The Effect of Drawing Speed on a Sand Table Pattern

Most people run their sand tables at 100 mm/sec or less which helps keep noise down and detail in the drawing high, though it can be a little dull to watch. I run The Spice Must Flow at 500 mm/sec most of the time so that it will be entertaining to watch as the pattern is being drawn. I have always suspected that running at such speeds reduces the detail in the final drawing but didn't really know how much, so I tested it.

I ran one detailed pattern at 100 mm/sec and the same pattern at 500 mm/sec, and took some pictures so I can compare the resulting drawings.

Here You Go

100 mm/sec, acceleration 10k mm/sec^2, jerk 200 mm/sec, 190 minutes drawing time

500 mm/sec, acceleration 10k mm/sec^2, jerk 200 mm/sec, 38 minutes drawing time

100 mm/sec, acceleration 10k mm/sec^2, jerk 200 mm/sec

500 mm/sec, acceleration 10k mm/sec^2, jerk 200 mm/sec

Conclusion

Yes, loss of detail as expected. Is it acceptable? I guess it depends on which aspect of the table's performance interests you. If you're more interested in the final pattern, go slow and maximize detail. If you're more interested in the process of drawing the image, go fast!

Note: acceleration is high at 10k mm/sec^2. That ensures that regardless of speed, the drawing time will be minimized because most drawn segments will hit the target speed. That also tends to cause the ball to throw sand at the start of each new segment as the ball rapidly accelerates to the target speed. Throwing the sand (onto previously drawn lines) is one way that detail is lost when running at high speeds such as the example here.

One last thing, because who doesn't like cat videos?