Pongbot Nova S Pro owners' review and discussion thread

[LeGrand]

Thanks a lot for the recording, very helpful! While that's not a huge load of underspin I think it's decent enough to train some basic receives with. At least the ball is very tight to the net, which resembles a pretty realistic serve in my opinion. I will try to mix this with sidespin / topspin and then practice my flicks and pushes 💪 I guess 2.5 is the max speed you can go for short serves because else they would go too long. How was the robot positioned during your recording?

Maybe, just maybe it would somehow be possible to achieve 3.0 speed (and therefore more spin) for short serves when positioning the robot behind the table and a bit lower than usual. I will experiment soon when I have my next robot session

@jk1980 @plunder Is the ball's changing trajectory surely happening due to a worn table or could there be another reason?

 

[plunder]

How was the robot positioned during your recording?

1316 Good asking 🤭, i just checked, the quoted ball settings doesn't work … from pos8. I still use the modded wheels whose white rubber band has been wearing down (btw very slowly), which is a good thing because a smaller wheel diameter exerts less mechanical pressure on the plasticky Pongbot system when the cracking balls🤣 get squeezed through the tight opening between the pair of modded wheels. Here's a good look at the trace forming at the central width of the rubber band:

Originally the wheels have a nominal diameter of 50.0mm; currently the central trace has a diameter of 51.50-51.60mm. I marked the 3 glue points with a black marker, so in practice i still consider this mod a reversible mod because with acetone or a razor blade i should be able to reset the glue points, if/when i need to renew the rubber band in some future:

The stool is ~5cm lower than the pontable. I placed the stool behind the pontable, and while this lower level works great for all shots, especially for Slow Spinny Loops, it doesn't work well with service-serves (short from now on: cerves 🤪). It works okay with cerves but not well. That's because the ball doesn't have enough potential energy to begin with, and increasing the Ball Height from "-50.0" to "-40.0" (in order to get a lower trajectory) would produce too many cerves clipping the net, or not clearing the net. So for cerves from afar, and for generality/universality/sharing purposes, i recommend that we use a stool which has about the same height as the pontable. With the help of 1 thick tome, i managed to level the Nova just fine:

Re the distance, it makes sense to choose the Nova location as far behind the table as possible, while a Ball Height "-50.0" ball should still reach the white edge line of the table. This way you can produce both cerves (short cerves, long cerves) and all other shots which are hit from such a far position, without having to reposition the stool over and over again: 1 far central position should be sufficient, and i am using "pos2" lol when creating a Custom Drill for/from it (likewise, i would use "pos1" lol when creating a Custom Drill from the far right position). Making use of floor grid lines, book lines, stool symmetry and whathaveyou, i am able to setup the Nova without the help of my folding rule or laser distance meter efficiently, always ending up with the exact same alignment and distance of 529±1mm. While this is a nice and final reference number (for me), your very number will differ because you use different balls, different wheels, different air conditions, etc. So when i am stating ball settings for Shortish Tomahawks (see below, all at Speed "3.0" and Spin "8.0"), take them with a grain of salt, they work for me but might not work for you:

So here is the live refpage for some Custom Drills from the far position (4 personal conditions ymmv hence no screenshot: leveled Nova, 529mm distance, modded wheels, Joola Training 40+ balls):
Nova at 529mm behind'n central
(2025-03-17: some values are just placeholders currently and need further fine-tuning e.g. the Hard Topspins)
(2025-03-24: cerve receive practice works great from "pos2" but most receives wouldn't land in the rolling catch net, so it's a pita to collect hundreds of balls off the ground haha)

 

[LeGrand]

Your posts are incredibly helpful for getting the best out of the Nova for Serve Receives! I will try this next week for sure. Currently I am rated about 1800 TTR in Germany. This is pretty decent, however the big majority of points I win on my own serve. I'm really having high hopes that the robot can help me to get a more consistent receive game. Looking very forward to follow this thread in the future!

 

[plunder]

Looking very forward to follow this thread in the future!

