Supercharged 3-Ball Tennis Ball Pressurizer?

[Injured Again]

Li

I never noticed any balls collapsing in my super-up 3-ball charger. I suspect it only happens when significant uneven stress is applied. In the case of the 3-ball charger, the maximum side load is 4 oz. on the bottom ball from the weight of two balls above it. So roughly 0.25psi, assuming about 1” contact area.

I tested it out with a ball that deliberately let all of the air pressure out with a thin sewing needle, using my PressureTube (when it was still functioning). I punctured it at the seam, then sealed it back up using a glob from a hot glue gun. Repeatedly, by 20 PSI over atmospheric, the ball would collapse in some way, caving in as the structure of the ball couldn't resist the pressure. So I just assumed that roughly 20 PSI over whatever internal pressure exists would cave in a ball. I can hear it when it happens inside my corny keg - there's a muffled pop as the surface goes concave. Since new balls come with 12-14 PSI, and that probably goes down to 10 PSI with a couple of hours of hard use, 30 PSI is roughly the limit to the amount of pressure I could use.

 

[Rafedovic]

The balls that seem to respond the best to the pressurizer are the US Open balls. It's funny because they also seem to be the ones that lose pressure the slowest, so it seems to make sense they would regain pressure the slowest also.

I've had some Pro Penn Marathon and Dunlop Championship balls in the pressurizer for a month at 30-32 PSI and they gradually do restore to as-new bounce about half as slowly as the US Open balls, but that may also be that the US Open balls weren't quite as flat to start with.

Balls that are pretty flat seem to collapse with anything over 25 PSI.

Sounds like I’m not waiting long enough, I’ll give it some more time and try with some other balls.

 

[WilsonPlayer101]

Buy an inner tube that can accept at least 40 PSI and get clamps to seal off both ends throw tennis balls in it and pump to about 30 PSI. You cut the tube in half so you can clamp one end then throw the balls in, then clamp the other end and pump. Wait a week and it should pressurize the tennis balls. ball saver tube -

Similar to this but use an inner tube. This guy had a good idea copying the

 

[WilsonPlayer101]

What type of balls do you use? I’ve recently tried penn in a weed sprayer. It has a relief valve that opens at 3 bar so I fill it with balls and pump it till it’s at max pressure. I topped up the pressure twice over 5 days but it’s not working. I can hear some balls popping back into shape when I release the pressure.
I modified the 3 ball re-pressurizer by adding a valve and gauge but had no luck at 30psi. A couple of the balls collapse inside the container under about 25psi so I’ve tried going above and below this mark. Maybe the balls are too flat to withstand the pressure needed to penetrate the rubber and refill the balls? What am I doing wrong?

How the heck did you get tennis balls in the weed sprayer hole? I have one and the hole is smaller in diameter than the tennis balls? I went to Home Depot and all them were the same? Aren't they standard sized holes?

As far as the balls popping back into shape when you release pressure you must be pumping to much pressure into the sprayer.

 

[Rafedovic]

How the heck did you get tennis balls in the weed sprayer hole? I have one and the hole is smaller in diameter than the tennis balls? I went to Home Depot and all them were the same? Aren't they standard sized holes?

As far as the balls popping back into shape when you release pressure you must be pumping to much pressure into the sprayer.

I bought an 8 liter sprayer, it has a 90mm opening on top. I need to buy a pressure gauge so I know when to stop pumping. When I release the pressure I can hear the balls popping back into shape, I don’t think all of them are collapsing, if I can tell by the number of pops. The relief valve blows off at 3 bar, which is over 40psi, so it holds a lot of pressure. I’ll try link a picture.

 

[travlerajm]

I bought an 8 liter sprayer, it has a 90mm opening on top. I need to buy a pressure gauge so I know when to stop pumping. When I release the pressure I can hear the balls popping back into shape, I don’t think all of them are collapsing, if I can tell by the number of pops. The relief valve blows off at 3 bar, which is over 40psi, so it holds a lot of pressure. I’ll try link a picture.

I’ll bet if you ramp up the pressure stepwise to give the balls a few minutes to acclimate to each step, you can avoid the collapsing issue.

 

[WilsonPlayer101]

I bought an 8 liter sprayer, it has a 90mm opening on top. I need to buy a pressure gauge so I know when to stop pumping. When I release the pressure I can hear the balls popping back into shape, I don’t think all of them are collapsing, if I can tell by the number of pops. The relief valve blows off at 3 bar, which is over 40psi, so it holds a lot of pressure. I’ll try link a picture.

