One of our club members just purchased a S4W robot.  That is the one with 2 heads and 2 wheels per head.  We were not able to get it to do double bounce underspin serves with a realistic amount of underspin.  If we got it to double bounce it was a dead serve and if we got realistic underspin the ball speed so high that 2nd bounce was off end of table. 

Does anyone know how to set it up for this kind of serve?

Are there any other tricks to using the S4W and getting more realistic balls and patterns.?

Mark

Am I missing something? It seems like a legitimate question. What is so funny?

Not Vanjr's robot.  I think it is a reply to a comment I made about quitting the club, moving to this members town, and training full time on his robot.  That was a joke of course.

Mark

Rich215 wrote: Mark...unfortunately that robot is not capable of making good/realistic serves.  It is more of a hitting robot so to speak.  Reason for this is two fold.  1. Heads do not move up and down enough. 2. Programming and possibly motors are not fast enough to make the 2 wheel offset work well for backspin serves/shots.  That said, other than service training....the robot is fun to use and fairly useful.

That is what I thought.  It does a really nice dead serve and the long underspin serves seem pretty good.

Think my club mate will enjoy it. 

Tomorrow we are going to figure out some base settings for counters, drives, and loops so he will be able to set it up quickly for whatever he wants to practice against.

Mark

I have a Newgy 1050 that I could leave at his place if he feels he needs to work against heavy short underspin serves.  I was just hoping I could make it simple for him.

Mark

Been working more with the S4W robot.  Today I put out a 1.5 in thick board on the robot's side of the table and set the robot to serve by bouncing the ball off the board.  I got a nice low trajectory serve and I even got some double bounce serves with a reasonable amount of underspin.  I got a very realistic long underspin serve with significant underspin.  Board was placed about mid-table on the robot side.  Probably need to sand the board smoother to keep more of the underspin.  Might also try something slicker on top of the board. 

Some other interesting "features"  have come to light.  On the first pass of a programmed landing sequence the robot throws an extra starter ball.  For example if I program a two ball sequence with one ball to the Fh and one to the Bh, the robot will start with 2 balls to the Fh and then 1 ball to the Bh.  From then on it throws 1 Fh and then 1 Bh until the total ball count is exceeded.  Maybe it does it so you will not be as surprised by the first ball in your desired sequence.

The other feature involves the landing locations.  If I program it to use just one throwing head the actual landing locations match the positions I program.  However, if I program it to use both throwing heads there is an offset for both heads.  I have to program the left head 2 spots to the right of center to get it to throw to the center.  And I have to program the right head 2 spots left of center to get it to land on the center.  Does something need to be adjusted or does it just work this way?

I got a nice workout looping one underspin ball and then hitting back 2 light topspin balls (blocks).  Pretty realistic drill I can not do on my Newgy.  I think having access to both types of robots is going to get me a pretty full simulation of most multi-ball drills I would get from a coach.

Mark

mjamja wrote: The other feature involves the landing locations.  If I program it to use just one throwing head the actual landing locations match the positions I program.  However, if I program it to use both throwing heads there is an offset for both heads.  I have to program the left head 2 spots to the right of center to get it to throw to the center.  And I have to program the right head 2 spots left of center to get it to land on the center.  Does something need to be adjusted or does it just work this way?

Keep in mind the robot uses the exact center of the robot head as the landing spot settings for both heads when using both heads in a sequence.  That is why you see this offset of actual landing spots.