DHS 40+ Ball Pix and Review

wturber wrote: CraneStyle wrote: Big sweeping statements... You don't know who will be the market leader with the poly ball... One major competition with too many broken balls could see the crumbling of a leading brand... XuShaofa Sponsorship of a few comps. .... A few banners on TV... Who knows...? There's always space for good quality 3 Star balls at a good price for amateur players... I think the fact that DHS has the ITTF contract and was "in bed" with the ITTF from the beginning on the switch to non-celluloid really increases the likelihood that the DHS ball will be a market leader for a while.  They'd have to produce junk ball for that not to be the case.  And that, while possible, seems unlikely.

Yeah, DHS may sanction a lot of competitions but we will buy what has consistent quality and good value...

CraneStyle wrote: Yeah, DHS may sanction a lot of competitions but we will buy what has consistent quality and good value...

My observation in the U.S. is that the ball used in sanctioned tournaments has a huge influence on what players purchase and play with.

Tinykin wrote: Does anyone know or have a good indication of the number of ball producing companies/factories? From what I gather from forum browsing, there are 4 or 5 majors. Xushafu DHS Double Fish Butterfly and maybe Nittaku Are the others are too small to affect anything except the fakes?

wturber wrote: CraneStyle wrote: After all, if you had control of the situation, would you be moving to the polyball? Yes I would actually, to make the world a safer place... It has to go... It's very dangerous stuff... No, it is not very dangerous stuff. The safety history of the celluloid ball (including its manufacture) over the past 100 years (and especially the last 50 years) is actually quite good.  The cars we use to drive to and from table tennis halls, club and tournaments are tremendously more dangerous.  Government labor laws in China are far more dangerous.  You want a safer ball?  Mandate that it be manufactured in Europe, Japan or the USA. Considering the fact that we don't really know much about the materials and methods that are used and that will be used to make the new poly balls, it is very difficult to say that there has been even a small marginal improvement in safety with this switch.  You could argue, that for vendors and suppliers the new poly ball will a bit more convenient.  But I think that's about as far as it goes.

YES IT IS VERY VERY DANGEROUS!

I'm not going to say anymore, but this...

The terrible T's can use the old balls as an accelerant to make big bangs...

Its lighter and more combustable than sugar...

Table tennis opinions have nothing to do with it...

This ball has got to go....

Think about it... The WORLD will be a safer place...

Edited by CraneStyle - 07/02/2014 at 4:20pm

Thanks for the info.
I wonder if we can speculate that Butterfly is holding back as they know something that the rest don't?
Maybe it's a marketing ploy or a technical one as they are just not ready and want to see what's out there.


Edited by Tinykin - 07/02/2014 at 9:09am

wturber wrote: NextLevel wrote: The XuShaofa ball, because it is seamless, is going to be nothing more than an interesting side conversation - nothing leads me to believe it will be widely adopted - it got most of its recognition by being first to market. I disagree with the recognition bit.  It got most of its recognition because this was the design we were "promised" when the non-celluloid ball "program" was first announced and promoted by Adham Sharara.  This was what the new ball was "supposed" to be.  But they had problems keeping the wall thickness consistent.  Then there were disputes between the companies.  So DHS and others "punted" and developed non-celluloid seamed balls as a solution - possibly also as a solution to the problem of certain patents which were covered by patents.  A seamed ball should allow more flexibility in the choice of plastics that are used. I agree that the seamless ball has been marginalized.  That's a shame, because the seamless concept has the theoretical potential to finally deliver balls with a "true" flight and bounce.

....

Edited by CraneStyle - 07/02/2014 at 10:49am

TSuBaSa wrote: Talked to a tsp distributor he sad that tsp didn't even started producing cell free balls yet.

Well, they probably don't have to "produce", they just sell them....
At least they must have sent in some for approval to ITTF as they're already on the list:
With seam and "Made in China" = DHS




Edited by tt-panopticum - 07/02/2014 at 10:55am

CraneStyle wrote: YES IT IS VERY VERY DANGEROUS! I'm not going to say anymore, but this... The terrible T's can use the old balls as an accelerant to make big bangs... Its lighter and more combustable than sugar... Table tennis opinions have nothing to do with it... This ball has got to go.... Think about it... The WORLD will be a safer place...