Actually, I think your garden sprayer is even better than my water filter housing. Mine holds only 4 balls maximum which is all I need BUT it is nice that you should be able to load a lot more than my device, and price wise yours probably cost the same as mine from the water filter housing. I would have done that but my sprayer doesn't have a big enough hole for tennis balls BUT you said yours does and thru my internet search I see big sprayers like yours. There is no doubt yours will work once you get that gauge on it to prevent balls from imploding under the weight of too much pressure.

I guess my garden sprayer is much smaller than yours. I guess you have more weeds to spray in your yard than I do!

 

[Rafedovic]

I

Actually, I think your garden sprayer is even better than my water filter housing. Mine holds only 4 balls maximum which is all I need BUT it is nice that you should be able to load a lot more than my device, and price wise yours probably cost the same as mine from the water filter housing. I would have done that but my sprayer doesn't have a big enough hole for tennis balls BUT you said yours does and thru my internet search I see big sprayers like yours. There is no doubt yours will work once you get that gauge on it to prevent balls from imploding under the weight of too much pressure.

I guess my garden sprayer is much smaller than yours. I guess you have more weeds to spray in your yard than I do!

I already have a small weed sprayer, I bought the big one just for tennis balls, it cost $49 Aud. I have been waiting to find a corny keg cheap but this will do the trick, I hope.

 

[WilsonPlayer101]

I

I already have a small weed sprayer, I bought the big one just for tennis balls, it cost $49 Aud. I have been waiting to find a corny keg cheap but this will do the trick, I hope.

Your sprayer holds a lot of pressure so in theory it will work. I have no doubt it will work. There is no need for a keg now that you have the weed sprayer. I only need to pressurize 3 balls at a time but if I needed more I would go with the sprayer rather than the beer keg.

 

[happyandbob]

I bought an 8 liter sprayer, it has a 90mm opening on top. I need to buy a pressure gauge so I know when to stop pumping. When I release the pressure I can hear the balls popping back into shape, I don’t think all of them are collapsing, if I can tell by the number of pops. The relief valve blows off at 3 bar, which is over 40psi, so it holds a lot of pressure. I’ll try link a picture.

If you have balls at differing levels of internal pressure, it may take you a while to get them equalized. I have 4 tennis savers going, each with balls at different levels of reviving. If the balls are completely flat, I can't pump them higher than 20 before they collapse. It's taken me about a month to get flat balls to 18-ish PSI with weekly steps up in pressure. Once they can handle 30-35 PSI without collapsing, they gain back pressure very quickly.

Once they collapse, they don't seem to gain anything no matter how long you keep them in there. If I build any more, I'll use the clear Tourna savers so I can see what's happening inside.

 

[WilsonPlayer101]

If you have balls at differing levels of internal pressure, it may take you a while to get them equalized. I have 4 tennis savers going, each with balls at different levels of reviving. If the balls are completely flat, I can't pump them higher than 20 before they collapse. It's taken me about a month to get flat balls to 18-ish PSI with weekly steps up in pressure. Once they can handle 30-35 PSI without collapsing, they gain back pressure very quickly.

Once they collapse, they don't seem to gain anything no matter how long you keep them in there. If I build any more, I'll use the clear Tourna savers so I can see what's happening inside.

So the Tennis Saver yellow pressurizer can and you installed a valve on it and use a pump to increase PSI?

The one I built out of a water filter housing I currently have it set at 30 PSI. I am not playing until Monday and I put them in on Monday, so they will be pressurized for a week @ 30 PSI so they should be plenty bouncy. This will be the second time pressurized by my device, so third time used. I may buy better Tennis Balls, such as US Open balls to get better felt. I am using the Dunlop ACE. Good but the felt isn't so heavy. I think these are good for two charges since the felt isn't the fluffiest. I think with US Open balls they may be able to charge much longer.

 

[happyandbob]

So the Tennis Saver yellow pressurizer can and you installed a valve on it and use a pump to increase PSI?

here is what I did to my ball savers to get them to hold 35 PSI https://tt.tennis-warehouse.com/index.php?threads/upgrading-a-tennis-ball-saver.688434/

the factory o-ring seal doesn't work too well, so you need to augment it. My friend came up with an even better setup where you don't need to o-ring at all. he takes the o-ring out and instead cut a sheet of rubber so it exactly fits into the top of the yellow cap. then when you thread it down, you press into the rubber sheet to get the seal. instead of putting the valve on the top of the can, he puts the valve on the bottom and uses the ball saver upside down. it's genius.

