u/Vedje

Hi all,

Some time ago I posted this and this about new padel ball pressures and padel ball pressure loss.

The question that came up most is this: Do padel ball repressurizers actually work?

The research I’ve been sharing is part of the development of our own repressurizer, Nixus, which can measure the pressure inside a padel ball and use this to effectively restore it. Our protoype is now working and I used it to validate the question above.

15 days ago, we measured some one-month-old balls that had been played with a few times. Their average pressure: 1.65 bar (absolute pressure)

We then left them in our pressurizer for 15 days and measured them again.

The new average: 1.81 bar (absolute pressure)

So yes, the balls actually gained back significant internal pressure. It also matched our model pretty closely, which predicted 15 days to get them back into spec.

For us, this was a pretty cool milestone after working on this project for the past few years.

Hi Reddit, 

One month ago, I uploaded this post about measuring the pressure of new padel balls straight out of the can. A lot of them were below the required pressure range, and I got a lot of replies and questions. 

Since then, I have kept measuring the decay of the (non-stabbed) balls to see how quickly they lose pressure over time.  During this test, the balls were not used for playing. They were just stored indoors at room temperature and measured again after two weeks and after one month. 

The result: after a month, the balls lost about 22.4% of their pressure on average.  This explains why balls sometimes start to feel very soft over time, even when they still look good, and you have barely played with them. 

I have two more tests planned:  - The first is for testing the pressure loss during play, so see how much extra pressure loss comes from hitting the balls.  - The second, which will be more challenging, is to link pressure loss to bounce height, because this is what actually matters on court.  Curious to hear what you think. If you have any other ideas for me to test, please let me know!

Hi Reddit, 

One month ago, I uploaded this post about measuring the pressure of new tennis balls straight out of the can. A lot of them were below the supplier standard, and I got a lot of replies and questions. 

Since then, I have kept measuring the decay of the (non-stabbed) balls to see how quickly they lose pressure over time. 

During this test, the balls were not used for playing. They were just stored indoors at room temperature and measured again after two weeks and after one month. 

The result: after a month, the balls lost about 22.4% of their pressure on average. 

This explains why balls sometimes start to feel very soft over time, even when they still look good, and you have barely played with them. 

I have two more tests planned: 

- The first is for testing the pressure loss during play, so see how much extra pressure loss comes from hitting. 

- The second, which will be more challenging, is to link pressure loss to bounce height, because this is what actually matters on court. 

Curious to hear what you think. If you have any other ideas for me to test, please let me know! 

 

I recently measured the internal pressure of brand-new tennis balls and found some unexpected results.

I tested 75 balls from 3 brands: Head, Wilson, and Dunlop. They came from 6 different suppliers. I measured the pressure using a hypodermic needle, as shown in the video.

The main finding: 43%(!) of the balls were already below the target pressure range, which I took to be 11.5 to 14 PSI, based on Head and Wilson websites. To be clear, this was measured only seconds after opening the can.

The biggest difference was within one Wilson model. Depending on the supplier, the lowest ball measured 0.415 bar / 6.02 PSI above atmospheric pressure, while the highest measured 0.856 bar / 12.41 PSI. That is a difference of about 51% in initial gauge pressure.

I also measured the pressure inside the cans, and this seemed to correlate strongly with the pressure inside the balls. I suspect that some cans lose pressure during storage or transport, meaning that “new” balls are not always equally fresh.

In this small sample, balls from physical retailers also seemed to have lower pressure than those from online suppliers, but I would need more data before making a strong claim about that.

If my findings are representative, it would mean that a lot of “new” balls are already softer than intended before they have ever been used.

My question is if any of you noticed this as well? For example, new cans that already feel soft or inconsistent before the first hit? Or do you think my sample may just have been very unlucky?