You're too kind thanks! Anyway, please check above, i've edited the post, including the link to my settings (from the far position, called "pos2", i.e. put in quotation marks™️) for the short Underspin Cerve from the demo vid and for the Tomahawks from "pos2". I learned that it's not possible to create short Tomahawks, only shortish Tomahawks from "pos2": these fly low over the net, land mid-court, and carry lots of spin; that high spin amount then catapults the ball over the pontable's edge. So technically they should be called "mid Tomahawks" instead of "shortish Tomahawks" . Anyway, i am pleased enough with them!

1800ttr is massive, congrats to such a high level. Am not sure if the Nova can fulfill the needs and requirements of such strong players 🦾.

 

[LeGrand]

Thank you for the flowers It's always a matter of perspective though, I really would like to hit 1900 at some point. My brother is almost 2100TTR ranked which is really massive and I try to close the gap a bit

I think robot training can help at all levels, because time spent at the table is always valuable. I think payers of all levels struggle with Serve Receive to a certain degree, as it is the most difficult shot in Table Tennis imo. So getting in some repititions on Receives will always help to feel more confident. Slow Spinny Loops is btw another thing that makes a lot of sense to practice, so it's great that you also included those!

 

[plunder]

When you practice cerve🤪 receive for 60min, i.e. at Spin >=7.0, you should be experiencing the clogging of the black wheels, which causes a reduction of the resulting spin of the ball. That was my observation. (And i doht have that problem anymore, it's completely gone!)

Would be great if you could confirm such observations and detail on them, or maybe share 1 photo of your 🤖 robot's mouth 👄 tia

thanks in advance

 

[Racket42]

Hello everyone

I'm new to this forum. I'm French and I live on a wonderful island: Corsica.

I had the opportunity to purchase the Pongbot Nova S Pro from a French classifieds site.

I'm very satisfied with this robot. I solved the ball tank capacity issue in a very simple and cost-effective way: 0 euros.

I used a simple shoebox for this.

It works very well and provides an additional capacity of 200 balls.

You have to make sure the bottom of the box is made of one piece.

Here are some photos to save me a long comment.

In France, Corsicans have a reputation for being lazy, which may be true 😁

Brilliant. I think I will borrow this idea to increase my capacity to 500+ and save the time of any further 3D printing

 

[Yves2B]

Hello

You have to be careful; I think a 500-ball reservoir could cause malfunctions.

With my extension, I have a capacity of about 350 balls. When the reservoir is full, there may be two or three times when the balls don't come out properly.

After that, there are no more problems.

Happy pinging, everyone 🏓

 

[_JW]

Great read! So much information, really helps fine tune the drills!

One thing that I'm having an issue with is a delay from the end of the drill to the start of the drill. So say its a 5 ball drill, there's a 1-2 second delay from ball 5 to ball 1.
I'm just wondering if I'm doing something dumb or have missed a setting OR both!
Is there a setting I can alter to reduce/eliminate this?
Thanks all

 

[plunder]

there's a 1-2 second delay from ball 5 to ball 1.
I'm just wondering if I'm doing something dumb or have missed a setting OR both!

we doht know what you're trying to do. Didn't this read help? -> post#13

anyway, the pause between ball5 -> ball1 is determined by the ball1 "Freq." setting

 

[_JW]

we doht know what you're trying to do. Didn't this read help? -> post#13

anyway, the pause between ball5 -> ball1 is determined by the ball1 "Freq." setting

It seems like when I alter the frequency on a drill, say for random shots, that balls 1-5 adhere to the frequency but then the bot dismisses the frequency going from ball 5 to 1. It feels like it pauses before going back into the drill, if that makes any sense 🤷‍♂️

 

[plunder]

It'd help if you stated a clear example e.g. "in my custom drill all 5 balls have the same Freq setting of 50%, which equals a prepause of 1.00 seconds, but the pause between ball#5 and ball#1 is more than that, i measured something around 2.0s, how come?". Then i would comment "thx for being clear in your post, anyway this is not normal Nova behaviour and i doht experience such a thing on my unit sorry caht help, possibly yours is faulty (which i doht believe it really is)".

 

[_JW]

It'd help if you stated a clear example e.g. "in my custom drill all 5 balls have the same Freq setting of 50%, which equals a prepause of 1.00 seconds, but the pause between ball#5 and ball#1 is more than that, i measured something around 2.0s, how come?". Then i would comment "thx for being clear in your post, anyway this is not normal Nova behaviour and i doht experience such a thing on my unit sorry caht help, possibly yours is faulty (which i doht believe it really is)".

