I recently had the opportunity to string at a local USTA national junior event with a friend of mine who is a professional stringer and owns a local tennis shop. We had two machines on site, a Babolat Sensor and a Gamma 5800 ELS with the 6-point mount. I strung 30 racquets on the 5800 ELS and thought that some members of this board would find a review of the machine helpful. For reference, my personal machine at home is an Alpha Apex with the Wise 2086 tension head. I’m an at-home stringer who strings for himself and some friends/family.
First off, I was surprised at the size of the 5800 ELS. I had seen pictures of the machine prior to using it but they didn’t convey how large the machine truly is. It absolutely dwarfs the Apex. The 5800 ELS is also very sturdy in every respect. The stand is rock solid, height adjustable from 41”-48” and features an integrated string reel holder.
Like everything else on the 5800, the 6-point mount is solid and holds frames very securely. It is highly adjustable and accommodated every frame I threw at it. The only negative is that each arm of the mount is independently adjustable. I prefer the single knob adjustment for the mounting arms on the Apex and Sensor. In practice, however, the dual knob adjustments of the 5800 didn’t require that much extra time when mounting a frame, and I adapted to this system fairly quickly. On the plus side, I never had any frame slip or move in any way once mounted on the 5800.
The 5800’s turntable (which seemed to be made of sturdy, but lightweight aluminum) offered 360 degree rotation and moved virtually without friction. The turntable on my Apex has always offered a bit of resistance to rotation and doesn’t move nearly as freely as the one on the 5800. This resistance to movement can actually come in handy when weaving crosses, etc. but the 5800’s freedom of movement lent the machine a high-quality feeling. The 5800’s turntable can be locked to prevent it from rotating when tying knots or when stringing the first few crosses of a Prince O3 racquet without the use of a boomerang tool.
The 5800’s clamps were very easy to use and held a wide variety of strings securely with minimal clamping pressure. Like the Apex, the clamps are a 5-tooth design. The clamp bases were pretty easy to secure and the clamps displayed minimal drawback. I haven’t used Gamma’s switch action clamps (a $400 upgrade) but I assume that they’re even slightly easier/quicker to lock down. But the standard clamps on the 5800 were at least as good as those on the Apex. The only minor problem I had was a bit of binding of the clamp bases when sliding them along the glide rails. The bases do allow for some adjustment, so perhaps this can be rectified with a bit of effort. I was impressed with the way the 5800’s clamps held strings without slippage or ‘bruising’ of the string. Even the first main pull using a single machine clamp and no backup starting clamp didn’t cause the 5800 clamps any problem.
The tension head of the 5800 is a linear, constant-pull model that includes an integrated diablo. It can be activated by either hitting the large blue button on the top panel of the tensioning unit, or by stepping on the included foot pedal. The 5800’s tensioner pulled effortlessly and quietly even at fairly high tensions and exerted minimal pressure on the string. This is in contrast to the Wise tension head which grinds and groans a bit as it pulls tension and sometimes does slightly mar the portion of the string that’s in the tensioner. The 5800’s tensioner is part of an integrated unit that includes all of the machine’s electronics. The unit can be removed from the machine and sent back to Gamma if it should ever require repairs. Speaking of the electronics. the 5800 has all of the bells and whistles that any serious stringer would require. Pulling tensions can be set in either pound or kilos and set accurately to the tenth (After moving the machine to our on-site location, we calibrated it using a Gamma-branded calibrator and the machine was spot-on). The machine also offers 20% knot overtension, 10% and 20% prestretch, fast and slow pulling speeds, and a memory that can be used to store up to 4 tensions. But the coolest feature of the machine has got to be the digital string length meter, which can be used to quickly measure string in feet or meters. Just hit the ‘String Length’ button and feed the string into the string guide and the 5800’s digital display shows the length of the string that has been fed into the guide. Pull the string backwards through the guide and the displayed length is automatically updated. A very cool feature that makes working with string reels a breeze.
The 5800 also features two storage drawers and a rubberized tool tray. A full set of tools is also included with the machine. For the stringer that requires portability, the platform holding the support/clamping system and the tensioner can be removed from the base in order to turn the 5800 into a table-top machine.
Were there any downsides to the use of the 5800? The only real practical issue that I ran into was that there’s a lot of parts of the machine that can and do catch string. I had string get caught on the knobs that control the racquet support arms, the lever to lock the turntable, the diablo, the string reel holder, the stand height adjustment knob, etc. Oh yeah, and a bolt which held one of the shoulder clamps to the frame support kept coming loose and falling out, even though I secured it well several times. Operationally, however, the machine was flawless, quiet and did its job of protecting the frame during the stringing process and reliably pulling tension day in and day out during the tournament.
