Vx sand simulator

[buckslayr]

I bought a sand simulator Matt for my golf simulator, my Vx won’t read the ball on it, could it be because the sand simulator grass is white or light brown, has anyone had this problem and found a remedy,?thanks

[Lefty71]

My guess you are right, it is looking for white. So if its white it won't see it. I had a divot mat over my hitting area and the white stripes on it wouldn't let it recognize the ball.

[buckslayr]

I’d like to somehow color the bristles dark but don’t want it to come off and wreck my hitting screen

[Ronsc1985]

You might try colored balls. Among other things the sim software must be able to accurately detect the edge of the ball on the picture/pictures the cameras capture. When the background is close to the color of the ball this becomes virtually impossible. The software really doesn't care what color the ball is just that it can detect the edges.

[buckslayr]

I looked at the uneekor trouble Matt, that has a black base under the bristles, I wonder if that would work, I’d like some one with a vx to try it before I buy it, wish protee would chime in on this, thanks

[buckslayr]

I tried colored valls. Didn’t work either, but thanks

[mthunt]

I bought a sand simulator Matt for my golf simulator, my Vx won’t read the ball on it, could it be because the sand simulator grass is white or light brown, has anyone had this problem and found a remedy,?thanks

VX won't read a ball that is on simulated sand unless it's green.

[buckslayr]

Have you tried or heard of anybody trying the trouble Matt from uneekor, might have to paint my base black and see if that works, I have a useless Matt otherwise, thanks for the info

[michaelk]

It won't work with white turf. See the linked video, where this is addressed at approx 2:40 in the video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IWPPep19QVE

[Lefty71]

They are coming out with the sand to hit out of it's at the PGA Show 2025 on Par 2 Pro's video

[ProTee United]

This is what we used for testing:

[Bubba22]

I have one and it works great!

[Alpobass]

So can you clarify that this works with no problems with VX?

[sirish19]

This is what we used for testing:

Does anyone know if this thing would work with SkyTrak?

[shinpan]

After seeing the posts here, I bought this exact model used by Protee for my ProteeVX in February. Unfortunately, the item was backordered until late March, followed by another delay so I didn't receive it until early/mid April. When I got it, I put it in place of my DIY hitting strip, just to 'test' it out to see if the VX could 'see' the ball, and to my delight, it did. So i redid my DIY hitting strip so as to create a permanent spot for the FORB sand mat.

Wasn't able to do that right away, but eventually got that new DIY hitting strip done, created a perfect 'fit' for the Forb Sand Mat, etc, about a week ago (May 9th or something). And much to my disappointment, the VX no longer will 'read' a ball on the sand mat. I tried moving the sand mat to a different location within the hitting area (which didn't change) -- just in case there was some 'weirdness' with respect to having it on the edge of the hitting area instead of the middle, though I didn't really think it would matter, obviously, and it didn't. No luck. For whatever reason, the VX doesn't want to 'read' a golf ball on the Forb sand mat anymore (same TP5x balls used in my April 'test' success as used for my May failure). No issues anywhere else on my custom DIY hitting mat (DIY mat has a Teeline section and a 'rough' section) -- read perfectly as it did before. But when the ball is on the Forb Sand mat, nothing... doesn't recognize a ball anymore.

This is a question for Protee, I suppose. There were several software updates made to the ProteeVX over that April / early May time period. Is it possible that one of the updates inadvertently caused something to change so that the unit can't read off the Forb Sand Mat anymore? Have you guys retested with the Forb Sand Mat recently after all the updates made in the past several weeks / month?

So unfortunately, as it stands now, it was a waste of time, effort and money -- which is unfortunate. But maybe ProTee will find a solution (assuming they can 'recreate' the issue on their end when using the Sand Mat after the recent software updates). So for now, I would NOT recommend the FORB Sand mat. I suppose my experience could be unique. But not sure why. It's really the first 'failure' I've had with anything related to the ProteeVX. Otherwise, been thrilled with it.

Jeff

[ProTee United]

Why did you not report this to our 24/7 available support team? -> support@protee-united.com
We can not monitor the entire internet

Anyway, we are going to test this and if it appears to be broken for whatever reason, we should be able to fix it!

Btw, we are not overly excited about the quality of the Forb mat. The fibers are coming out on our test mat.
If you want to practice bunker shots, we recommend to practice in real bunkers

[shinpan]

Ha! I'm not a complainer. I ended up creating a third DIY hitting strip the exact size of the Sand Mat -- but with extra long rough -- to create three playing surfaces in my hitting area (Teeline, first cut rough and 2nd cut longer / thicker rough). So still got something out of redoing the DIY hitting strip(s), per my prior comments. Other than the $100 or so wasted on the sand mat (not really worth returning given I'd have to ship it back overseas -- hardly worth the additional hassle), no harm, no foul. Incidentally, after the FORB failure, I tested with an alternative sand mat that I had from a few years ago that had both 'fairway' sand (which is white -- as expected, nothing recognized on that section) and 'greenside' sand (dark brown section) -- the greenside 'dark' sand section is read by the VX. But I didn't originally use that mat in the sim setup because the narrow size of the greenside bunker section on that sand mat. But I bring it up because the Forb sand mat uses those light brown colored bristles -- so I was frankly surprised it was working for you in your tests and for me in my first test when I received it. All manufacturers need to do for their sand mats to work in sim setups (at least with the VX) is darken the bristles. But imagine they are trying to match sand 'color' with their mats -- not really thinking about sim setups. So the solution to me is really just finding a sand mat with darker colored bristles.

That said, if you're able to recreate what I described and 'fix' it without otherwise negatively impacting the VX for all the other great things it does, I'm all for it.

Jeff

Why did you not report this to our 24/7 available support team? -> support@protee-united.com
We can not monitor the entire internet

Anyway, we are going to test this and if it appears to be broken for whatever reason, we should be able to fix it!

Btw, we are not overly excited about the quality of the Forb mat. The fibers are coming out on our test mat.
If you want to practice bunker shots, we recommend to practice in real bunkers