Look Ma!! It's a Dimpled Paintball!!!

**AGD** · 12-07-2002, 02:01 AM

Well sort of, it's nylon and the right size and weight. The idea of dimpled paintballs comes up every couple months and we always have to tell them sorry we tried that and it didn't work.

Here is a pic I have been meaning to post. I thought I would share it with all of you before I move it to deep blue.

AGD

Bunny- Couldn't find picture - 5-28-2017

**Mossman** · 12-07-2002, 02:07 AM

Put em in the store...I'll take 3!

**pito189** · 12-07-2002, 02:21 AM

Ahhh it's cute like a baby golf ball. Can these balls be used for chrono testing and such?

**Jack & Coke** · 12-07-2002, 02:44 AM

I wonder how much that thing would curve if I shot it from my Tippy Flatline...

Damn thing would probably fly around and hit me in the forehead...

**Dslexik** · 12-07-2002, 02:52 AM

There was a lot of hype a couple years ago on how the dimples really help with flight trajectory and wind resistance. Companies were coming up with baseballs, footballs, etc, even bats that had dimples in them. They said it was going to revolutionize sports. Well guess what, you don't see em at all today do ya, except on golf balls.

**dio91** · 12-07-2002, 08:59 AM

Correct me if I'm wrong, but are those the same nylon "paintballs" used to chrono and test before shipped out to distributors and sold? The same ones in the video right?

dio

**yeahthatsme** · 12-07-2002, 09:13 AM

/me applaudes agd!!!!!

**HoppysMag** · 12-07-2002, 09:17 AM

so tom, what was wrong with them? fly funky?

**sniper1rfa** · 12-07-2002, 09:24 AM

i have a feeling i know why they didnt work well. dimples that large would be no different, or possibly worse, than a rough surface.

AGD, did you test these agains paintballs or other, smoother nylon balls?

**FalconGuy016** · 12-07-2002, 10:08 AM

I think dimples would be a great idea...??? Look what they did to golf balls, I think sniper is right. They are way to big (out of proportion to a golf ball dimples)

**Emagster** · 12-07-2002, 10:38 AM

not sure what it would do for paintball and it's flight in the air or anything. but the dimples actually do have advantages in golf and skiing(yes skiing). Not sure what they do in golf since i ahven't ever played and never pay attention to it. but skiing thats another thing. the ski's I have are dimpled like the surface of a golf ball to lower the friction and turbulance the ski aquired as it goes across the snow

**FalconGuy016** · 12-07-2002, 11:12 AM

I would expect it has a great effect on any round hard surfarce that flies through the air at high speed... like a paintball

**sniper1rfa** · 12-07-2002, 11:31 AM

actually, they ARE in proportion to golf balls, sorta. and thats the problem.

the problem is, on something this small, tiny impurities in the surface can do the same thing as dimples. in a fluid dynamics book a read, a 3 inch rough sphere had 5 times less drag at 125 mph winds than a smooth one. and the roughness was in the form of scores only .003" deep.

we want a lot of turbulance in the boundary layer on paintballs, and i think at this size and speed, dimples arent the way to get it. a rough surface woulde be better.

AGD, have you tried smooth against one roughened with, say, 100 grit sandpaper?

**deathstalker** · 12-07-2002, 11:55 AM

I thought dimples on golf balls were beneficial because of spin. I don't think paintballs spin so fast that dimples would make any difference whatsoever (as shown in the data thread). Wouldn't this be the same reason you don't see dimpled baseballs, footballs, etc.? It's not like I want my paintballs to land 10 ft. past my target and roll backwards to it.

**sniper1rfa** · 12-07-2002, 12:09 PM

nope, the point of dimples is to cause a turbulant boundary layer, thereby decreasing drag (funny, huh, decreasing drag by making it turbulent). this moves the point of seperation (of the boundary layer and ball) backwards, so the "wake" of the object is smaller. because its the wake that causes drag. this works at high reynolds numbers (moving fast or with a really thin fluid).

with golf balls, the dimples are the perfect solution, because they can do that without creating wierd flight patterns (like taking your drive to the back of the head...) when there is a bit of spin. this wouldnt really be important in paintball because they dont spin very fast, especially when compared with a golf ball. most of the time you can see the spin while watching a paintball (with two-tone shells).

