Since I discovered Li-Ning rackets, I asked myself why they stick to the 72-holes design for Aeronaut and some Calibar. Even the new Tectonic 7 has a 72 holes design. Just the Turbocharging has a 76 holes design. From stringer perspective I prefer to string a 76 holes racket to have less shared holes, which can become a bit annoying on a 72 holes racket when I get requests with thick strings like Zymax 69F or LN No.7 or BG65. What do you think about this from a stringers perspektive? Are there any advantages in any department, which I didn't discovered, yet? @Mark A @DinkAlot @s_mair @kakinami @kwun and others, what do you think? Now beside the stringing process is there any advantage in terms of durability, stiffness, stability because of the built? I mean one shared hole takes less material of the racket compared to two single holes, which also are closer than a batch of shared one? I don't have the background in this department, but @j4ckie or @DarkHiatus can you comment something on this based on your scientific background? Have you experienced a better playability of this pattern compared to others? What do you prefer or does it not make any difference. Even if there is not advantages in all areas, what do you think is the reason to stick to this layout, while other brands use the new grommet system? Feel free to share your thoughts and ideas behind this. Thanks.
I keep on thinking the exact same things when looking at all those high-end rackets with the 72-pattern. And frankly, I couldn't find any point that would make the OSP seem beneficial compared the the 76-holes NSP. Neither from a stringer's point of view nor from a player's. Just going by simple logic - the NSP keeps the outer main strings parallel to the center ones, so the string density stays constant when you get closer towards the frame. This can only be beneficial for the hitting performance and hence should by definition enlarge the sweet spot. Or at least reduce the drop in performance as soon as you hit outside the sweet spot. I remenber @DinkAlot answering the question why the Panda Titan still had the OSP very honestly that it saved a lot of money since the manufacturer already had a matching tooling with an OSP hoop in place. But we're talking about a multi-million dollar company that has all the funds and resources to build as many toolings as needed if they wanted to.
I can instantly say that producing a 72-hole racket will be cheaper than a 76-hole one, as there is less tooling needed and the process should be faster (fewer tooling changes, fewer holes to drill). It's not a massive difference, I guess, but it's there. Also, my gut tells me fewer holes should result in a slightly sturdier head, especially with strings in the shared holes pulling in opposite directions, but I haven't actually sat down to look at it methodically, so take that opinion with a grain of salt. Playability-wise, I haven't noticed a difference, but honestly I think we'd need a special test racket with exactly the same specs and just different hole designs and a few fairly sensitive, almost pro level players to test for it. Or a standardized, automated test with machines, but good luck getting that paid for
More holes can result in following advantages/disadvantages: 1. Bigger sweet spot. 2. Means more length of string used, better durability of string. 3. Better durability of frame because of smaller hole radius which means more cross section area of frame at hole. This is based on my intuition, I may be wrong.
I prefer anything with single-pass over anything without, but it's an extra four drilling operations. Not sure how frames are drilled, but if it's one hole at a time you'd better believe that's one corner they'd cut. (You'd love the 88-hole Forza pattern... no shares AT ALL.) As to the effect on frame strength. that's something I'm curious about as well...
Regards to tooling, I imagine it also helps with drill speed/stability. A shaky drill will shred carbon. Personally, I think 72 holes rackets are better feel-wise on the whole; you get some 76 with amazing feel like the ZF2, but you also get some with terrible feel like the Z-Speed. Couldn't tell you why, though.
Maybe because it has nothing to do with the pattern?! Regarding drill speed/stability, let me assure you that modern CNC machining centers don't care a single bit if they have to drill a 2.6 mm or 2.1 mm hole. That's far, far from any critical diameter. It takes a couple of seconds longer to drill those 4 extras holes but that's it.
We are also talking about the fact that it happens within a series. Let's imagine that TC Series is cheaper compared to Aeronaut and Calibar when we just focuse on the high-ends. Price-wise the Calibar 900 and 800 are not so far apart which would explain why the 800 has 72 holes and the 900 is the only one with 76 holes. Going back in Li Ning history the first N80 had 76 holes. Why they went back on the N80II/Calibar 800 to 72 holes? When such process is more expensive why are there inconsitent there. Won't make any sense? Also having in my mind that a cheap 40€ racket like AX38 has 76 holes. Would make more sense to cut the cost in a low budget line, but in a highend line which is manufactured in a low cost country like china and aim 200€ pricetags? I don't feel it. Calculating the area of 6 shared 2.7mm vs. 12 single 2.1mm we have a 13% higher area of holes for a 76 racket. I don't know how to judge it because also the placement of the holes can influence stability. If the tool is insert, I don't think that it require a tool change for the 6 additional holes, because he also have a bunch of 2.1mm holes. Would only make sense when we go oldschool to musclepower 88 time where each hole was 2.7mm. I don't see there a point of higher production time. Imagine the perfect paint jobs of Li Ning rackets with fadings, 3d and sparkles. I think this could also be a department to cut corners. We get here highend damn good quality products, so I don't think the philosophy of Li-Ning is to cut corners or produce more rackets. This goes against there high price tag and excellent QC. Here a short video of the drilling:
All this thread makes me love more and more my Forza ti 550 VS "96 holes". I was already in love with it, now I know better why, even if there is no reason in love (I knew the feel and performance of this racquet was related to the 96 holes frame, and the stiffness of all the beast) ...
I'm sort of glad that you came to the same conclusion: There is just no logical sense in regards to Li-Ning's 72/76-holes policy. For all we know there is a realistic chance that they simply roll a dice at some point in the development phase of a new racket. As @j4ckie said, it would be necessary to have the exact same racket with both patterns to make a meaningful comparison. And that's the point where it gets rather unrealistic I'm afraid. And another word regarding the pricing - to drill those extra 4 holes is a matter of seconds, in other words a couple of cents in the production costs. Looking at the sales price of Li-Ning rackets, that's not even peanuts.
Does the 76 hole pattern allow a higher top cross, thus avoiding breaking strings with mishits at the top and also potentially shifting the sweetspot higher? Sent from my SM-G965W using Tapatalk
And what does one less shared hole mean for the grommets? Just sticking in the grommet in a single hole will take less time and tools than flaring the grommet in the shared hole. I'm pretty sure this is not about reducing the costs, really. Shouldn't the question really be: What advantage does the 76 hole pattern yield? If the logic would be to reduce the amount of shared holes, it cannot end there, it can only go further into all those Victor/Forza/Babolat/... pattern without shared holes (other than for knots). From there it should go further in the direction of what the manufacturer can do to avoid blocked holes. If a stringer prefers to deal with blocked or with shared holes probably depends a lot on what rackets he strings more often and personal preference, nothing Li Ning really can worry about, especially when it's something like the difference between 72 and 76 holes.
Yes, indeed. That's nothing else what the 2+4 pattern makes. @speCulatius Very valid and good point on flaring the shared ones. Drilling less holes get compensated by flaring shared ones. So the time/cost effect get smallen by this. I called the thread the advantages of 72 holes, because I regular looked at it from the perspective as a stringer and with the opionion that it is something bad to have 72 holes. I wanted to add a change of the perspective in the naming and maybe somebody would drop something which change it. I also want to concentrated it on the 72 holes pattern, which got made by Li-Ning even in 2020. The focus should be why they stick on this old pattern, instead of giving 76+ holes pattern more attention.
