Hello,

I’m looking to purchase a Wilson Bairado L for badminton. Is anyone using it and how well is it compared to others? For the price, I believe it’s more reliable than Yonex Precision 3.0 as I heard it’s like a generic Yonex stringing machine from Taiwan. Looking for other suggestions as well.

Thank you!

The P3.0 (or 3.2) is a Badminton only Machine. With a Baiardo L you can string Tennis, Squash and Racquetball too.
For me the only disadvantage are the clamp bases. You have to turn it to lock. If you're used to it, it's certainly fine, but if you string a lot (+10 a day) I wouldn't want to string on it.
It's a decent machine!

Here is a short review:

And Herb did one too:

I haven't used the Wilson myself but one of my friend was looking to upgrade to it from his Victor VM-2000S + WISE combo while I was using the C-7027 (preceded the VM-2000S) + WISE combo.

Both the Yonex Precision 3.x & 5.x and Wilson are made in Taiwan by OEM manufacturers there, so I am not sure what you mean by not being as reliable. Both OEM manufacturers that build the Yonex and Wilson machines have a long history of making quality strining machines;

EXTHREE makes the Victor and Yonex Precision 3.x . 5.x model as well as those for Head, Li Ning, Gosen and others. The same OEM that make the Wilson machines also make the Gamma machines, albeit, with heavy OEM customization.

As far as after sales support - for me at least, I know both the yonex and Victor reps, so support is only an email / phone call away. While I fortunately haven't needed any service or parts for my Victor machines, I know other people who have, and they were able to get them from Victor albeit with a bit of time for the parts to come from Taiwan.

I wanted a high quality badminton only machine and on the higher end, that only leave the EXTHREE made machines like the Yonex Precision 3.x and Victor C-7032 series. For me, tennis or universal machines have too many compromises to my liking. I used some of mid to higher range Gamma machines in the past and while they are high quality machines, I found they weren't ideal for badminton, even with the added badminton parts; I would pick a equivalent EXTHREE made badminton machine over them (which I did when I picked the C-7027 over the Gamma 6004)

For my friend, he wanted something that can do tennis rackets and have more quality of life features like Wilson and some of the other tennis machines out there, so things like the tilting stand were a big deal to him

I’ve been using the Wilson Baiardo L machine for over a year now for badminton. Overall, it’s a solid machine—the turntable is very heavy-duty, which gives great stability, and the tension head is high quality and pulls consistently.

I’ve also got the gravity release upgrade installed, so I don’t need to twist anything to lock the base clamps—super convenient and speeds things up. But i never use the gravity clamps really because i always release base before release clamp… in other words ‘a proper stringer XD’

The only minor issue I’ve noticed is when I pre-weave the first few crosses—sometimes the string gets caught around the turntable near the brake area, especially if I need to undo anything. Not a major problem, but worth being aware of.

Oh, interesting. I didn't realize there was a gravity-release upgrade for them. Is that something sold by Wilson, or is it a third-party / after-market upgrade?

I always found tennis machines have much more innovations like the auto-locking / unlocking clamp bases and auto-unlocking gripper on the old Bablot Sensor machines.

It is something from Wilson’s original baiardo machine so you will need to purchase the glide rails as well as its diameters are lightly different to the twist lock base. So the whole gravity base set is around £900-1000 upgrade… but easily doable yourself by unbolting a few nuts so no need for a rocket scientist/engineer

Here is the link to a supplier that has the parts

oh wow that is a pricey upgrade but I guess not including it on the base Baiardo-L model keep it's price down.

Yeah I have seen several machines where the rail can be removed separately from the base plate - makes servicing them much easier.

Looks like for those rails, they took it a step further and make it so you can remove the clamp base from the rails from the top; looks like there is a stopper piece at the end of the rails and if you remove that, you can slide the clamp base to the end of the rail and lift it out of the rail - is that correct?

I have an instagram page which i have a post which shows your the parts i detached for cleaning.

But yes you can slide it to lift it out the rail to clean but like i said for the upgrade you will need new rails as well.

IMO i think this is one of the better machines with the likes of Dunlop 3.0 or higher end exthree for badminton that isn’t a toyozouki machine (had some experience with es5 pro) but if you want to take the risk of no insurance and parts / cheaper machine. The es5 is defo more badminton friendly and lighter/portable

I always felt tennis machines were always light years ahead of the traditional badminton machines like the Exthree or even Toyozouki - Toyozouki motors / drive units and clamps are top notch but feature wise their machines haven't changed much. EXTHREE machines have evolved nicely over the years where their clamps are much better now than before.
Wilson and Gamma machines are solid - they are made by the same OEM - Gamma machines have been around in North America for a long time. My experience with Gamma has been that they are very high-quality machines, solidly built with good support and parts availability. My main grip with them is I find them to more geared toward tennis, and things like the side supports and clamps were a bit too bulky. I also didn't like the fact that the badminton parts were sold separately. I remember do remember that some of the the higher end gamma machine did have a string length counter / cutter which I thought was neat and wish that was standard on higher end badminton machines. Pro-shops like features that the Baiardo has like having profiles for different stringers

10 years ago, I thought the Babolat Sensor was the pinnacle of high-tech stringing machine - I thought it was awesome how the clamp base locks automatically when you close the clamp on the string and how gripper releases when you clamp it as well. It was also need how the whole tensioning unit that can be slid out for service. The main issue with the Babolat machines for me, other than the high cost, was how optimized they were for tennis and the need, cost, and availability of the optional badminton parts - I believe back then the badminton parts were around $500, but most places didn't stock them. The latest Babolat machines looks even more optimized for tennis which is too bad because their machine are well liked in the Tennis community.

The new Precision 8 is the spiritual successor to the ES5 - It has been the stringing machine of choice for the Yonex Stringing Team for some of our local BWF tournaments (Canada Open). Feature-wise, it doesn't bring too much to the table I think, but it retains the same Toyozouki quality and precision in a modern machine with updated electronics in a similar form factor to the ES5. The Precision 8 is definitely my end goal, but the current prices on them it is like 2-3x more than a precision 3 or C-7032 Ultra.

I think it might be a while until we see some of the advanced features on tennis machines on the badminton ones -

Thank you everyone. After looking at the specs, I decided to go with the Wilson Baiardo L! Have strung 8 rackets and I love it!

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Congrats on the new machine! I just got my Precision 3.2 the other day as well!

Thanks for sharing this as the turn to lock is clearly not the best but I’ll still in the adaptation mode to this feature. Appreciate what I have for now until I do more string job, this will be a good upgrade for me.

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