I have thought about it and I've actually looked into it. It is very hard to find anyone harmed by TT balls or the manufacture of TT balls.  Considering that millions of them have been made for decades, you would think that if they were unsafe that there would be all kinds of reports of harm.  But such reports are hard to find. On the scale of hazardous items that we live with, TT balls are way, way, way down on the list - somewhere below water buckets.

There are many things more flammable than sugar (odd choice of comparison there) and we keep them safely in our homes all the time - rubbing alcohol, butane, propane, natural gas, lighter fluid, rubber cement, wood (we build homes and make table tennis rackets with wood), matches, kerosene, gasoline, gunpowder, candle wax, and probably much more.

As I said, given what we do know about celluloid balls and their track record and what we don't know about the new balls, there's no good way of knowing if there will be an even miniscule improvement in safety from the new balls.  I think any difference will be far to small to measure with any accuracy.

NextLevel wrote: Tinykin wrote: That looks like 4 manufacturers, 2 seamed and 2 seamless. Interesting. DHS/DF who manufacture for the rest - seamed. Nittaku 40 SHA+ - I suspect this is a DHS ball, but I may be wrong - seamed. Nittaku Premium - seamed. XuShaofa/Palio - seamless (have no reason to believe they have independent manufacturers at the current time).  So to me, it really looks more like 2 (maybe 3) seamed and 1 seamless.

DHS and DFish produce their celluloid balls in their own factories, separate from each other. It follows that they will continue to do so for the cellulose diacetate ball.
Nittaku's celluloid balls are produced in Koga, Ibaraki Prefecture. The material for their new seamed ball is currently unknown. I can only assume it's the same material as in DHS/DFish case.
According to Table Tennis Kingdom report, TSP's new seamed ball is made of the same material. It comes as an unexpected surprise they opt to source from China.
Butterfly new seamed ball is made in China. At this moment the only sources are either DHS or DFish.

Palio have their own factory/-ies somewhere in China. It's likely they've bought the polyball assembly lines along with the patent.
Xushaofa do not have any factory to the best of my knowledge.

wturber wrote: I wouldn't be surprised to find that there is some kind of dual pass method when two different ink colors are used and that there can be registration variations because of this.  In other words, the balls are probably "stamped" twice and there can be some shift in registration between the two "stamps."  Not that the red "Made in China" portion is shifted in the same direction as the "+" sign.

I see your point :) However, it is still much deviation I reckon. So let's look beyond the ball. Let's look at the packaging.

I have compared the image of the packaging shown on the TaoBao website versus the image on the DHS website. They are not the same. The 3rd star should touch the edge of the top flap. But this is not the case with the image on TaoBao - which shows the 3rd star significantly away from the edge of the top flap.

Sounds fishy to me. Again, there are other inconsistencies; but I will not mention them.

The box on the right is from the DHS website.

wturber wrote: You are assuming a degree of precision in the printing, cutting and folding processes used to make those boxes that I don't think is realistic. Professional printing expects and allows for these kind of variatons. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bleed_%28printing%29

Ok, valid point. So, let's continue looking at the bigger picture. Here's another difference with the packaging.

The packaging on the TaoBao website shows "40+ ITTF APPROVED" whereas on the DHS website shows "40+ I.T.T.F. APPROVED".

But just to repeat, in no ways am I saying that the seller on TaoBao is a cheat. I just want to highlight my observation. What I think probably has happened is DHS has changed the packaging and what is on their website is an old photo.

Anyway, I have ordered some DHS plastic balls from an online retailer so I will find out a bit more about it once my parcel arrives.

(See the bits highlighted in the yellow box).



Edited by hithithit - 07/02/2014 at 5:31pm

Perhaps we can ask AndySmith to take some real pictures of the package of the one(s) he got from tt11?

The stamp of the DHS cellulose diacetate ball from ITTF corresponds with that on the one the dude got from taobao.



The stamp from the one on tt11 looks like this, which doesn't look right:



The ads on tt11 even has "CTTA APPROVED" instead:



Verdict: Pre-production vs market release.

Edited by zeio - 07/02/2014 at 8:56pm

zeio wrote: Verdict: Pre-production vs market release.

I think you have nailed it.

Got mine from tt11 today