Is my PowerBall Broken?? [Archive]

user

23-01-2006, 21:10

Hello Art

And thank you for your mail earlier with regards to your new Powerball purchase - it sounds like you are having a most frustrating experience indeed!

Well, there are 2 things that are potentially responsible in this case:

1. You may have a faulty ball:
In truth, this is the more unlikely of the 2 possibilities - each Powerball is balanced on a special computerised jig before being hand assembled to ensure an instrument of
superlative quality. We sell many Powerballs each week and in less than 0.01% of cases will ever encounter a problem with a gyro that is not human related in some way.

In these very rare cases, the frictional resistance between the rotor support band and the inner cavity has been disturbed in some manner and makes the ball very difficult to start - it is possible therefore, that this is what is happening here.

The knocking noise you describe is an actual characteristic of each ball - the little 'gap' or 'play' in the rotor being vital to allow the creation of managable friction between the rotor support band and inner surface of the sphere and here is where the 'human' element of the problem may be materialising - should the smooth rotational motion of the hand/wrist not be in alignment with the momentum of the rotor as it is building speed, then you will experience a slapping/knocking action very much as you have described, where the rotor will not build speed and will flounder uselessly in the sphere despite your best attentions!

Which leads us to the second possibility...

2. Incorrect wrist action:
Odd as it may seem, and in particular, given your 200 previous attempts to try and start the gyro properly, it may simply be that you are just not achieving a proper 'sync' with the rotor and may be either just ahead of its rotational momentum instead of being on, or just behind and actually driving it faster. While I appreciate that the way I have just described that is quite poor and difficult to visualise, in truth, it is an extremely difficult action and sensation to illustrate in mere words alone - you really need to experience the sensation of a properly sync'd Powerball which is correctly aligned with the rotation of your hand to know exactly what I am speaking about here...that resistance which
slowly builds at the exact moment that you lock into the Gyro's movement and the hand and ball work together...the rotor speed building and the steady increase of that 'fighter jet' pitch as you go faster and faster...you'll know it as soon as it happens to you, but may not manage to pick it up from these words alone...

In reality therefore Art, and most specifically as a result of what you have said about the way it 'knocks' around inside the shell, I would have to suggest that you are not quite sync'ing with the ball in terms of your wrist motion. If you can get it to 3230rpm then you are definitely ripping it quickly [enough] at the initial pull and will have more than
enough speed on the rotor at this point to take it up to the 10,000rpm+ levels that Powerball needs to operate at...can I suggest that when you hear that 'knocking' / 'slapping' noise you immediately slow down the speed of your wrist turn? (i.e, if you were stirring a pot at 3 revolutions each second, slow it down to one revolution each second) and increase the diameter of each rotation...i.e, big, lazy turns of the wrist. This will immediately serve to kill those knocking noises and will allow you to sync with the rotor almost instantly.

Ok - I know I haven't probably told you anything new in the text above but I hope that it may have convinced you to keep trying - I promise that if you only experience the sensation of getting in synch with the ball for even a second, you'll know exactly what I am speaking about above and will wonder how you didn't manage to get it in the first place!

Hope this helps Art and with kindest regards

Rory