I have to say I was very impressed with the Gamma 5800 ELS and would seriously consider purchasing it as a replacement for my current machine. At $1000 less than the Babolat Star 5, it seems to be a very attractive alternative for the professional or serious amateur stringer.
First off, I was surprised at the size of the 5800 ELS. I had seen pictures of the machine prior to using it but they didn’t convey how large the machine truly is. It absolutely dwarfs the Apex. The 5800 ELS is also very sturdy in every respect. The stand is rock solid, height adjustable from 41”-48” and features an integrated string reel holder.
Like everything else on the 5800, the 6-point mount is solid and holds frames very securely. It is highly adjustable and accommodated every frame I threw at it. The only negative is that each arm of the mount is independently adjustable. I prefer the single knob adjustment for the mounting arms on the Apex and Sensor. In practice, however, the dual knob adjustments of the 5800 didn’t require that much extra time when mounting a frame, and I adapted to this system fairly quickly. On the plus side, I never had any frame slip or move in any way once mounted on the 5800.
The 5800’s turntable (which seemed to be made of sturdy, but lightweight aluminum) offered 360 degree rotation and moved virtually without friction. The turntable on my Apex has always offered a bit of resistance to rotation and doesn’t move nearly as freely as the one on the 5800. This resistance to movement can actually come in handy when weaving crosses, etc. but the 5800’s freedom of movement lent the machine a high-quality feeling. The 5800’s turntable can be locked to prevent it from rotating when tying knots or when stringing the first few crosses of a Prince O3 racquet without the use of a boomerang tool.
The 5800’s clamps were very easy to use and held a wide variety of strings securely with minimal clamping pressure. Like the Apex, the clamps are a 5-tooth design. The clamp bases were pretty easy to secure and the clamps displayed minimal drawback. I haven’t used Gamma’s switch action clamps (a $400 upgrade) but I assume that they’re even slightly easier/quicker to lock down. But the standard clamps on the 5800 were at least as good as those on the Apex. The only minor problem I had was a bit of binding of the clamp bases when sliding them along the glide rails. The bases do allow for some adjustment, so perhaps this can be rectified with a bit of effort. I was impressed with the way the 5800’s clamps held strings without slippage or ‘bruising’ of the string. Even the first main pull using a single machine clamp and no backup starting clamp didn’t cause the 5800 clamps any problem.
The tension head of the 5800 is a linear, constant-pull model that includes an integrated diablo. It can be activated by either hitting the large blue button on the top panel of the tensioning unit, or by stepping on the included foot pedal. The 5800’s tensioner pulled effortlessly and quietly even at fairly high tensions and exerted minimal pressure on the string. This is in contrast to the Wise tension head which grinds and groans a bit as it pulls tension and sometimes does slightly mar the portion of the string that’s in the tensioner. The 5800’s tensioner is part of an integrated unit that includes all of the machine’s electronics. The unit can be removed from the machine and sent back to Gamma if it should ever require repairs. Speaking of the electronics. the 5800 has all of the bells and whistles that any serious stringer would require. Pulling tensions can be set in either pound or kilos and set accurately to the tenth (After moving the machine to our on-site location, we calibrated it using a Gamma-branded calibrator and the machine was spot-on). The machine also offers 20% knot overtension, 10% and 20% prestretch, fast and slow pulling speeds, and a memory that can be used to store up to 4 tensions. But the coolest feature of the machine has got to be the digital string length meter, which can be used to quickly measure string in feet or meters. Just hit the ‘String Length’ button and feed the string into the string guide and the 5800’s digital display shows the length of the string that has been fed into the guide. Pull the string backwards through the guide and the displayed length is automatically updated. A very cool feature that makes working with string reels a breeze.
The 5800 also features two storage drawers and a rubberized tool tray. A full set of tools is also included with the machine. For the stringer that requires portability, the platform holding the support/clamping system and the tensioner can be removed from the base in order to turn the 5800 into a table-top machine.
Were there any downsides to the use of the 5800? The only real practical issue that I ran into was that there’s a lot of parts of the machine that can and do catch string. I had string get caught on the knobs that control the racquet support arms, the lever to lock the turntable, the diablo, the string reel holder, the stand height adjustment knob, etc. Oh yeah, and a bolt which held one of the shoulder clamps to the frame support kept coming loose and falling out, even though I secured it well several times. Operationally, however, the machine was flawless, quiet and did its job of protecting the frame during the stringing process and reliably pulling tension day in and day out during the tournament.
I have to say I was very impressed with the Gamma 5800 ELS and would seriously consider purchasing it as a replacement for my current machine. At $1000 less than the Babolat Star 5, it seems to be a very attractive alternative for the professional or serious amateur stringer.