 

[Rafedovic]

here is what I did to my ball savers to get them to hold 35 PSI https://tt.tennis-warehouse.com/index.php?threads/upgrading-a-tennis-ball-saver.688434/

the factory o-ring seal doesn't work too well, so you need to augment it. My friend came up with an even better setup where you don't need to o-ring at all. he takes the o-ring out and instead cut a sheet of rubber so it exactly fits into the top of the yellow cap. then when you thread it down, you press into the rubber sheet to get the seal. instead of putting the valve on the top of the can, he puts the valve on the bottom and uses the ball saver upside down. it's genius.

I did a similar thing with my Tourna Restore. It leaked pressure while screwing it up so I packed out the o-ring with Teflon tape, I like your clay idea better though as the tape unravels easily. It helped but leaked again after I packed out some void with spear gun rubber to increase the pressure.

Then I fitted a pressure gauge and an air valve from a bike tube so I could observe the actual pressure and pump it up with a bike pump, no more screwing around. This project has been a Frankenstein of other people’s ideas. The weed sprayer was easy but this has been fun, I wish I’d seen your linked project earlier.

Anyway, the canister is clear so that’s when I saw the balls collapsing. The popping sound scared me a little, before I saw what was happening, because I was in my kitchen, whereas my last attempt blew up on me at the service station. The water container I tried to use was too big, so the lid too weak to hold more than about 15psi, this “Tourna Restore” is solid and could do some real damage if it blew.

The lid off my failed water tank project went really, really high. Luckily I wasn’t hurt but it was pretty funny. When I was filling it with air at the auto car tyre inflator at the service station, I saw the walls of the container start to swell so I thought I’d better stop. It gave me just enough time to get my hand out of the way before the “WHOOOMPF”. All that was missing were about 50 spherical pieces of fluorescent yellow shrapnel. I looked around to see if anyone was nearby and had just finished thinking about how much of an idiot I am when the centre of the lid came straight back down on top of the container! Impressive hang time, perfectly vertical launch and landing. I guess I’m pretty much a rocket scientist now

 

[happyandbob]

Latest update -- removed the clay (it was making a mess at 35 psi) and added a rubber band to build out the o-ring slightly. Seems to be working so far, though it is harder to screw down.

 

[Rafedovic]

Latest update -- removed the clay (it was making a mess at 35 psi) and added a rubber band to build out the o-ring slightly. Seems to be working so far, though it is harder to screw down.

Nice one

 

[pressureball]

I bought one of these several months back:

When I first got it, I tried using it at 25 PSI with several different types of mid-tier tennis balls that were used once. Even sitting as much as one week at nearly double the internal pressure of the ball, recovery was minimal. It is really for maintaining the remaining bounce after the balls have been used. The leaking of pressure into the ball should occur at the same rate that pressure leaves a ball when it is just sitting without being hit, so it's a very slow process.

Using carbon dioxide should help as that is more soluble in the rubber used in tennis balls but that's a lot of effort.

The picture shows what I have in there currently - US Open balls that have been used for a couple of hours. My experience with these balls is that they lose pressure very slowly so pressure gains are equally slow. It only takes a minute to get the balls pressurized so I do more to test the longevity of the PressureTube than anything else. I've probably used it 50 times and it still works perfectly with no leakage, and especially with the mid-tier balls lets them be used a second time without all that much change in performance.

try storing the tube somewhere warm .Makes a huge difference to the speed at which the balls revive . You should be able to overpressure the balls at 25psi .

 

[Injured Again]

try storing the tube somewhere warm .Makes a huge difference to the speed at which the balls revive . You should be able to overpressure the balls at 25psi .

I always stored the PressureTube indoors at room temperature, but even going to 25 PSI felt sketchy as the seams are obviously under a lot of shear forces. In any case, my PressureTube started leaking at week 53 from two different locations, one at the seam where it had failed, and the other around the schraeder valve, where the material had just separated from the valve stem.

 

[pressureball]

Thats odd because the tubes are tested to 35psi .What pump are you using ?? Contact me barry@pressureball.com to look at a replacement sleeve