setting up various shots and changing between them.  But with the various preset shots and serves buttons, it is more in depth in this regard compared tot he Y&T designs. Add in the fact that it is the most quiet robot around, and its ability to create excellent ball flights, it's just simply a pleasure to use.  Also, it is built quite strong and I do not see any motor or other parts failing with extended use. 

Most all the higher end robots use larger motors that can handle the stress of shooting balls out for a long lifespan in my opinion. But to also answer your questions directly about throwing wheel motors reversing or the head turning 180 degrees to make one ball a backspin and then next a topspin per say.....NO...the throwing wheel motors only spin consistently in one direction.  They will however slow down or speed up with some robot designs. 

The difference in the speeds from top to bottom throwing wheels (offset of speeds between the top and bottom wheels), is what makes the spin or speed changes from ball to ball on some robots with that capability. For instance, on the Y&T 989E robot and a couple others, the long/short landing function was merely allowing the speeds of the throwing wheels to slow down for that particular shot that was to be the short landing spot.  Other robots would make a short landing spot by the vertical head angle actually changing slightly. 

So as far as choosing between the advanced head controlling features of the FQJ-4, or one of the new double head robots with the ability to change ball spins from ball to ball and program the landing spots, it is a hard decision for many.  I would not have this choice problem if Double Snakes comes out with a new robot that has dual heads and programmable landing spots....but at this point....who knows if that may happen. 

So you have to pick out the main area of your importance with choosing the higher end robots.  As with all robots, they all have pro's and con's.  No perfect robot has been created yet......unfortunately...I'm still waiting.  This is why I have conducted so many reviews on robots.  I hope I have helped many in the decision of which robot to purchase for their needs/wants. 




TT_64,  I do not think the stress of throwing balls from a 2 head robot is much different in the lifespan or work load of the motors in any of the $1000 plus robots out there. The motors are all pretty heavy duty as far as the cans and magnets inside them go.  These motors produce plenty of torque.  I must say though, the new short can motors on the Y&T S-27 are highly impressive to what they use on their other robots. They are faster and slightly more quiet than the past ones used.  Those were a huge upgrade in my opinion. 

And as far as motors failing...or i think you mean degrading in its speed or torque, this should not happen as fast as you are worried about.  The cost of new motors is not expensive at all anyway if you need to replace them.  I'm not sure what you are worried about if the motors fail on the FQJ-4 robot.  Which ones are you referring to here?   I see absolutely no possible situation of this happening to any of the motors that move the head to various positions.  Those motors are not over worked at all because of the little use they get.  But on the rare possibility that one does fail, those motors are much more cheaper than the larger throwing wheel motors, so I would never be concerned with that. 

The motors on a Super Master or Newgy for instance are very small and cheap in built compared to what the higher end robots use.  But still there is not many failures with the cheaper motors used in the Newgy or Super Master robots these days. 

Rich, I read with much interest your reviews, and very comprehensive they are. One question I wonder if you or anyone knows is this. I have used a newgy robopong and on oscillation you can set it to fire balls slowly or quickly whilst oscillating at the same speed - thus you never quite know where the ball is going to land.