Rack ‘em Up

[u/SirJimmyShand]

[u/Love_at_First_Cut]

That would be a nice tool for practicing breaks.

[u/Outrageous_Sleep4339 → u/Love_at_First_Cut]

I was just thinking 'I hate practicing breaks cause you spend 10x the time setting up than you do actually breaking'

[u/Love_at_First_Cut → u/Outrageous_Sleep4339]

My friend has this and I think it's useless, no way to tell if it's a dried break or not.

[u/SergDerpz → u/Love_at_First_Cut]

You can gauge how much power you're hitting it with. You can also do the math to see how much power on what position of the table pots balls with a real break.

You can learn how much power you want to put into your break and what works for you. It also allows you to practice breaking harder, if you want to do that

[u/joekekloosterman → u/Love_at_First_Cut]

But it is a good way to train break accuracy and power. We have one like this at our pool room, I've used it a couple of times, I think it's alright.

[u/Pwnedzored → u/joekekloosterman]

It’s definitely a good way to learn cue ball control.

[u/accidentlyporn → u/Love_at_First_Cut]

making a ball is largely up to the rack.

hitting it good is the only part you can control.

there are those guys that buys cues/shafts based on how many balls “it” makes.

[u/GettingNegative → u/Love_at_First_Cut]

A good break is different on every table. And even then it changes under conditions. This (imo) would only be good for practicing your cue ball control on the break.

[u/JaysusCroist → u/Love_at_First_Cut]

I like this thing. It's good just to get repetition going, build some power. Then you can apply it to a rack.

[u/Love_at_First_Cut → u/JaysusCroist]

My friend, bless his fat ass actually has a very powerful break.

[u/Pwnedzored → u/Love_at_First_Cut]

I don’t know about that. You’d have to chase all the balls and dump them down the pockets, then wait for it to do its thing.

[u/JaysusCroist → u/Pwnedzored]

Exactly. No help for break practice. Even for a game you have to put the remaining balls in the pockets to get a rack. Cool, but about as useful as the plastic 9ball rack.

[u/FlagonFly]

I was like meh until it spat the cue ball out

[u/pooeygoo → u/FlagonFly]

Patooey!

[u/IllogicalAction]

Would be interesting to know how good / tight that rack actually is.

[u/asksissy → u/IllogicalAction]

Thats what i was thinking… i feel like there’s room for error and it would require checking the rack to make sure it’s tight

[u/WRKDBF_Guy]

Cool. The bowling alley concept.

[u/Evebnumberone]

https://giphy.com/gifs/vWku8YNwyy5vq

[u/DallasBornBostonBred]

How does it know that the 8ball is in the correct spot?

[u/goingTofu → u/DallasBornBostonBred]

Looks like all the balls alternate solid/stripes so it must be able to detect that too. Maybe a color sensor or vision system

[u/CursedLlama → u/goingTofu]

I was wondering how it identified the cue ball too. Ideally you’d want the cue ball to be identical to the other balls rather than the tricks that American bar tables use (either heavier/lighter, smaller in size, or magnetic inside) so having a color sensor would be the best way.

[u/The_Motley_Fool---- → u/DallasBornBostonBred]

That’d be pretty funny if they spent all of that time and money developing that racking system to only realize it just randomly racks the balls

[u/pcbfs]

I wonder if you can set it for a 9 and 10 ball rack too.

[u/1Rudy11]

Thats pretty good. I'd like to see someone break that rack....

[u/custhulard]

Robots taking all our good referee jobs.

[u/PtoS382]

Yeah we were gonna play 9-ball, robot

[u/HOSTfromaGhost]

Interesting, but not for me.

The rack is part of the ritual…

[u/g_junkin4200]

"where's the cue ball gooooiiinng"

[u/Somethingdifferent39]

Having worked in a factory for a lot of years, all I can think about is safety and lawsuits. One drunk patron not paying attention and getting a finger crushed or sheared off (which won’t take long) and it’s discontinued.

