Throw angle of rubbers

[Der_Echte]

Tropical, Yasaka tried to do this in the manner you desire with their Extend series of rubbers. On the back of the package they drew a flight chart of ball over table with their three versions.

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[Baal]

Yeap .. I want an easy answer. A chart is the best. Why the Hell I want to hear complex explanations for a simple term.

Here is a simpler one. With lower throw angle rubbers, aim a little higher. With high throw rubbers make sure you stay on the top of the ball to keep it on the table.

That is as simple as it gets and really all you need to know (and apparently it is all you can handle). As for which rubbers throw high or low? You just have to read reviews or try a bunch and see for yourself.

The video I posted above will tell you why you won't get the charts.

Just because some phenomenon has a simple name doesn't mean that everything that goes into it is simple. If you deny that reality you are either a fool or a troll.

 

[Baal]

I think the possibility is this term come from Butterfly who is notorious in marketing and exploitation of TT players. This term has no industry standard and is applicable to ONLY this special brand "Tenergy", right?

Throw angle is more meaningful than "control", which is not saying much. I don't think the term "throw angle" originated with Butterfly to describe Tenergy and people here use it to describe all sorts of non-Btfly rubbers. See for example discussions of various Evolution rubbers from Tibhar.

Control? Control of what????? Spin? Speed? Placement? Trajectory? Most of the time those control ratings just mean the reciprocal of the speed of a rubber. Anything else is completely subjective. Play for long and you will quickly learn they don't mean a lot.

Industry standard? In table tennis? That's a joke. Different companies use completely different ways of describing the speed of their rubbers. There is no uniform scale for anything.

 

[tropical]

Throw angle is more meaningful than "control", which is not saying much. I don't think the term "throw angle" originated with Butterfly to describe Tenergy and people here use it to describe all sorts of non-Btfly rubbers. See for example discussions of various Evolution rubbers from Tibhar.

Control? Control of what????? Spin? Speed? Placement? Trajectory? Most of the time those control ratings just mean the reciprocal of the speed of a rubber. Anything else is completely subjective. Play for long and you will quickly learn they don't mean a lot.

Industry standard? In table tennis? That's a joke. Different companies use completely different ways of describing the speed of their rubbers. There is no uniform scale for anything.

I do not think you are an engineer so you do not understand what calls "standardization". Some people challenged us in defining L10 life for fan and when we came up with a standard they all shut up. Hope one day more standards will be used in TT or any sports so someone can learn and shut up.

 

[Baal]

No. I am a scientist not an engineer*.

But I do know there is no industry wide standardization in TT rubber ratings. Not for speed. Not for spin. Not for "control" whatever that is supposed to mean. And not for throw angle. But, throw angle really does mean something to experienced players, as you have seen, and will learn when you have tried enough different rubbers.

It would be nice if such a standard existed. What we have are databases where people have given their impressions of how rubbers and blades behave from playing with them. Not a very scientific way of doing it. But it's all we have. Companies have a vested interest in continuing a confusion and blizzard of slightly different rubbers.


* In my experience, engineers always seem to think they have all the answers, whereas scientists know that we don't.

 

[tropical]

No. I am a scientist not an engineer.

But I do know there is no industry wide standardization in TT rubber ratings. Not for speed. Not for spin. Not for "control" whatever that is supposed to mean. And not for throw angle. But, throw angle really does mean something.

It would be nice if such a thing existed.

Exactly like I thought that you are not one of us as we are more practical. I dealt with industry standards quite a bit . Even in gap pad (rubber like materials) cooling where industry standard is missing and no one dare to touch, we have to try to come up with something so that our engineers can understand and use the materials effectively to their applications. Same thing happens here. It is because manufacturers treat equipment's as secrets and afraid someone else may copy theirs. Industry standardization is needed and will reduce this ambiguity so that anyone can understand and buy equipment's much easier.

Let's talk about speed. A blade with 80 over 100 speed must be defined clearly. 100, for example, is the speed of the hardest material when no energy is lost. 0 is 100% energy absorbed. 80 is thus can be defined.

Spin, control can be done the same analogy once I have more time.

 

[Baal]

Well, have at it. You need to define the terms. All of them. Find a reliable way to measure them. Convince companies to all adopt it and make the measurements. Or get ITTF to mandate it.