Ok no worries, I'll check the next time I've got the robot set up and get back to you with more specifics

 

[plunder]

ref: https://pongbotsports.com/table-tennis-user-feedback-survey/

Share Your PONGBOT Experience​

Product Category: Table Tennis Robots 🏓​

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Product Model: NOVA S PRO 🇨🇳​

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Summary rating: 😐😐😐😐🫥 4/5​

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How long have you been playing table tennis? Yes 👴​

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What is your skill level? Intermediate 👻​

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Which of the following best describes you? Others ♣️​

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How frequently do you use your PONGBOT robot? 4-7 times monthly 🤥​

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How often do you use the robot each week, and how long is each training session? Frequency: 1-2 times per week; Duration: 90 -180 minutes per session 🤪​

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Which of the following best describes how you primarily use your PONGBOT robot? Personal practice🍆, Competitive training🤺​

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In which situations do you usually use the robot? Home training 🏡​

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What are the main reasons you chose the PONGBOT robot? Portability and ease of installation, Others: realistic Spin (underspin levels, sidespin cerves), versatility of robot location ​

How would you rate the user-friendliness of the PONGBOT mobile app? Average 😛​

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Did you encounter any difficulty using or setting up the mobile app? If yes, please describe the issue briefly. ​

No difficulties with the mobile app. While the app looks more stylish/modern/pretty, it's not as efficient, sophisticated, mature, and deeply developed as the Powerpong Omega (PPO) app. There is no doubt that both apps will remain essentially unchanged, even in distant future. I find the Nova app acceptable and can live with it.😩 The functionality, versatility, and ball quality are Pongbot's strengths, not the app itself!​

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What features of our robot do you like most?​

With the modded wheels, the ball quality remains consistently high (spin, speed, placement, precision, consistency, realism) even after tens of thousands of hits or at max spin rates.👌 The ball delivery (feed) is reliable. And I even like the changing color LED's 🌈along with the changing pitches🙉. Great versatility: I also make good use of placing the Nova at pos7, pos9, and well beyond the pontable, which I like and appreciate; not only for cerve receive practice but also for Slow Spinny Loops, and Hard Topspins. I also appreciate that the Nova accepts and processes cracked balls; the modded wheels crack them in the first place haha but they are still usable with this robot, which is really fun/funny .​

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How easy and convenient was our robot to use?​

Once the Custom Drills are set up and fine-tuned, the robot is very easy, efficient and comfortable to use, making it completely usable for full training sessions.👍 However, it takes "hours" to create a multiball Custom Drill⏳, and that caht be done during a training session where you need to stay in the flow.🌊 🚤​

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What are the main issues you've encountered while using the robot? Others:​

While all robots and apps have a few idiosyncrasies you have to live with, the only major issue with the Nova was the need for frequent tedious Wheel Maintenance. At max Spin rate, the hard rubber surface of the wheels would get clogged and spin performance would quickly deteriorate. I solved this problem completely (and I'm still waiting for my Pulitzer🏆 for it), so now my Nova unit doesn't have any major problems. So far so good. 🤷‍♀️​

Are there any features that did not meet your expectations? Please explain.​

Coming from the Omni app, I do not appreciate that the Nova app is obviously an INTENTIONALLY crippled version of the Omni app. 🤬For example, there is no more online sharing feature of Custom Drills (online library📚 by the cloud-connected users). And my own huge list of Custom Drills caht be sorted into folders anymore.📂​

And as everyone else criticized, the pre-programmed drills cannot be edited (or duplicated and then edited). It took me effing 3 days to re-create the pre-programmed drills as Custom Drills where I can now use them as templates.​

In other words, the lack of Nova app features (compared with the wealth of Omni app features) did not meet my expectations!!​

