IPI by Bison is pleased to announce the new retractable IPV4000 Ceiling Suspended Volleyball System, shown here at Silver Lake High School in Silver Lake, Kansas. The new system boasts the most demanding features in the market, including the ability to adjust to both men’s and women’s heights, an on-board judge stand, and, most importantly, safe operation.

As part of the final design process, IPI by Bison’s R&D Mechanical Design Engineer, Iman Salafian, and Director of Specified Products, Nik Ditzler, traveled to Kansas to view some of the systems in the field built by competitors. Star Installations, one of IPI’s distributors, helped evaluate the positive and negative features of each system.

“This short visit helped us to better understand customers’ needs and possible opportunities for improvements to our system,” Salafian said. After receiving feedback from dealers on some design improvements recommended to IPI by Bison’s current system, Salafian set to work redesigning the popular system.

The IPV4000 is a retractable ceiling suspended volleyball system with integrated net height adjustment. The design expedites the process of preparing the volleyball net system for official or practice games and is designed to operate in buildings with a minimum ceiling height of 24 feet and maximum height of 30 feet above the finished floor.

One goal of the strut redesign was to decrease the deflection at the bottom of Retractable IPV4000 Ceiling Suspended Volleyball System the poles while ensuring there is no failure in any part of the system. To facilitate this, the existing system was modeled in Autodesk Inventor FEA (Finite Elemental Analysis) to study the effects of different forces on the system while in operation. The study showed a significant amount of stress to the top structure due to the high moment of force at the top of the main mast as a result of the long distance between the net force point and the top of the mast. To avoid this failure, a stronger pipe was needed to withstand the high amount of force in the upper section of the frame. Other factors, including the strength of the main mast and the ladder frame, were also considered and testing was simulated to determine the best redesign.

The new and improved IPV4000 includes these features:

• Ability to adjust the net from 6’ to 8’3”
• Optional official’s stand
• Automatic net tension release while folding the system up
• Safer operation due to no ground attachment
• No need for floor sockets or attachment to the ground
• Easy install and maintenance due to the similarity of parts in different places of the system
• Single or multiple court design with simultaneous operation
• Aut-O-Loc™ equipped system for safety catch
• Fully padded for player safety