**Restola** · 12-07-2002, 12:44 PM

Forgive my overall lack of fluid dynamics knowledge, but the wake vortices cause a lot of the drag when an object moved through a fluid. Submarine technology for example tries to focus on moving those away from the sub, which decreased drag. Or in an airplane, you have probably heard of wingtip vortices. When those are disrupted by ground effect or winglets, there is a significant increase in performance.

vortices next to an object = bad

**joeyjoe367** · 12-07-2002, 02:10 PM

Dimples on Golf-Balls works because a golf-ball is spinning.

Paintballs, on the other hand, are lobbed "knuckle-ball" style, imparting as little spin on the ball as possible.

I think that's why it didn't work. Correct me if I'm wrong.

**giblit** · 12-07-2002, 03:40 PM

has anyone actually seen these fly?

**sniper1rfa** · 12-07-2002, 05:26 PM

kinda, golf ball dimples are there because of spin, specifically to reduce drag without worrying about spin too much.

its all about the turbulence (vortices, actually little low pressure zones, "sucking" on the ball, as it were) in the wake. the smaller the wake, the less drag, meaning the ball will decelerate slower and go farther.

this is why airplane wings have the blunt end in the front, as it has little to do with drag. the thin, tapered tail allows the wake to be extremely thin.

**pito189** · 12-07-2002, 05:31 PM

I once read in Popular Science that they were experimenting with putting dimples on plane wings. I believe it was supposed to increase range, on a flight.

**sniper1rfa** · 12-07-2002, 05:39 PM

they did to, but bird excrements made the wings too unstable.

just like a scuffed golf ball...

**pito189** · 12-07-2002, 06:16 PM

I wonder if they have ever heard of a pressure washer?

**sniper1rfa** · 12-07-2002, 06:34 PM

no, like one hit and that wings drag went way up. and they only tried it on smaller planes, not large commercial aircraft. they were great, until ANYTHING interrupted the flow across the wing.

**FalconGuy016** · 12-07-2002, 07:03 PM

The first one is the air flow over a smooth ball. The second one is air flow over a dimpled ball. The smooth ball has a larger area where the air seperates from the flow around the ball and it creates more drag. The more turbulent flow around the second ball has more air flow around the ball and less area where the air seperates from the air flow and starts swirling around and stuff like that, so less drag.

**ShinyGuy** · 12-07-2002, 11:29 PM

Originally posted by sniper1rfa
this is why airplane wings have the blunt end in the front, as it has little to do with drag. the thin, tapered tail allows the wake to be extremely thin.

I was reading about putting things in orbit with railguns. They were talking about how at hyper-sonic speeds you do see a significant decrease in drag with a pointed nose vs. a rounded nose. The problem was that the pointed nose wasn't able to disapate the heat as well as the rounded nose. The conclution they came to was that it would actually be pretty easy to get cargo into orbit with a railgun once we developed material that could withstand the heat a reshaped launch vehicle would be subjected to.

Now keep in mind that this was talking about mach 7+ and isn't really relevent to paintball. I just thought you'd find it interesting. I wish I could that paper now, It was an interesting read.

**paintposse** · 12-07-2002, 11:47 PM

i dont think they would work cuz it would make the balls curve dramatically. Its in a popular sicece. I has a buch of stuff in golf and like a shallow dimpled ball would travel farther and with less spin so it would go straighter.

**Smoken** · 12-08-2002, 12:34 AM

"the problem is, on something this small, tiny impurities in the surface can do the same thing as dimples. in a fluid dynamics book a read, a 3 inch rough sphere had 5 times less drag at 125 mph winds than a smooth one. and the roughness was in the form of scores only .003" deep. "

So would this mean that the mild roughness of the RPS advantage paints might actually have some value?

**FESTUS33** · 12-08-2002, 12:38 AM

How do thos ball's react to a 9 Iron

**FESTUS33** · 12-08-2002, 12:48 AM

Sorry I did'nt mean to make fun
but it was a question begging
to be asked
Festus

**FESTUS33** · 12-08-2002, 01:13 AM

Yes I do understand What's Being said here
and there are a lot of good point's being
made.Being a Machinist/ p'balller/amateur scientist
I love watching this kind of information exchanged

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