• There has been a recent cluster of spammers accessing BARFer accounts and posting spam. To safeguard your account, please consider changing your password. It would be even better to take the additional step of enabling 2 Factor Authentication (2FA) on your BARF account. Read more here.

Dynamic On-Bike Wheel Balancing

ctwo

ctwo

Merely Rhetorical
Joined
Feb 5, 2015
Location
auf der motobahn
Moto(s)
motato
Name
Heyou
Is anyone aware of this being done?

I think I can make a device that would determine where and how much weight needs to be added to/removed from a wheel while just riding it. Would you pay for that as a service or buy the device, or rather it be an open source project?

This idea sprouts from being too lazy to take the wheel off and balance it.
 
I spin balance by hand, wheel on the bike. It seems to work fine. I guess if I did it often, I might be interested in something that would speed it up, but I don't.
 
Really? I can static balance but nothing without taking the wheel off the bike. How does that work?
 
ctwo said:
Really? I can static balance but nothing without taking the wheel off the bike. How does that work?
Click to expand...
This was done about 1975 so the details may not be accurate.
The balance machine was made by Coats. It was a electric powered roller that was placed under one wheel at a time. Bike has to be on center stand. The wheel was spun up to about 35 MPH, and a strobe light was pointed at the side of the tire. A display on the rollers or the gun, can't recall which, read out the amount of weight and position of the weight.

I bet that there are some balance machines in the corner of a shop some where.
 
ctwo said:
Really? I can static balance but nothing without taking the wheel off the bike. How does that work?
Click to expand...

I remove the brake calipers and spin the wheel a few times, adding weight based on where it tends to stop.

I'm sure a machine balance is better, but I don't think I could tell the difference.

If I had a balancing stand (and room for it) I'd use it. I don't think I've ever balanced a wheel that hadn't been off the bike just before doing it.
 
davis53 said:
The balance machine was made by Coats. It was a electric powered roller that was placed under one wheel at a time. Bike has to be on center stand. The wheel was spun up to about 35 MPH, and a strobe light was pointed at the side of the tire. A display on the rollers or the gun, can't recall which, read out the amount of weight and position of the weight.
Click to expand...

Did not know this style of balancer existed, cool!
Video of a on car balancer in action

Shops balance wheels as part of the tire change process, it's easier to throw the wheel on a digital balancer and get the weights installed before the wheels go back on the car. Figure that's the reason you don't see that style of balancer anymore, not even taking into account the OSHA violations.
 
Long ago I remember reading in a couple of places how it was better to balance wheels on the car, but I'd never once seen it actually done that way.
 
We have technology now. I am thinking of something more like your real-time tire pressure monitors. You could see an image of your bike and wheels on your cell phone and there would be a marker or bubble with a number in it like 5g overlayed on the wheel at a position relative to the valve stem, meaning add 5g at that spot to balance the wheel. All you would have to do is stick this little tiny small module on the suspension and ride the bike on the highway. You could even leave it there and see it real time all the time, just like your highly entertaining TPMS display.

It's just because I'm too lazy to remove the wheel now. I balanced it when I put the new tire on and it's half done now, but seems to have picked up a nasty vibe that starts around 99 and smooths out again at 130. Otherwise I don't notice it at all.

I'm going to make a prototype anyway for another purpose, this was just another application I thought of.
 
Please describe the technology you will be using. I've used portable spinning mass balancing systems (aircraft prop balancing and helicopter rotor balancing systems) and they always had 2 components. An accelerometer to measure vibration magnitude and a strobe and target to detect the angle of the imbalance.
A fixed dynamic balancing system does not require the strobe and target. It uses a second accelerometer to detect the clock angle difference between the spinning and fixed accelerometer.
 
My mini did develop a bounce in the front, the shop that had a balancer that would fit the axle was different. More of a plumb bob, that hangs free, a base that the wheel rests, a centering bubble that comes up thru the wheel bearings, with the hanging loop above the centering bubble. Nothing spins, only static.
Not quite glass smooth.

I have done balancing on knobbies, by spinning on the axle chucked in a vice, better than what I got with the mini.
 
ctwo said:
We have technology now. I am thinking of something more like your real-time tire pressure monitors. You could see an image of your bike and wheels on your cell phone and there would be a marker or bubble with a number in it like 5g overlayed on the wheel at a position relative to the valve stem, meaning add 5g at that spot to balance the wheel. All you would have to do is stick this little tiny small module on the suspension and ride the bike on the highway. You could even leave it there and see it real time all the time, just like your highly entertaining TPMS display.

It's just because I'm too lazy to remove the wheel now. I balanced it when I put the new tire on and it's half done now, but seems to have picked up a nasty vibe that starts around 99 and smooths out again at 130. Otherwise I don't notice it at all.

I'm going to make a prototype anyway for another purpose, this was just another application I thought of.
Click to expand...

Sounds like you need a sensor on the wheel too. That way you can get a good measurement of wheel position to correlate with a speed measurement.

The signal to noise ratio is probably going to be less than optimal. So your data filtering will probably need to be amazing. Maybe you could find a 50g imbalance, but a 5g one?

Im very interested to see if you can accomplish this.
 
Last edited:
Think the same, roadway imperfection noise will be a challenge. Adding "technology" to address an age old problem that has simple and proven solutions seems like a low demand product. How many can you sell and what is your profit margin?
 
RVFRick said:
Think the same, roadway imperfection noise will be a challenge. Adding "technology" to address an age old problem that has simple and proven solutions seems like a low demand product. How many can you sell and what is your profit margin?
Click to expand...

Profit margin? I would guess we are looking at a remarkable share of the existing TPMS market. What if these technologies were integrated?
 
TPMS has huge market because there's a law requiring it on cars. It was probably an easy sell for lawmakers because low tire pressure is a safety issue. Someone probably found data showing that low tire pressure kills X # of people annually. Think of the children! I'm not sure that tire imbalance presents that type of issue.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top