Nova's not Omni's limitation: the robot cannot produce balls (cerves or non-cerves, doesn't matter) that are short AND have a significant amount of spin, e.g. it cannot produce short spinny cerves or short high quality pushes. Nor can it produce fast spinny topspins or actually slow spinny loops. Placing the Nova well back from the pontable can remedy this limitation to some extent. In summary, due to the 2-wheels system, robi2 cannot produce slow balls with MUCH underspin (so-called high quality pushes). robi2 cannot produce fast balls with MUCH topspin (so-called hard topspins). robi2 cannot produce slow balls with MUCH topspin (so-called Slow Spinny Loops). but robi2 can produce fast balls with MUCH underspin (so-called balls to the moon).​

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What new features would you like us to add to our robots in the future?​

New feature wanted: I would like you to make other, alternative wheels (rollers) available.⚙️ Basically, ones that can be user-fitted with replacement rubber bands (wide rubber rings: smooth rings or pimpled rings) during maintenance cycles. Such rubber bands wear out slowly and age eventually, but are easy and very cheap to replace. I had submitted wheel designs for this idea, but never got a response wtf.🤷‍♂️ In contrast, the hard rubber material "Elastollan® Soft 45 A P" from BASF wears down the balls and thereby becomes clogged. I am living proof that rubber bands function much better as a roller surface than your wear-resistant BASF hard rubber! I continue to use modded wheels as shown in the review thread with total success. Since then, I have never had to clean the rollers again!​

And i would appreciate an app setting which allows me to turn off the LED lights; without the LED lights, the balls are more challenging/fun (to read the spin variations), and the power consumption would be considerably less, which becomes important when using the Nova as a portable ball machine with a 24V powerbank (i got one!!).​

Other than that, no new features are needed, honestly. Just keep improving the device build, the product quality and the mobile app. 😎​

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Did you encounter any problems while using our robot? If so, did you receive prompt support from our team?​

After unboxing, I did have to disassemble parts of the robot to fix a neck alignment issue (and learned a lot about the build in the process omfg👎🤦🏻‍♂️), but that didn't require any help from your support team. I've been using the robot to the fullest and haven't had any problems with it, also because I've managed to avoid having to maintain the wheels. The remote control for offline use is .​

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In your opinion, what are the main gaps between the current product and your actual training needs?​

Differences in response speed compared to human training partners. The user should be able to set a small pause between the repeating ball sequences of a drill, as seen in the sophisticated PPO app. The Nova app has a lot of room for further development! 😶‍🌫️​

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Would you recommend our robot to others, or consider purchasing other products from us in the future?​

Function, usability, ball quality are likeable enough. Nova is new to the market with no track record of longevity🤔, and I doht agree with/approve of some/many of the engineering details/decisions of the build, so no I wouldn't just recommend it yet, sollie I doht trust the China-made product quality. 🙅🏻‍♂️ Yes I would consider giving other products from you a chance as well! 🫴​

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How did you first learn about PONGBOT?​

Forums ​

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What encouraged you to choose PONGBOT over other robot brands available in the market?​

I interpreted plunder's kick*$$ voluntary on-going review efforts/commitment on TTD forum as a product worth trying, because his details let me know what to expect, the good the bad and the ugly. "Ships from Amazon" also helped with my order decision. The price seemed reasonable/acceptable, not otherwordly, too. 🤑And it's the latest, most modern, new robot development project on the market, with Bluetooth, WiFi/WLAN, and Cloud connectivity. I'd prefer robustness, longevity, track record, maintainability, and product quality —all of which the PPO stands for (which i proudly own too)— but Pongbots have a true appeal thru their flair of being uptodate high-tech. I believe that Pongbots have set a new reference and all shoppers should start their first robot experience here.🫡​

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Overall, how satisfied are you with the product? 7/10 🥹​

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On a scale of 1-10, how likely are you to continue using our product regularly as part of your training routine? 10/10 📈​

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Do you have any additional feedback or suggestions for improving our robot? ​

The extremely filigree detailistic internal plasticky CAD construction💅 doesn't make the Nova suitable for club use or professional use imho; the engineers didn't have "let's build and design to last" in mind rather than "let's build and design to just function".👩‍🔬 A fast internet connection (WiFi, WLAN or mobile internet) is required for the operation of the app and therefore of the robot: no internet, no use of the Pongbot!📶 In order to browse / check / edit / program a drill, you need to be physically near the powered robot🚽 AND have a live internet connection — not very convenient at all.​

