Best TT Robot

I bought all the mechanical parts for a home made robot but untimely gave up the project due to busy schedule 

Hey FlatHitter,

Which IPONG robot do you have? I have 2 of the Originals and 1 of the V300. I like the Original but the V300 has a lot more features and I think it launchs the ball better. Its a little more predictable where as the original will sometimes launch a ball or 2 in some weird direction. But it only happens maybe 1 or 2 balls out of a 100. So that is pretty good for a robot that only cost $80 bucks.

If anyone is interested. I want to sell the 2 IPONG Originals I have. Shoot me a PM for a sweet price!!!

FlatHitter,

You are a Joola dealer and sell the IPONG Pro for $200 bucks? You must be talking about MSRP because dealers like Megaspin sell the IPONG Pro for $116 bucks. Since you are a dealer haven't you tried out the new IPONG Master V300 yet? That is the one I have and I think it is IPONG's best robot to date.

The IPONG Pro is nice, but it has the remote control wired to the robot. Where the V300's remote control is wireless which makes it much easier to use. Plus from what Megaspin quotes about the V300: "New improved natural ball trajectory thanks to new two wheel design, improved performance over the IPONG Pro".

I know you say, if money was not an issue you would buy a Butterfly robot. I am assuming that you are talking about the " Amicus " Pro for 2K and some change. I went and took a look at it over on Megaspins website. I'll tell ya, that control panel looks very intimidating to me. It would probably take me a long time to get use to it. LoL

On the other hand, I think that I would prefer a GUI interface that some of the newer robots have now. I'm not sure which one I was looking at but it has a touch screen to make adjustments. Which looks like it would be a lot easier to use than all those buttons and knobs on the "Amicus" Pro.

But I agree with you that for the money and for the beginner to intermediate level TT players. You can't go wrong with IPONG robot's. I would just suggest that anyone reading this not buy anything less than the IPONG Original because the other 2 lesser models are battery powered.

we tested the butterfly at the nats. in december, I was really impressed with the amount of backspin you can add for service return on short serves, a person could improve a lot if he/she spent the time to train with these things....I have not tested the new joola "digital" robot yet,but, I do like the older models..

Egghead,

You would have to watch the videos like I did to answer your question.

I have the robopong 2050. Bought it for 600€.

It doesn't have all the features like some expensive robots but it does have the features you will use the most.

disadvandages:
- within 1 excercise it can't combine 2 kinds of spin (back and top). You have to exercise them separately. An exercise can start with a short service with for instance little to no topspin and the next balls would be faster and with more spin to other positions. A backspin service followed by a heavy topspin to block would be a nice plus.
- speed and spin relation is always 1/1 there so it can't produce high arc slow superspinny loops for instance. this is because there is only one wheel to shoot the ball
- setting up the head angle is manual work. It doesn’t change during an exercise but it doesn’t bother me.

What I love about it;
-     especially the pre-programmed excercises. 64 of them!!! for all levels and if it is too fast for you, you can adjust the speed and time between shots. If even that isn't good enough you can program an excercise and import into the controller. Believe me it’s more than enough. I see lot’s of expensive robots take huge amount of time to set up a drill. My god I press 3 buttons and the machine is already putting me to work. 1 hour of training is 1 hour true training and not 50% setting up excercises.

-     Lot’s of excercises where you know 2 or 3 placements and the next one(s) is (are) surprise. You name it, it’s available.

-     There is a manual mode as well that can do a lot. You can let it randomly vary speed/placement, waiting time between shots, placement,…

Robots that cost 3 times the price will probably do a couple more advanced excercises but is that worth the investment if you can train those with real opponents?

Personally I would have been sold if the smartpong was available in my country and if it had the preprogrammed excercises. This one can vary the spin and head angle

I saw Butterfly has a robot (amicus pro) that can do all (even mega spin balls) but its 2,5 times the price and I don’t like the fact that you can not see a robot head turning left or right. Again no pre programmed drills.

My old club had a Tibhar Robopro master with 2 heads. It looks like a copy of other robots mentioned here. It was real difficult to program excercises because both heads are moving together as one and they can’t individually cover the hole table. On the controller you can see 11 positions to program but position 1 for head A is not within the range of head B so when you ask ‘1’ to head B you actually get position 3 or 4. Head angles were also manual work but this one cost 1800€ at that time.