At the end of the day, will it make choosing a rubber easier? Maybe. If the things measured actually translate to something real for players, sure. Throw angle would be a good one to include. It is real.

Yep. Engineers, especially "table tennis engineers" always think they have all the answers. By the way, do you have a twin brother who lives in the Portland, OR/Vancouver WA area?

 

[Baal]

By the way, of course companies want to protect their proprietary stuff! Some of what goes into their rubbers is secret.

More to the point, though, they have no interest in making it easier for players to make easy rational choices. They introduce a gazillion slightly different products and then rely on EJs who will try all of them. Take Donic for example. How many versions of Bluefire do they sell? Or Xiom? How many Omega rubbers do they make? Tibhar now sells 6 different versions of Evolution, and Butterfly has 8 versions of Tenergy! They want you to try every one of them, and then the next thing they come up with too. There aren't that many professional players in the world, and they mostly get their rubber for free.

Companies get their profits from amateurs and especially from EJs.

EJ = equipment junky, a person addicted to trying every new piece of equipment that is sold, usually but not always in the vain hope that it will lead to some improvement in their game. The degree of addiction varies.

 

[tropical]

Well, have at it. You need to define the terms. All of them. Find a reliable way to measure them. Convince companies to all adopt it and make the measurements. Or get ITTF to mandate it.

At the end of the day, will it make choosing a rubber easier? Maybe. If the things measured actually translate to something real for players, sure. Throw angle would be a good one to include. It is real.

Yep. Engineers, especially "table tennis engineers" always think they have all the answers. By the way, do you have a twin brother who lives in the Portland, OR/Vancouver WA area?

Wow.. now I have another brother who I do not know. I know you love to mock people. Hey you know what ... be nice to people and don't attempt to teach people too much. Ha ha my physics teacher in college was an AH. Engineers are practical but we are not AH.

 

[tropical]

By the way, of course companies want to protect their proprietary stuff! Some of what goes into their rubbers is secret.

More to the point, though, they have no interest in making it easier for players to make easy rational choices. They introduce a gazillion slightly different products and then rely on EJs who will try all of them. Take Donic for example. How many versions of Bluefire do they sell? Or Xiom? How many Omega rubbers do they make? Tibhar now sells 6 different versions of Evolution, and Butterfly has 8 versions of Tenergy! They want you to try every one of them, and then the next thing they come up with too. There aren't that many professional players in the world, and they mostly get their rubber for free.

Companies get their profits from amateurs and especially from EJs.

EJ = equipment junky, a person addicted to trying every new piece of equipment that is sold, usually but not always in the vain hope that it will lead to some improvement in their game. The degree of addiction varies.

It is hard to argue to people who think they know everything.

One day if I work for Butterfly I will help develop industry standard like I do for my thermal/heat products. This is a big IF. But I tell you I know what I am talking about and you don't.

 

[Baal]

I am sure you know all sorts of engineering stuff and how to make a standard for whatever it is you used to work on back when you had a job, making vacuum tubes or rubber insulators or fans or whatever. Back when men were men damn it!!!

Of course this is a table tennis forum and you have revealed a lot of profound ignorance about table tennis. God save us from table tennis engineers. I will let other people communicate with you now. I am through.

 

[NextLevel]

LEt's try again...

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=mCXqFx0BrU4&feature=youtu.be&t=422&app=desktop

No time for such. Just go to the point.

 

[genrel001]

Let's talk about speed. A blade with 80 over 100 speed must be defined clearly. 100, for example, is the speed of the hardest material when no energy is lost. 0 is 100% energy absorbed. 80 is thus can be defined.

Spin, control can be done the same analogy once I have more time.

I like this idea. Surely there's an easy way to do this. Like say when trying to get the speed of the blade, we hit different blades with a ball with constant speed and mass. Then try to record the dwell time on the blade by the ball (this might need a high speed camera), the longer the dwell time the lower the speed rating. Then of all the different blades tested we will get the mean and that will be rated as say, 5.0. Then other will be computed accordingly. This is just a simple suggestion but I'm sure you guys may have better idea than this.

This may not cover all of the blades in the market for example but at least say, we try 20 of the most popular blades then we can easily assume the speed of other blades as well with the tested blades as basis.

This may apply to rubbers as well.