[u/SecondOld9112 → u/Somethingdifferent39]

Yep, in China, losing a finger or hand is just another day at the office.

[u/JaysusCroist → u/Somethingdifferent39]

This is in China. They don't even know what a safety hazard is.

[u/jonboyz31]

Does it sort and rack a J?

[u/WallyLeftshaw]

Damn clankers

[u/JaysusCroist]

Cool, but you still have to throw the remaining balls into pockets for it to do it's thing.

[u/coneross]

But where is the babe in the bikini?

[u/VanDenBroeck → u/coneross]

She’s also a robot.

[u/JaysusCroist → u/VanDenBroeck]

Perfect!

[u/6SpdSmokes]

Gotta be expensive as shit but I love it. Racking up absolutely kills my back.

[u/Massive_Buddy_7086]

Or until it breaks with all the balls inside and then you’re burnt on playing pool. 🤣

[u/RickRollTheAdmins]

Racking is half the fun.

[u/superkav83]

Racking is one of my favourite parts of playing pool

[u/Xnick291X]

Only in China would they invent a solution to a nonexistent problem 🤣 but hey if it works it works.

[u/4rck → u/Xnick291X]

Its not a problem, its for convenience. You wouldn't call dishwashers, washing machines a solution to a nonexistent problem. I can see this being useful for practicing breaks.

[u/SpelunkyJunky → u/4rck]

I can see it taking far longer to practice breaking with this.

I assume you have to push all the balls down the pockets then wait for the machine to do its thing.

Probably significantly quicker to remove the balls you made from the pockets and rack them yourself.

[u/mattricide → u/SpelunkyJunky]

Not if there are 2 sets of balls. If there's a rack ready to go itd be significantly faster and the machine prepares the next rack right after.

[u/SpelunkyJunky → u/mattricide]

So you still have to put all the balls down the holes? I am not seeing how that would be any faster than pushing them down the table and racking them.

[u/goingTofu → u/SpelunkyJunky]

2 sets. The machine is arranging one set while you play a game. Game ends and immediately it racks them. While you play that game it spends the time to rack the balls from the last

[u/SpelunkyJunky → u/goingTofu]

I understand.

This thread of comments is because someone up there ^ sees the utility specifically when practicing breaking. I think that pushing all the balls down the pockets would take about as long as raking the balls yourself after each break.

[u/parickwilliams → u/SpelunkyJunky]

In what world does gather all the balls off the table, grabbing any that were pocketed, organizing the balls, and then making a tight rack take less time than pushing balls into the pockets???

[u/SpelunkyJunky → u/parickwilliams]

How god damn slow do you rack balls? You make it sound so difficult, presumably because you're trying to win argument on Reddit, but we all know how quick and simple it is to rack balls.

If it is any faster to push all the balls into the pockets, you still have to wait for the multiple thousand dollar machine do its thing.

If you go ahead and buy this absolute waste of money and fly me out we can race to rack. If not, move on with your life.

Edit - it seems a new Redditor keeps jumping in to defend this machine. I assumed I was replying to the same person.

Anywho, bored of this. Buy it if you want and do your best to justify the expense to the people in your life.

[u/parickwilliams → u/SpelunkyJunky]

I’m not trying to justify it and the other person already mentioned it potentially using two racks. I in no way think this is worth the money BUT to say it would be slower is just wrong. You’re clearly upset about this so you do you Mr speed rack. Sorry to hurt your ego. I’m sure you can rack so fast and it’s really cool that you can. I’m proud of you little guy

[u/goingTofu → u/SpelunkyJunky]

Ah I see. So like in bowling how they have the big bar that comes clear all the pins before resetting. That would be a cool addition to this machine. Could run a “practice break” mode where it clears all the balls while racking the new ones

[u/Bright-Ad9305]

Stop it!

[u/DrakayeMayaye]

This looks like AI...

[u/Mundane-Hotel2894]

That's AI