My suggestion: Improve on what's already there, instead of thinking of adding additional new features on top (like what??). Or, I suggest that you re-build the Nova from scratch😝, making it better built (=in the end measurable by increased weight⚖️) and more service-friendly (for replacement of components🔧), less like a build from an engineered toy factory🎠🐣. As suggested before, alternative rollers🛞 should be provided as well.​

All in all, the Nova 1.0 —as long as it doesn't break down within 8 years (time flies, so yes, I'm serious about that tall number!)— is a money-well-spent training tool for beginners and intermediate players alike, and even makes the Omni look superfluous🤭.​

NE1 feel free to copy paste my answers into the online survey, if you agree with the content. The more ppl submit the same answers, the more weight the answers get.

 

[plunder]

With my extension, I have a capacity of about 350 balls. When the reservoir is full, there may be two or three times when the balls don't come out properly.

After that, there are no more problems.

Just confirming Yves' quote. I got 200 new balls the other day. I used 100 of them to pour on the topped-off Nova hardplastic reservoir (nominal 150 capacity), with the help of a compact DIY carton extender made out of an amazon shipping box, for a total of ~250 balls (haven't counted).

During my "3.3 K Hits" 2.5h session i ran into 3 (or 4) robi2 stops : 2 steady red LED's ("fault1"), robi2 non-responsive, needs to be turned off/on, app needs to be restarted, then the robot would try again to feed and succeed, i.e. without any human manual intervention in the reservoir! Meaning, it was imo unnecessary for the robi2 to stop in the first place, oh well.

Apart from those rare stops (typically when the total reservoir is still fulll, near ~250), the robi2 would also sometimes shoot out 2 balls in fast succession ("fault2"), yeah more frequently so when the total reservoir is still full, less so when it's ~half emptied (<150).

Neither of the 2 fault types occur when i doht use my carton extender. Maybe they wouldn't occur either, if i used a wider DIY carton extender instead, or an extender placed at the rear of the hardplastic reservoir? I'll experiment with both ideas (stay tuned) but ... maybe, just maybe, the pongbot engineers already did that and figured that the dimensions, height(!), and geometry of the original reservoir are optimal for feeding not much more than 150 balls, without the vertical ball column causing any trouble (weight, pressure, getting stuck, self-inhibition, discrete weight/pressure distribution).

Witnessing those 2 fault types, i am fully aware that robi2 has a limit of max number of balls for flawless operation and that this limit depends on the pressure and flow of balls within the total reservoir, and that again depends on the extender construction (geometry) and erh the number of balls.

In short: Doht expect to not run into (minor) problems when using a topped-off extender! The 2 fault types are very real, and you should be experiencing them, depending on what kind of extender (compact vs wide, rear vs non-rear) and how many balls at once you use.

One acceptable workaround is: having a bucket of 100 balls aside. Once the first 150 balls have passed through the robot (and landed mostly in the rolling catch net), run over to the robot, ignore the full catch net, and simply fill up the reservoir with the 100 balls from the bucket, run back, and continue with the drill.

lol

In any case, i do agree that 150 balls are not enough when doing a modified Complex Drill at 60% frequency, e.g. drill x07 (Random Drive). Having 250 balls in the extended reservoir makes all the difference.

On a side note, the x07 is an important drill and the set of values in my table is to serve as starting point only: when i do the drill i would set the Spin to 3x "0.5", then to 3x "3.0", then 3x "6.0", then 3x "10.0", then 3x "8.0", all at "40%" frequency, using "-7.0/0.0/7.0" (iirc?) for placement, and after 2 buckets increase the frequency to "50%", and finally to "60%". What i am saying is, for this particular drill (x07), no final optimal or "preferred" set of ball settings exist! The user should edit the frequency and do the drill at various (equally set) Spin settings. At low Spin rate, one can practice hard drives on both wings; at high Spin rate, one can practice near-table counter topspins or blocks; at high frequency, one practices fast reaction, fast short-arm movement on both wings, and fast bh-fh switch. Re-editing/re-saving x07 over and over again goes fast, so it's the way to go, there's no need to create separate cryptic drills (x07-a, x07-b, x07-c, etc, nobody needs that!).