I bet you guys are also EJ's so the materials to be tested may not be hard to find. And we have engineers and scientists here, this will be easy.

 

[Baal]

I like this idea. Surely there's an easy way to do this. Like say when trying to get the speed of the blade, we hit different blades with a ball with constant speed and mass. Then try to record the dwell time on the blade by the ball (this might need a high speed camera), the longer the dwell time the lower the speed rating. Then of all the different blades tested we will get the mean and that will be rated as say, 5.0. Then other will be computed accordingly. This is just a simple suggestion but I'm sure you guys may have better idea than this.

This is the video I was looking for where Debater tried to setup an apparatus to do this kind of thing. He has made a lot of pretty interesting videos using a fairly high speed camera that he has to address some of the questions people have about table tennis equipment, and he is a careful and thoughtful guy. At the end, you can see it can be hard to control every variable you need and so the conclusions are not as clear as you would have imagined you would get going into it. For quite awhile we used to exchange emails on how to do some of these tests and to also critique tests (mostly we are trying to figure out 40+ balls a few years ago when they first came out).

Anyway, this video is pretty much to the point here (better than the one I posted on the previous page). Watch tnis and you will realize that even if some peoplevwant things to be simple, and think they should be, they are not. Table tennis rubber is a very complex material. This video probably reveals more about thow angle than anything else on the internet.

 

[pgpg]

Exactly like I thought that you are not one of us as we are more practical. I dealt with industry standards quite a bit . Even in gap pad (rubber like materials) cooling where industry standard is missing and no one dare to touch, we have to try to come up with something so that our engineers can understand and use the materials effectively to their applications. Same thing happens here. It is because manufacturers treat equipment's as secrets and afraid someone else may copy theirs. Industry standardization is needed and will reduce this ambiguity so that anyone can understand and buy equipment's much easier.

Let's talk about speed. A blade with 80 over 100 speed must be defined clearly. 100, for example, is the speed of the hardest material when no energy is lost. 0 is 100% energy absorbed. 80 is thus can be defined.

Spin, control can be done the same analogy once I have more time.

There used to be a user on this forum ('Pnachtwey'), who was getting into arguments very similar to the ones you are in right now. I'm not saying you are his doppelganger, just that I've heard it before. A lot. It did not end well.

IMHO, there is a big difference between industry standards for stuff you typically work with (materials, components etc.) and TT rubber characteristics which are pretty much marketing gobbledygook, designed to make you feel good about your purchase: 'this rubber is rated 9 for speed, 10 for control and 11 for spin!'. Of course it is...

Edit: There is some value in these numbers, mostly to compare/rank offerings from the same brand - I expect rubber with speed rating of 6 to be more 'dead' compared to another rated at 10. I would not trust any inter-brand comparisons, and in general have no idea what to do with Control rating (silly me, I think control comes mostly from the player...).

 

[genrel001]

This is the video I was looking for where Debater tried to setup an apparatus to do this kind of thing. He has made a lot of pretty interesting videos using a fairly high speed camera that he has to address some of the questions people have about table tennis equipment, and he is a careful and thoughtful guy. At the end, you can see it can be hard to control every variable you need and so the conclusions are not as clear as you would have imagined you would get going into it. For quite awhile we used to exchange emails on how to do some of these tests and to also critique tests (mostly we are trying to figure out 40+ balls a few years ago when they first came out).

Anyway, this video is pretty much to the point here (better than the one I posted on the previous page). Watch tnis and you will realize that even if some peoplevwant things to be simple, and think they should be, they are not. Table tennis rubber is a very complex material. This video probably reveals more about thow angle than anything else on the internet.

Thanks! The vid was amazing. Still many factors to consider. You're right TT rubbers are more complex than we know it.

 

[Tenergy05]

I like this idea. Surely there's an easy way to do this. Like say when trying to get the speed of the blade, we hit different blades with a ball with constant speed and mass. Then try to record the dwell time on the blade by the ball (this might need a high speed camera), the longer the dwell time the lower the speed rating. Then of all the different blades tested we will get the mean and that will be rated as say, 5.0. Then other will be computed accordingly. This is just a simple suggestion but I'm sure you guys may have better idea than this.

This may not cover all of the blades in the market for example but at least say, we try 20 of the most popular blades then we can easily assume the speed of other blades as well with the tested blades as basis.

