Hi, I want to buy a cheap stringing machine, but have a hard time to decide which one to go with. I play both badminton and tennis, but play much more and much better at badminton. I break strings of badminton racquet often. I want to buy a machine that can string both for personal use. I intend to buy either Eagnas Flex740 or Flash565. Can anybody give some suggestions or comments? Which one I should go with? Do I need to buy a starting clamp, and how many flying clamps for badminton I should buy. I wish to buy everything at once to save the shipping cost. Thank you very much for your time and help!! wwest
I would go with the Eagnas: ST-200 and get two Hi-Qua Fly Clamps. ST200 for $279: http://www.eagnas.com/st200.html Hi-Qua Fly Clamps: $20/each: http://www.hiquasports.com/badminton/clamp-fly.htm If you need a starter clamp, I have one for sale along with some Eagnas clamps for cheap : http://www.badmintoncentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=27225
The ST-200 is a badminton only machine, I think, no? The OP wants to be able to string tennis racquets as well. The 740 is a swivel clamp model. I'm personally prefer swivel clamps, especially for tennis. Some people prefer floating/flying clamps for badminton. I think that's an individual choice. To answer your question, however, I'd recommend the 740 for that reason. I'd also try to upgrade the tennis clamps to the PN-1012 3-tooth ones. They're supposed to be much better than the PN-1002s. Eagnas also have badminton swivel clamps to go with the 740. Or, if you prefer flying clamps, as S4MadMan said, the HQ clamps are quite good. As to how many should you purchase, 2 is the minimum. Most stringers would recommend 3 or even 4, I think. A starting clamp is practically a must. Get the best you can afford. I've heard good things about the RAB, Alpha and Babolat ones amongst others. If you're not set on Eagnas, there are also other good brands you can take into consideration, such as Gamma, Alpha, Silent Partner, Laserfibre, etc. FWIW, HTH.
I've just gone through the same decision. (Except for me it is squash and badminton.) In the end I went for the Flash767 because it has the swivel clamps PN-1012 (instead of PN-1002's) and also includes the badminton clamps PN-1013's. Also the FLASH-767's swivel clamps are spring-assisted whereas on the FLEX-740 they are not. On the down side, it is more expensive but when you factor in you get the two PN-1013 badminton clamps in as part of the package (2 X $40) I decided it was worth it. Now just have to wait for it to arrive from a slow boat from China (to New Zealand).
All right. I'd like to thank all of you for your suggestions. It's been very very helpful. I think I will go with your suggestions and spend an extra $100 buying a Flash 767 then. I will let you know how it goes later on. Many thanks!!
Well I'd be interested to know how your Flash 767 goes. You'll get yours first. I didn't calculate it as an extra $100 ; it comes to only an extra $70 according to my calcs and looking at the eagnas site. ( Flex 740 = $219 + 2 Badminton clamps($80) = $299. Flash 767 = $369 so thats a $70 difference.) Anyway, at least we stopped going up the range at some point. We could have spent more and got the manual crank.
I have ordered the Flash 767 + starting clamp and 2 flying clamps. Total costs me $458.85 including S&H. It will arrive in a few days. I will share with you guys my experience later. Thanks.
hi, nickywicky, have you received your machine? I received mine. I used once, my machine is functional but with some quality problems on the drum and sting griper parts. I think it will be future problems. How is your machine? The service of Maxline company is terrible. I guess it might be a family business. I don’t understand how they can run a business like this. I called but couldn’t get any help from them except anger. Since the shipping cost is too expensive, I chose not to return it. But I will definitely not recommend this company to any of my friends. Since you are not dealing with the Maxline, I guess your experience might be better. I strung one racquet after breaking one string. This is my first time of doing this. Next time I think I will do it better. I learned everything from reading this forum. Thank all of you.
No I haven't got my machine yet. It's not late, that's just how long it takes to come via sea from Taiwan to New Zealand. It should be here in a week or two. Because my area isn't covered by a dealer or representative of Eagnas I dealt with the factory direct via email. No problems in that area, they answered all of my questions promptly and clearly. I'll post here how my one turns out when it arrives.
Bad decision getting the Eagnas starting clamp... If you decide to order better flying clamps, I'd suggest contacting Mark of Alpha Tennis. They have flying clamps identical to Hi-Qua. They also have the BEST starting clamp, bar none. Alpha = RAB which is the best, holds the most tension.
Well finally it arrived last week. The stringer came in two packages, the first after 14 weeks and the second package arrived after 16 weeks. Sea mail sure can take a while. I don't have any quality issues with the machine, but they couldn't seem to follow a packing list. I'm missing a few items which is really annoying. The FLASH 767 is suppose to come with both tennis clamps (PN-1012) and badminton & squash clamps (PN-1013). I only got the tennis clamps (PN-1012), which is a real nuisance since I will only be stringing badminton & squash rackets. The also missed out on shipping the starting clamp I ordered and 2 packs of badminton string (Eagnas EB 85 which looks very similar in spec to Yonex BG85 but much cheaper (ordered 4 and got 2)). However (with the tennis clamps) I have strung 2 squash rackets and one badminton racket. The drum and stringer grip works fine and looks bullet proof to me. For the squash rackets I used technifibre 1.10 and 1.20 which can be damaged if gripped too tightly and the gripper did not leave any marks at all. So I thought I'd try a badminton racket with the thinnist string I could find (which was 0.65 Tactic TG-68ti) to see if it could grip this properly. And the string gripper again worked fine. Although I did have a few problems stringing the badminton racket. I couldn't clamp the top cross (I just jammed an awl in, did the second cross, removed the awl while the 2nd cross was still being tensioned).
Wow, it's really been a while. I am glad you finally got something. So far, I only strung one badminton racquet. The racquet I strung works great. I played 2-3 times a week with that racquet. The problem with my machine is the diamond coating layer inside the grip drum is half falling-off. Do anybody know how I can glue it. Or, if it falls off, where can I find a replacement. Thanks.
I don't know for use, but I would try gluing it. It is possible to upgrade our units with an electronic tension head.The tension head from the Flex 722e can bolt in as a direct replacement for drop weight tenson head. http://eagnas.com/lilylee/fl722e.html But now that I've strung a couple of rackets, (for me because I'm a begginner), the tensioning time is way smaller than the time to sort out the strings, weave the crosses, thread through the shared grommits; I don't think I'll bother.
so one good eagnas and one shotty one huh? I'm really debating if I should go with the flex 740 or not. nickywicky, i would be interested in more info from you about your machine. I'm in the exact same boat, squash and badminton. Any problems mounting squash frames? did you use the throatless adapter advertised on the eagnas site? Although i'm looking at a different machine, they look to be somewhat similar in construction. Does your machine disassemble easily? I move back and forth between N.A. and Asia and it would be nice to take the machine around with me. Thanks.
No problems mounting both badminton & squash rackets and the flex 740 looks like it should be ok too. (Although nearly everything than can be adjusted needed adjusting to go from squash to badminton (prob less than 5 mins to adjust)). And no I didn't use the throatless adaptor. I do note that the Flex 740 doesn't come with the badminton&squash clamps (only tennis) so you'll need to get a couple of those. To dissasemble it you would need to remove the tension head (4 hex bolts), and the mounting system which is only a few more bolts and maybe a screw as well for the drop weight bar. Probably less than 10 mins but it must weigh more than 20kgs. (I'm just guessing the weight, I couldn't find the info and I don't have any scales to weigh it I'm sorry.) I'd ask Eagnas the exact weight and then you would need to consider that more than how easy it is to assemble and dissasemble.