last night i had a nightmare episode about one rubber band having snapped, it was in tatters, i saw the shreds and rubber dust in the housing and thought 'hah it has finally happened the constant wear and tear took its toll let's sum the total <hours and hits> and share the report on the forum!'. the dream was picturesque, i still keep images of what i had "seen" and what i had thought in that dream but at no point did i realize that i was dreaming, it was not a lucid dream! i wasn't too disappointed in the snapping because by that time the rubber had been in extensive use with tens of thousands of hits over several weeks, so for an already acceptably long\short period. In that dream i also thought of ordering more supply of the rubber band 🎀. When i woke up in the morning, i had totally forgotten about the dream episode. Now, hours later, I'm remembering it lol, and feeling relieved that the snapping has never happened. Hasn't happened yet. Fantastic reversible mod, already worth a certification. The eventual snapping has to be a matter of time only, because there is constant abrasion, as seen by the rubber dust and rubber particles on the table after every session. Ofc I'll report as soon as it happens, and then give my final evaluation of the mod. The fact of having a nightmare about the eventuality is too funny, as it shows my unnecessary false fears about the band's performance over time. Again, this geman band would get an A+ rating (for our purposes) from me, if it keeps performing without snapping for a total of 6 months; i couldn't expect any longer period after such extreme abuse on the rollers (overstretch, abrasion). So far it has earned an A- grade, and the grade keeps improving over time. Thought you might enjoy reading this personal share haha.

 

[Yves2B]

Hello everyone

With my 200-ball extension, defect #2 occurs at most twice per session and only when the reservoir is full.

If I make another 200-ball extension, I will modify its geometric design: pyramid shape with gentle inverted slopes so that the weight supported by the mechanism is less.

About 6 weeks ago, I tore a femoral ligament. I was only able to train with the robot and exclusively statically, no movement with the legs

With no more pain, I went back to playing in the club room for real with partners.

I was completely lost; everything I could do with the robot, I failed with a human player in front of me, a rather unpleasant sensation.

If any of you have already been forced to stop playing ping pong for several weeks and played only with a robot, have you noticed the same phenomenon?

Have a good day everyone.

 

[plunder]

this post will be expanded in near future, so far just this:

i've received my order 🤑 of a multi-voltage (5-24V/0.1V) 4x21700 powerbank, with its lit. digital display showing real-time voltage, current, charge percentage, and operating modes. such powerbanks are nothing new, see youtube. notable trading companies specialized in the 24V portable powerbank market (EU) are XTPower, reVolt, Pweite, Omnicharge, and Sharge. for the lowest price total, i had ordered a Pweite model. amazing stuff, one can fast charge these powerbanks with the 24V power adapter of robi1/robi2 (or through a USB-C charging cable from a USB-hub) either of which uses a DC5525 barrel connector interface. even though the powerbank has a DC5521 socket (and comes with a DC5521-to-DC5521 cable), it can be charged directly through our 24V power adapter which has a DC5525 plug (because of the official DC5525plug-DC5521socket-compatibility). in contrast, when you want to use the 5521 cable for powering the robi2, you need to use the included DC5521-to-DC5525 adapter piece. my old Omnicharge 4x18650 powerbank has a DC5521 input port too btw. so if you doht want to handle adapter pieces 😵‍💫 between the powerbank and the robi2 (you'll lose it sooner or later, trust me!), you'd have to buy a short DC5521-to-DC5525 cable (male-to-male, they exist in 1m but are rare anyway (B0F42WZ7R9, B0DY5BSMQ6, B0DRW5B6NX)). i would buy, but 1m is unacceptable. (...) ah scratch that, we can just buy a short DC5525-to-DC5525 cable because of the aforementioned compatibility!! (10000117266852, 1005005944114611, 1005007030518218, 1005007260117057)