This may apply to rubbers as well.

I bet you guys are also EJ's so the materials to be tested may not be hard to find. And we have engineers and scientists here, this will be easy.

What you're talking about is possible. Most certainly rubbers have a "speed", a ratio of the incoming speed vs outgoing. They also certainly have a throw, of similar ratio but with angles. More likely than not, some relationship between the two can define "spin". If you've ever tried high vs low throw rubbers of otherwise similar base material, like ESN varieties of same generation, the former will spin more and create that "high arc".

This is my experience after experimenting with different rubbers. But I also find that if you read a review from a sensitive player, their impression of the throw or arc, and speed will give a pretty good impression of what to expect.

I've also seen the butterfly tenergy video, and what they say about 05, 80, 64 at least is true from experience.

 

[Baal]

@genre,

From that video, you can see, it is not as easy as it seems at first thought to try to come up with firm conclusions because so many factors go into determining how a ball comes off the rubber. He did this a number of years ago. It would be interesting to have compared some of the Tenergy rubbers to try to tease out the role of pip structure. But it was so much work for what he did, I am sure he had no interest in doing it again (that last video took him 10 months!)

You may like this video too too. This is the third one in the series. In this one he does blind testing of rubber, including speed, spin, push, serve, chop, power loop, brush loop, smash, and some incredibly vague thing called "control". It was the same question, what is the difference between 2.0 and 2.2 mm sponge? What is interesting is how players of different levels come up with very different conclusions. Especially how two players give completely different control ratings because one player especially wants to control his push and another is more concerned about controlling his topspin.

 

[Baal]

But I also find that if you read a review from a sensitive player, their impression of the throw or arc, and speed will give a pretty good impression of what to expect.

I've also seen the butterfly tenergy video, and what they say about 05, 80, 64 at least is true from experience.

Yes, I completely agree on both counts, at least for speed and spin and throw, especially from some of the reviewers here who I know have tried a lot of different things and who I know have a history of liking the same kinds of rubbers that I do. In time you kind of figure out who some of these people are. Patrick, Yogi Bear, Andy Smith, NL, are a few of the people here who's reviews have been spot on when I tried the rubbers myself. Other people too. (There is still nothing like trying stuff yourself, though).

The Tenergy series is really interesting because the only thing different between 05, 25, 64, and 80 is the structure of the pips on the inner surface. The effects are quite complex, and depend on the diameter and shape of the pips. I am sure Butterfly has all sorts of high-speed video testing they do but keep pretty secret (since after all, the idea of measuring these properties under really controlled conditions is hardly new).

The rubber I am using now, Karis M, has gone about as close as you can go to eliminating the pips on the inner surface of the top sheet, while still being legal according to ITTF. I have to say, it makes the rubber a lot easier to figure out from a player's perspective. The topsheet is also really thin and soft. The idea is to make it really work in unison with the sponge. It reduces some of the high end performance but makes it really predictable, which I am liking.

 

[Tenergy05]

Yes, I completely agree on both counts, at least for speed and spin and throw, especially from some of the reviewers here who I know have tried a lot of different things.

The Tenergy series is really interesting because the only thing different between 05, 25, 64, and 80 is the structure of the pips on the inner surface. The effects are quite complex, and depend on the diameter and shape of the pips.

The rubber I am using now, Karis M, has gone about as close as you can go to eliminating the pips on the inner surface of the top sheet, while still being legal according to ITTF. I have to say, it makes the rubber a lot easier to figure out. The topsheet is also really thin and soft. The idea is to make it really work in unison with the sponge. It reduces some of the high end performance but makes it really predictable, which I am liking.

Surely what you can see for tenergy, also applies to other rubber like evolution, where we can draw a similar spectrum of throw. Then we can also compare the throw/arc of tenergy and evo, where I feel mx-p is somewhere between 80 and 64.

Maybe there are some nuanced differences, but it's hard to imagine a given level player with one rubber cannot adapt to this other similar rubber. For example I used bluefire M2 for a few months, and then Evolution mx-p of same esn generation, and then Tenergy 80 which I think has closest arc to m2. And found without changing much would only lose about 1-2 points per game at first, then play same as before after few weeks. If I now change to 05, it would take slightly longer because loop would arc more, but blocks get more tricky, and if from 05 to another high thrower it would also be a relative smaller change.