3806PBH Pickleball Machine with Oscillating Base, Adjustable Speed, Auto Swing Launch Port, Battery/AC Powered, Suitable for All Skill Levels

I've been using this machine in my garage for drill practice for a few weeks and have launched hundreds of balls, it's working great! I've tried other machines, but they just shoot too far to be useful in the garage. This one is able to shoot balls as short as 12 to 13 feet at the lowest setting and lobs are about 5 feet high at that speed and at 4 second intervals. I'm pairing this machine with the Furlihong ball retrieval net so it works great for continuous drilling and never having to reload.Another benefit is the super quiet and variable speed motor. Other machines I've tried are pretty loud as they pop the ball out. This one slings the balls out with friction wheels rather than the louder launch paddle that some use. And the speed of the launch is infinitely adjustable for any distance up to the max rated distance around 50 feet (though I've never tried this setting). Using the net is a great way to practice drop shots and in improving hand-eye coordination.The machine does not have a remote, so I used a 120V remote switch so I can activate it wirelessly instead of pressing the power button. This isn't really necessary since the machine waits about 10 seconds before launching, but I've found the remote switch to be a nice add-on that makes it even easier to use.I'm looking forward to trying this machine on the courts for an active practice session which I feel confident it will do well. It supports a tripod and should simulate a fairly fast paced drive when raised to around 4 feet and aimed straight rather than shooting from the ground where it would be more of a lob to get over the net. It also has an auto changing height mechanism and swivel base for more random shots.Since receiving this machine, I've had a few questions about it and found the Furlihong support people to be very responsive and professional. If anything should go wrong, I am sure they'd be quick to honor their warranty and offer whatever support is needed. At this price, it feels hard to go wrong as it's so much cheaper than the other ball launchers and so this will fit in nicely for the beginner to intermediate player to drill with.Friends have come over to try it and they are amazed that I can practice in my garage; perfect for all weather use. So I can actually improve my skills in between game days and get a good workout too. So far, loving this machine!

I reached out to customer service. Whitney responded quickly and efficiently. When I learned more about cleaning the wheels that project the ball out, it works really good. I am very satisfied with this product!!

First off, clean the launching wheels with a damp microfiber cloth after every use. The wheels aren't going to spin if they get caked with whatever is on your pickleballs. The manual says "Wipe and clean the machine after each training session", but doesn't tell you what to wipe and clean. It's the spinny spinny parts. They will not spinny spinny if they get dirty.Another interesting part of the manual is where it says "Gradually transition from the lowest ball speed to the highest setting instead of starting immediately at the highest speed." This is also quite true, as it will not feed properly if you just start it up with the speed at max. That is...annoying. If you are by yourself, you really can only use it at low speed, because how in the world are you going to gradually increase the speed? You'll have to run back in the four-ish seconds between serves to increase the speed and add some balls and yeah, you're not doing that.It does mar the pickleballs somewhat. I know some pickleball players are wannabe rich boys who use extremely expensive everything and will lose their minds if their name brand pickleballs get marks on them. If that's you, well, don't use your best pickleballs. As for me, I'll use whatever because I don't care about how the pickleballs look. I generally just play pickleball on my own court with my cousins or my kids anyway. We aren't exactly competing in anything aside from how hard we get smack pickleballs.Assembly and disassembly are not difficult. I did use a solar generator (fancy power bank with A/C outlets and a built in PWM solar charge controller) to power it. Mine is 231Wh and I hooked it up to a 200w solar panel, so this wasn't even using as much as the solar panel could add back in. It worked fine with that.I put probably 400-500 balls through this without issue. I was out there with three of my kids. Two of my kids ran around, collecting balls, while I fed them into this and the third kid was hitting the balls back at me. I did clean it afterwards. It did have some buildup and it seemed to be slowing down after the first few hundred.Build quality is best described as plastic. It's light, which is good for portability. It will not stand up to any abuse though. The hopper will almost certainly break if you hit it with a pickleball. That's not ideal. I'm honestly thinking of building some sort of guard out of plexiglass before one of my cousins annihilates it.It does serve just fine, but never very fast. It just kind of lobs the balls at you. Imagine a very casual pickleball game between old men. That's about how fast this goes. It's definitely not like how games go with my cousins where we try to hit the ball as hard as we can all the time. Yes, we constantly go out of bounds, but I own the court, so I don't care about rules.This could be drastically improved by just using 18650s instead of D cells. It's not 1985.

Thus is a nice machine for the price, but ball speed to too slow for intermediate players in my judgement. But the machine works ok. Takes a bit of use to get the settings you like and worked well thru the first 160 balls and then started barely shooting the balls out off and on and occasionally pushed two out. But for practice when your alone it is ok.

This pickleball machine is really only good when running on AC. Battery doesn’t cut it. Put a little stronger, rechargeable battery in it and the machine would be ok. Even on AC it doesn’t throw the balls very far but it is acceptable. The reason I am returning it is my courts do not have AC.

Received the item yesterday and had used it once today. Need more time to evaluate it. Right now, I'm not happy with the output. Seems very weak even at the highest setting.