The powerbank shows that the idle current draw of the robi2 is around 540mA ("0.54A"), which equals 13W power. When the robi2 does non-stop Tomahawk cerves at max Spin, the current fluctuates around 690mA, which isn't much higher than the idle draw. For a first quick test, i did some 500hits while the charge percentage slowly decreased from 100% to 89%. For 1 full robi2pon session, i'd typically do between 2.5K and 3.5K hits within 2.5h to 3.0h, i.e. 6x as much. If 11% charge percentage were worth 500hits (linear relation), a full charge of the powerbank (= ~73Wh of total energy) should be more than sufficient for 1 full robi2pon session. "- The lights on the head of the robot are bright, so if you are looking at it for 3+ mins, chances are your eyes may get watery or tired. Happens to me every time i play", ... that's what an amazon customer complained about. I enjoy the LED lighting but it prompts me to think that much of the idle current draw could be due to the powering of the 2 LED lights. If that is so, i would love to have a setting in the app, allowing me to turn off the LED lights! This would reduce the power consumption and also make the balls more challenging because of the lack of the color visual clues.

Anyway, a rough calculation would suggest up to 4.5h of session time, in theory.

In practice, I am going to do several full training sessions with robi2, always starting with a fully charged powerbank. Then we'll know for how long 1 full charge lasts in a real-world environment, i.e. including idling phases when i gather the outlying balls and refill the expanded reservoir (~250 balls). Stay tuned!

Q: When do we need a power bank to run the Nova?

A: When we take the robot to another location (friend's house, club, show, etc.) AND do not want to be bothered with cable management and outlets nearby. Even if you had a power outlet in the gym AND a very long power cable (extension cord), i.e. you were able to power the robot regularly, you'd still be annoyed by the long cable (and the power brick) on the floor, hindering the free movement of the players and the rolling catch net.

Q: Does the power bank alone make the Nova a great training tool in the middle of a gym?

A: Imho no, because your shots would end up all over the place! No matter where in the gym you set up the pontable with the Nova and the power bank, you'd still want a Nova catch net or a rolling catch net in addition. But typically you wouldn't take one with you (to friends, clubs, shows, etc.), and a club or friend usually doesn't have one in inventory. You could set up the pontable in the far corner of the gym ... but even then you wouldn't like the fact that none of the balls landed in a net! You'd have to pick up every single ball you hit from the floor, ugh! Sure, I've seen multiball training near a wall with no net at all, but i found such "setups" to be absolutely idiotic. In short, if my carry destination doesn't have a net, i'm not going to bring my Nova power bank combo e** that.

Q: Is your powerbank suitable for the Omni too?

A: I doht know. But it is an idea to use the Omni in a club environment because the robot comes with a catch net. I doht know the power requirements of the Omni, sorry.

Q: Is your powerbank suitable for the robi1?

A: I doht know yet. For sure it meets the robi1 power requirements. The suitability will depend on whether one can do full training sessions (90-180min) on a single charge. I'm going to test that later this year. These weeks i am preferring robi2 to the robi1 for my personal training requirements. My modded robi2 has been performing well, am just wondering when it will break down hehe.

EDIT: It's actually quite nice to operate the Nova cablefree, just with a powerbank. Whenever i run robi2 from the powerbank, i am going to record the stats here.

1. 100% down to 23%, in 3h5min, [100:3.3 K], net 03:02:47h; charging from 23% up to 100% in 1:16:26h
2. (tba)

The powerbank can be charged with 96W charging power, looks like i am operating the powerbrick out of spec lol:

After ~75min the powerbank is back fully charged:

I was able to do a full training session of 3.0h and there was still 23% capacity left. I'll do more training sessions with different drills but from this first test we can already conclude that a powerbank has enough capacity for 3-4h of Nova operation! Recharging took only 75min as shown above. So it's 3.0h vs. 75min, excellent ratio!

 

[CezarH]

Hello @plunder,

Very nice and detailed setup for the tomahawk servers and thanks for those.
I was wondering if you have any setups for custom drills for short serves with sidespin? Or if you can suggest some of the predefined drills that can be used to practice short sidespin serves?

Thanks!

 

[plunder]

Hi Cezar, congrats to your very first post on TTD forum! 🎉

You're interested in short sidespin cerves? — Best i could do was through the setup from post#62, please re-study. I called them "Shortish Tomahawk", and they're imho short enough if not short. The general problem with the Nova is that it cannot eject slow balls with extreme spin! If you looked at the wheels, how they rotate, and how the balls are ejected, you'd understand (since this is true for all 2-wheels robots, i woht create a post on the detailed mechanics/explanation of this phenomenon).

