Ball Pocketing, Dwell Time, Spin Potential

[WileyCoyote]

I am a bit confused about how the subjects in the title fit together.

I equate ball pocketing and dwell time in a string/frame combination and consider it a good thing. As in like what gut does.

The question is: Does increased ball pocketing and thus dwell time equal more spin potential?

Reading the threads on rackets that provide more spin potential, fewer strings are usually, but not always, cited as providing more spin potential. Is this perhaps because the ball penetrates farther into the stringbed and has more string in contact around it to impart spin?

However when I read threads on Polys, which would have the least ball pocketing and dwell time, most of them claim to produce more spin than other kinds of strings. True? Not true?

Or what?

Thanks in advance for your intelligent and well reasoned answers.

Harry

[pvaudio]

Dwell time is a subjective sensation and nothing more. The ball is on the stringbed for such a short period of time that your brain literally does not even get the information that there was a ball on the strings until after you've hit it.

[LeeD]

Does "spin potential" have anything to do with better play?
Are you buying the Steam98?

[UCSF2012]

Increased dwell time increases power but decreases spin.

It's largely irrelevant whether the human brain can sense ball impact as it's occuring. It's not like you're gonna change your swing during the split second of impact. (Except for touch volleys.)

In fact, your nervous system is fast enough to detect the split second the ball hits the racket. The nervous system is ridiculously fast. The basis for touch/drop volleys is softening up on the grip during impact, so the ball dies.

[pvaudio]

Originally Posted by UCSF2012

Increased dwell time increases power but decreases spin.

It's largely irrelevant whether the human brain can sense ball impact as it's occuring. It's not like you're gonna change your swing during the split second of impact. (Except for touch volleys.)

In fact, your nervous system is fast enough to detect the split second the ball hits the racket. The nervous system is ridiculously fast. The basis for touch/drop volleys is softening up on the grip during impact, so the ball dies.

Edit: not even worth it.

To the OP: dwell time is not an important TW parameter because there is no way to state it as the measure of anything. The TW spin parameters are stiffness, ball-string friction, string-string friction and perhaps one more. None are quantified as the time the ball spends on the strings.

[sureshs]

Originally Posted by pvaudio

Dwell time is a subjective sensation and nothing more. The ball is on the stringbed for such a short period of time that your brain literally does not even get the information that there was a ball on the strings until after you've hit it.

But you remember it for the next time around. That is how it is objective and not subjective.

[pvaudio]

Originally Posted by sureshs

But you remember it for the next time around. That is how it is objective and not subjective.

No. Objective is that the stiffness of the string is x. Its dwell time depends on the stroke type, the frame, tension, etc. It's a feeling, and cannot be measured. People on here often say x string has great dwell time, and then others disagree. If it was objective, then there wouldn't be a disagreement. All parameters that we look for in strings are subjective, but most are based on objective things. Comfort, power, spin, control, these are all subjective things. Stiffness, tension stability, durability and cost don't change depending on the player (durability is a bit of a stretch, but a 1.35mm poly is going to last longer for all players than a 18g syn gut). This is why we talk about spin potential, energy return, stringbed stiffness, etc. These things are more or less measurable and give an objective view of what we really feel.

[sureshs]

Originally Posted by pvaudio

No. Objective is that the stiffness of the string is x. Its dwell time depends on the stroke type, the frame, tension, etc. It's a feeling, and cannot be measured. People on here often say x string has great dwell time, and then others disagree. If it was objective, then there wouldn't be a disagreement.

Most people here are not pros with a highly developed sense of feel.

Dwell time can and has been measured with high-speed photography and is about 4 milliseconds.

[pvaudio]

Originally Posted by sureshs

Most people here are not pros with a highly developed sense of feel.

Dwell time can and has been measured with high-speed photography and is about 4 milliseconds.

Precisely my point. What is being discussed is a sensation: the sensation that the strings are cupping the ball or that the ball is sinking into the strings. The amount of time that the ball is on the stringbed is more or less the same regardless of string type.

[Bedrock]

Originally Posted by pvaudio

Dwell time is a subjective sensation and nothing more. The ball is on the stringbed for such a short period of time that your brain literally does not even get the information that there was a ball on the strings until after you've hit it.

really? ...

[pvaudio]

Originally Posted by Bedrock

really? ...

Yup, as surehs said, the actual contact time is only a few 1/1000 of a second. The absolute maximum that a nerve impulse can travel is about 120m/s. That's the max velocity of neurons. In actuality, touch neurons travel around 75m/s and pain signals are much much slower. But even using a blazing fast 100m/s impulse that means that, assuming your hand is 1m from your brain, that it still takes 1/100 of a second to get there. That's over twice as long as the ball is on the strings. So literally, the ball is off the strings by the time the signal has reached your shoulder joint, so it is truly gone before you know it. That's not even including the time it takes to process the sensations from the thousands of receptors in your hand. So unfortunately for UCSF, it is impossible for you to change your grip as you're hitting the ball unless you started doing it before the ball was even close to your body.

[WileyCoyote]

OK. Maybe my brain is not fast enough to recognize dwell time, but it is a major parameter for TW string data, so it must be indicative of something.

The difference between a really tight poly bed and user friendly gut is very noticable and would seem to imply longer contact times with a more resilient string. Correct?

