Oops, it happened to be just before they changed the ball size from 38mm to 40mm. So I sent the new machine off for an upgrade.
Bad experience. I shipped the machine to its North American vendor, Table Tennis Pioneers (ping-pong.com). Only months later was it returned.
My opinion? Never buy from ping-pong.com. Never buy from Table Tennis Pioneers.
Then after perhaps 20 hours use, spread over a year or two, it suddenly stopped working after being left on overnight. Bad experience, trying to get it fixed. I went straight to TTmatic, bypassing ping-pong.com. They suggested fuses, I replaced the fuses. They suggested transistors, I replaced the transistors. They suggested I ship it to them. I did. Once in a while I checked on its status with them. No response. Finally I checked again and got a response:
from: Merkt merkt@ttmatic.com to: Thomas Veatch date: Sun, Nov 2, 2008 at 11:28 PM subject: Missing machine Dear Tom, we are sorry, but we haven't your parts any more. Because after one year without any contact, we clean our stock of this kind of parts. Kind regards Harald MerktNice, no attempt to contact me, "let's just throw the $2500 machine in the garbage. Hey, it didn't work anyway."
My opinion? Never buy TTmatic.