The best video of a Carbon Fiber shafts deflection testing with a robot arm

[Mirza]

This is the best video of a Carbon Fiber shafts deflection testing that I've seen to date, it uses a robot arm with a consistent strength and placing of tip on the CB, as well as precise measuring of the speed of the CB and the deflection.

New J. Flowers SMO shaft is apparently better than Revo, Ignite and Cynergy shafts?

SMO stands for Strickland-Morris-Orcollo who supposedly colaborated with J. Flowers on the making of this shaft.

Thoughts?

 

[Nick B]

I would like to see more data. Lets say 1 m/s~7m/S in increments of .5m/S. Then the same thing at 1/2, 1, 1.5 & 2Tips of offset. Not just one data point which might be it's sweet-spot. Don't get me started on pivot lengths etc. All in all it looks like a decent performer.

 

[straightline]

7mph is apparently harder than I break.

 

[Jimmorrison]

Meters per second, in the video it looks like the shot was about 16 MPH

 

[Jimmorrison]

About 16 mph for the center ball shot, about 12mph for the spin shot

 

[klikr]

rising deflection could also be attributed to sinking shot speed. I agree with @Nick B here: to be scientific, we would need much more data points...

On the other hand, when I think of hardness comparisons of cue tips and what people report on these tips and what everybody "feels", a scientific approach might not be worth the effort anyway...

 

[kilby]

Well presented data. I would like to see further data using conical shafts to compare.

 

[L.S. Dennis]

Regardless of all the variables, this video is still interesting

 

[Jimmorrison]

It is interesting, and well presented, but how often does anyone hit a shot that hard? I would be more interested in the numbers at half that speed.

 

[straightline]

About 16 mph for the center ball shot, about 12mph for the spin shot

Thanks lol. I need to pay more attention.

 

[9Ballr]

What does it matter how much or little a shaft deflects the cueball?
People need to practice with their shafts and get used to them and then deflection won't matter.
Somehow the players before the first LD shaft were able to shoot with just as much spin as the modern day players to and make balls.
I use carbon because they are less likely to warp, scratch and get dinged but I get beaten by people playing solid maple shafts all the time....lol

As to this test, I found the only thing interesting about is is how much more "efficient" the carbon shafts seem to be. The traditional wood was always slower. But we don't know about the tip on these shafts either.
Also did they apply exactly the same amount of spin on every shot?
Another thing, if these balls don't all seem to be hitting the same spot in straight shots, how good is this then?

 

[hang-the-9]

This is the best video of a Carbon Fiber shafts deflection testing that I've seen to date, it uses a robot arm with a consistent strength and placing of tip on the CB, as well as precise measuring of the speed of the CB and the deflection.

New J. Flowers SMO shaft is apparently better than Revo, Ignite and Cynergy shafts?

SMO stands for Strickland-Morris-Orcollo who supposedly colaborated with J. Flowers on the making of this shaft.

Thoughts?

Have not tried that shaft, but I have played with three J Flowers CF shafts and those were not close to the deflection of the other makers. The Revo has pretty much 0 adjustments needed for spin shots, Ignite is close to that. Not sure how you can get better.

 

[hang-the-9]

It is interesting, and well presented, but how often does anyone hit a shot that hard? I would be more interested in the numbers at half that speed.

It does not matter what the test conditions were, but that the same test was done for all the shafts. Center shots should not matter for deflection but the side shot at 12mph is pretty much the max deflection you would get, so it's not a bad speed to test. I would think that the deflection difference between the shafts is consistent with the speed. So if Shaft A is 20% more than Shaft B at 5mph, it would also be 20% more at 10mph.

 

[briankenobi]

It is interesting, and well presented, but how often does anyone hit a shot that hard? I would be more interested in the numbers at half that speed.

Exactly. Need data at normal operating conditions. When I do demos to show people what deflection is, it is a "normal" stroke speed. Its like in real science. You can only state what your findings are at the conditions you test. If you state "fill in the blank happens with such and such product," but the conditions are no where near what reality is, then you can't make a general claim. You can only claim it at those specific conditions.

 

[fastone371]

Something must be wrong with my cue. According to these findings I should be missing the object ball entirely when using side spin, I aim spin shots the same way I aim straight in shots. Maybe because I use backhand english, I don't know? I have a McDermott G-core, some say that's not even a low deflection shaft, it works for me though, I don't even want a carbon low deflection shaft, I probably wouldn't make anything.

 

[briankenobi]

Something must be wrong with my cue. According to these findings I should be missing the object ball entirely when using side spin, I aim spin shots the same way I aim straight in shots. Maybe because I use backhand english, I don't know? I have a McDermott G-core, some say that's not even a low deflection shaft, it works for me though, I don't even want a carbon low deflection shaft, I probably wouldn't make anything.

The GCore shaft more of a medium deflection shaft. But like you said, as long as it works for you, who cares. I had Rodney Morris come to my pool room one night. He forgot his cues. He asked me for a cue, but not low deflection. I gave him a cue with a GCore on it and he beat everyone in the room with it. lol

 

[tg_vegas]

What does it matter how much or little a shaft deflects the cueball?
People need to practice with their shafts and get used to them and then deflection won't matter.
Somehow the players before the first LD shaft were able to shoot with just as much spin as the modern day players to and make balls.
I use carbon because they are less likely to warp, scratch and get dinged but I get beaten by people playing solid maple shafts all the time....lol

As to this test, I found the only thing interesting about is is how much more "efficient" the carbon shafts seem to be. The traditional wood was always slower. But we don't know about the tip on these shafts either.
Also did they apply exactly the same amount of spin on every shot?
Another thing, if these balls don't all seem to be hitting the same spot in straight shots, how good is this then?

I noticed that too, the center ball shots were hitting different spots on the target. I would think tip variances would also have some impact on the spin shots. A larger data set and having the same tips on all shafts might present a more reliable picture, or maybe it just confirms this small set.

 

[dquarasr]

Another thing, if these balls don't all seem to be hitting the same spot in straight shots, how good is this then?

I thought the same thing. I would have expected that the center ball hits would have hit the same point for all four shots. Clearly not the case.

Something was off, invalidating the data on spin shots.

 

[xX-Wizard-Xx]

are these tainted results .. what makes one carbon fiber shaft different from another?

 

[Rocket354]

Interesting video. Did they only do one trial per shaft/cue ball location (center/left)? I imagine they'd see differences with the same settings on the same shaft, so it would be more instructive to see a set of results for each combination. Also, they appeared to have different speeds for each shaft, even the center hit. Is the implication that each shaft transfers energy differently? Or are we just seeing the variability present even when machines are doing the work? I guess I would expect to see some differences in cue ball speed for the spin shots due to the differences in deflection, but not as much as they saw. As well, are the spin shot speeds the linear speed of the cue ball itself, or rather is it how quickly the cue ball traverses the minimum straight line distance from its starting location to the board?

Finally, each manufacturer has a variety of shafts available in its lineup (Cuetec has 12.5, 11.8, and 10.5 for example), and each manufacturer's shafts comes with different tips on it in stock configuration. Which diameter/tip version of each shaft was used?

I love seeing deflection comparisons between the various CF shafts. However, this video, particularly being made by a company with one of its shafts as one of the test subjects, was not persuasive and ultimately left me feeling there were no conclusive results.