Tomahawks are only interesting when they are very spinny.

And for this, one wheel has to rotate at extreme rotational speed.

With the Nova ejection system, this results in a fast ball.

And obviously, when the ball is thrown out at fast speed, it is rather impossible to produce a short cerve with it! (((none of the pre-defined drills are cerves or very spinny; since one cannot edit their ball settings, there's no way of producing sidespin cerves from them let alone short sidespin cerves)))

We need to learn and accept that 2-wheels robots come with inherent technical limitations with regard to the Speed-vs-Spin interrelationship, and that includes our Nova (and i'd bet the Omni too!) robot for sure.

In summary, if you are looking for short superspinny sidespin cerves, then you'd have to look elsewhere because the Nova and the Omni caht do it

 

[plunder]

• Time will tell how long (weeks, months, or number of shots) 1 pair will last me. At this point i am going to assume 6 months. Rubbers age ... so at one point the material degradation will lead to failure (snap!). Depending on such observations, i'll order more of the rubber hose stuff. Prolly you doht really need the mod. But i do. I am a power Nova user! 😛

Today's 2025-04-21, the above quote is from 2025-02-28, so i am counting the hits from that point on: ~46.6 K hits (for 20 sessions). (EDIT: now that you have seen my stats, what is your average of hits per session?, let's share!) I also recorded the total time but the number of hits is more relevant to the consumption of the rubber band. Anyway, a few sessions ago i noticed that the upper wheel's band became darker at the mid trace, a sign of getting thinner (material thickness). From that point on, it was a matter of time only that the band would tear and today i noticed a tear hole before starting the robi2pon session, while the lower wheel's band is still intact:

Let's have a nicer look:

It was easy to tear it off from the wheel (let's call it wheel1), the rubber residues weigh 2.41g. From the shine-through, you could tell that the mid trace is thinner! The replacement rubber band "new1a" weighs 2.84g. Installed on the wheel1 with that superglue, the wheel1 total weight is 16.73g, good to know as reference. The diameter at the mid trace is 51.6-51.9mm, meaning that the diameter is not geometrically circular — but it will become so after a thousand hits:

So let's think about it. I had 20 sessions with an average of 2.3 K hits per session within almost 2.0 months, which is quite a lot. Let's assume that, from now on, i averaged 3.0 K hits per session, then we could expect new1a to fail after 15-16 sessions. Since i do robi2pon regularly, say 1-2 times per week (in future), I should expect new1a to last me at least 2.0 months, as before.

2 months life expectancy is much less than the 6 months. It'll be up to 5 months, if i trained with robi2 only once per week ( 4sess/mo × 5mo = 20sess = 46.6 K hits = new1a failure! ).

All these are rough numbers, estimations, based on a single data point. I'll edit this post when new1a fails, new1b fails, etc. Also interesting to note that the lower wheel's band looks far from failure (wheel2: new2a, new2b, etc). In any case, obviously, the (upper) rubber band "new1.." is to be regarded as consumable and requires replacement on a regular basis, say every 2-5 months. In theory it is inexpensive stuff but the rubber hose (from which i cut the rings) needs to be ordered in bulk quantity which makes the moq very expensive. Post in this thread if you need the rubber hose too (but caht source it in your county).

EDIT (2025-08-22): here is our 2nd data point for wheel1, from 2025-04-22 on, i had ~31.2 K hits (for 11 sessions). 16.37g total1, eol reached, obviously 0.36g was consumed, rubber band needs to be exchanged:

so this is today's new1b (i cut a few more rubber spares for the remainder of dis year, for wheel1 or wheel2), lemme operate it without the use of super glue:

EDIT (2025-09-21): new1b (16.90g) has torn similarly (16.73g) and needs a replacement (new1c). This happened only after 6 sessions (= 13h25min total), oh well 🤷‍♀️. The good news is that the upper wheel (=wheel1) doesn't need any glue. And if i doht span the rubber again so much at/to the sides (rim), it also should last longer. Still a happy camper here. Funnily new1c weighs 16.73g too right now.