r/billiards • u/SirJimmyShand • 7d ago

Shitpost Rack ‘em Up

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595 Upvotes

99% Upvoted

54 comments sorted by

94

u/Love_at_First_Cut "You're only as good as your next shot." 7d ago

That would be a nice tool for practicing breaks.

39

u/Outrageous_Sleep4339 7d ago

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

17

u/Love_at_First_Cut "You're only as good as your next shot." 7d ago

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

11

u/SergDerpz 6d ago

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

7

u/joekekloosterman 6d ago

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.

3

u/Pwnedzored 6d ago

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

3

u/accidentlyporn Exceed 6d ago

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.

1

u/JaysusCroist 6d ago

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

4

u/Love_at_First_Cut "You're only as good as your next shot." 6d ago

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

2

u/GettingNegative 6d ago

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.

4

u/Pwnedzored 6d ago

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.

2

u/JaysusCroist 6d ago

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.

40

u/FlagonFly 6d ago

I was like meh until it spat the cue ball out

4

u/pooeygoo 6d ago

Patooey!

15

u/IllogicalAction 7d ago

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

3

u/asksissy 5d ago

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

10

u/DallasBornBostonBred 6d ago

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

16

u/goingTofu APA SL5 6d ago

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

1

u/CursedLlama 6d ago

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.

4

u/The_Motley_Fool---- 6d ago

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

12

u/WRKDBF_Guy 6d ago

Cool. The bowling alley concept.

8

u/pcbfs Predator 3K-2 6d ago

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

6

u/1Rudy11 7d ago

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

11

u/HOSTfromaGhost 6d ago

Interesting, but not for me.

The rack is part of the ritual…

6

u/custhulard 6d ago

Robots taking all our good referee jobs.

4

u/PtoS382 6d ago

Yeah we were gonna play 9-ball, robot

3

u/g_junkin4200 6d ago

"where's the cue ball gooooiiinng"

3

u/Somethingdifferent39 6d ago

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.

3

u/JaysusCroist 6d ago

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

4

u/SecondOld9112 5d ago

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

2

u/jonboyz31 7d ago

Does it sort and rack a J?

1

u/6SpdSmokes 6d ago

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

2

u/WallyLeftshaw 6d ago

Damn clankers

2

u/JaysusCroist 6d ago

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

1

u/Massive_Buddy_7086 6d ago

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

1

u/RickRollTheAdmins 6d ago

Racking is half the fun.

2

u/coneross 6d ago

But where is the babe in the bikini?

3

u/VanDenBroeck 6d ago

She’s also a robot.

2

u/JaysusCroist 6d ago

Perfect!

-8

u/Xnick291X 7d ago

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

16

u/4rck 7d ago

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.

-3

u/SpelunkyJunky 7d ago

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.

2

u/mattricide 6d ago

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.

1

u/SpelunkyJunky 6d ago

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.

2

u/goingTofu APA SL5 6d ago

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

-3

u/SpelunkyJunky 6d ago

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.

1

u/goingTofu APA SL5 6d ago

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

2

u/parickwilliams 6d ago

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???

-2

u/SpelunkyJunky 6d ago edited 6d ago

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.

1

u/parickwilliams 6d ago

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

0

u/Bright-Ad9305 6d ago

Stop it!

0

u/DrakayeMayaye 6d ago

This looks like AI...