My understanding of spin is that it is produced by the movement of the racquet while the ball is in contact with the stringbed in such a way that imparts rotation. The longer the contact, the more rotation should be imparted?

Thanks,

Harry

[maxpotapov]

Originally Posted by WileyCoyote

OK. Maybe my brain is not fast enough to recognize dwell time, but it is a major parameter for TW string data, so it must be indicative of something.

The difference between a really tight poly bed and user friendly gut is very noticable and would seem to imply longer contact times with a more resilient string. Correct?

My understanding of spin is that it is produced by the movement of the racquet while the ball is in contact with the stringbed in such a way that imparts rotation. The longer the contact, the more rotation should be imparted?

Thanks,

Harry

On a high speed camera you can see how mains are sliding on impact if you hit a top spin shot. That means, the ball slides first and then displaces the mains. When mains snap back, they launch the ball back at certain angle. All of this takes time, dwell time. And of course the frame itself is deformed under pressure, and stringbed too, while ball is sliding on the string surface.
The sharper the poly, the longer it can be pushed by the ball if the cross string is sleek enough. It takes less effort to displace natural gut due to high elasticity, especially on a sleek cross string, hence you can get quite a spin from the smooth natural gut string, but not from the smooth multi (not enough elasticity to easily slide back and forth).

[treblings]

Originally Posted by maxpotapov

On a high speed camera you can see how mains are sliding on impact if you hit a top spin shot. That means, the ball slides first and then displaces the mains. When mains snap back, they launch the ball back at certain angle. All of this takes time, dwell time.
The sharper the poly, the longer it can be pushed by the ball if the cross string is sleek enough. It takes less effort to displace natural gut due to high elasticity, especially on a sleek cross string, hence you can get quite a spin from the smooth natural gut string, but not from the smooth multi (not enough elasticity to easily slide back and forth).

hope you don´t mind if i join the discussion
if i understand you correctly, your point is that the smoother the strings are, the more topspin they produce? provided they snap back(poly more so, multi less)

[maxpotapov]

Originally Posted by treblings

hope you don´t mind if i join the discussion
if i understand you correctly, your point is that the smoother the strings are, the more topspin they produce? provided they snap back(poly more so, multi less)

The smoother/sleeker the CROSS strings are and the sharper or more elastic MAINS, the more spin you can get. Or enter super open string patterns to reduce friction with crosses.

[treblings]

Originally Posted by maxpotapov

The smoother/sleeker the CROSS strings are and the sharper or more elastic MAINS, the more spin you can get. Or enter super open string patterns to reduce friction with crosses.

thanks, i think i get that.
where does rough poly come in(as in alu power rough or msv hex,...)
in regard of spin? in the mains? is that what you mean by sharper?

[pvaudio]

Are you seriously this dense, or do you just enjoy arguing for no reason? Everything you posted, EVERYTHING, supports what I've been saying. Dwell time and ball pocketing as being discussed here are a SENSATION. The fact that Genesis Black Magic and Typhoon produce more dwell time than say Prince Synthetic gut are simply sensational experiences. As your own information posted, the amount of variance in the time the ball spends on the strings is 1-2 milliseconds which you cannot even register. Seriously, I'm doing my best here to not just call you a troll because you do this in every single thread, but it's getting quite annoying. A one millisecond difference in time on the stringbed is measurable ONLY in a controlled situation, and depends on so many factors which vary from player to player, and yet certain strings are said to give more pocketing than others. That is a feeling, and nothing more. Your mind cannot even process a stimulus of 6ms as being longer than one of 4 or 5ms. Nerves simply are not able to respond that quickly. You're arguing as though that increase in contact time is what leads to the sensation of increased ball pocketing. Your nervous system literally is not sensitive enough to register that change. What you're experiencing is a complex series of vibrations and stimuli which give you certain feedback about how you hit the ball. Again, and hopefully for the last time, dwell time, pocketing, whatever you want to call it, is a sensation caused by a complex series of interactions. It is not the fact that the ball is actually sitting on the stringbed significantly longer for certain strings because even using the maximum variance of 3ms as posted in your information would not even register.

[pvaudio]

OP, let me make this as simple as possible. String up Genesis Typhoon, Dunlop Black Widow or Genesis Black Magic. Go for a hit. You will get that ball pocketing that you're talking about. String up Gosen OGSM. You will not get that same feeling. In both cases, the ball will be on the strings for fractionally longer with the Gosen than with the polys simply because the Gosen is more elastic. This is the point I have been trying to make all along. The sensation of pocketing and dwell is not due to the ball actually being on the strings for a longer period of time, to answer your initial question. It's due to how the strings respond to being hit, and how they send their reaction through the frame. Black Magic is well known to give the feeling that the ball sinks into the stringbed. Solinco Tour Bite or Signum Pro Tornado, however, are not known for great dwell time. However, the spin potential of Tour Bite is almost universally stated as being one of the greatest of all poly strings. So, if the amount of string bed contact is more or less the same across strings, let alone the same material, then no, dwell time does not increase spin potential.

[UCSF2012]

Given the publication, who's the dense one?

[pvaudio]

Let me also provide the reference for UCSF's paragraph since he cherry picked phrases at will:

http://books.google.com/books?id=iTa...ension&f=false