Opinions on bubble balancers.
- Thread starter ram_man
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My understanding is that you can be very accurate with a bubble balancer but you can only balance "on a 2 dimensional plane" with one.
A spinning tire (remember, they spin when you use them) has weighted spots resulting in thrusts moving side-to-side throughout the width of a wheel.
In practical terms you can get close but never perfect. That's why every tire shop has a spin balancer.
Road force balancing is even better (they say) but many tire places get by just fine without 'em.
NOTE: I was in a family run tire shop (Nyack, NY) that other day and mentioned road force balancing. They acted like I was asking them to change their religion.
"We don't need no stinking road force balancer" was my interpretation.
Originally Posted By: Kira
My understanding is that you can be very accurate with a bubble balancer but you can only balance "on a 2 dimensional plane" with one.
A spinning tire (remember, they spin when you use them) has weighted spots resulting in thrusts moving side-to-side throughout the width of a wheel.
In practical terms you can get close but never perfect. That's why every tire shop has a spin balancer.
Road force balancing is even better (they say) but many tire places get by just fine without 'em.
NOTE: I was in a family run tire shop (Nyack, NY) that other day and mentioned road force balancing. They acted like I was asking them to change their religion.
"We don't need no stinking road force balancer" was my interpretation.
Originally Posted By: Kira
My understanding is that you can be very accurate with a bubble balancer but you can only balance "on a 2 dimensional plane" with one.
A spinning tire (remember, they spin when you use them) has weighted spots resulting in thrusts moving side-to-side throughout the width of a wheel.
In practical terms you can get close but never perfect. That's why every tire shop has a spin balancer.
Road force balancing is even better (they say) but many tire places get by just fine without 'em.
NOTE: I was in a family run tire shop (Nyack, NY) that other day and mentioned road force balancing. They acted like I was asking them to change their religion.
"We don't need no stinking road force balancer" was my interpretation.
JHZR2
Staff member
Darts are far from the only vehicles with stick on weights.
Prep is key.
Originally Posted By: ram_man
How accurate could one be with a bubble balancer?
Originally Posted By: JHZR2
Prep is key.
I used to work at a tire shop that had a bubble balancer and a hub on a pipe. With that you marked the low spot then added weights till the tire stoped in a different spot every time. Never had any complaints.
I dont know about road force balancing. I have never had a problem with a rwgular spin balancer. I dont drive real fast either.
Originally Posted By: Seventh
Originally Posted By: ram_man
How accurate could one be with a bubble balancer?
Originally Posted By: JHZR2
Prep is key.
Keep looking. Ive never had trouble with stick on weights.
Originally Posted By: fdcg27
Back in the day, bubble balancers were what we had.
They worked just fine and I drove many smooth miles on static balanced tires.
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I picked up an old bishman air bubble balancer off Craigslist for a good price. I was going to go with a harbor freight bubble balancer but am glad I did not. Instead of the wheel and bubble top resting on a small pin like the harbor freight balancer the air balancer top rides on a cushion of air. Its basically like zero friction where it pivots. It's so sensitive I swear dust throws it off. I would look for an air bubble balancer if you want a bubble balancer.
I hope you do get a bubble balancer, so you can tell us how great it works, and all of the time and trouble it saves you. Placing stick-on weights with the wheel facing down would be interesting too, along with centering the wheel on the stepped hub bore so many alloy wheels use anymore. Bubble balancers worked great long ago with zero-offset wheels that were only 5 inches wide, but maybe you will get lucky, and it will keep you busy for quite a while.
Just an FYI, We used quality bubble balancers to balance very high end race car wheels+tires. Cars that exceeded 230 MPH on some tracks. Done correctly, a bubble balancer will give a good result.
the computerized wheel/tire balancers are not always 100% accurate. I've had balance jobs that were never right. That's why road force balancing came into play.
Remember, many computerized balance techs don't put weights on the outside of an expensive rim. They stick 'em on the inside, often dead center. That is in no way, a proper dynamic balance. AND it often works just fine.
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I have a bubble balancer that I sometimes use to rebalance my track wheels/tires. It seems to work okay, or at least I can tell the difference after I've done the work! There is no doubt that a modern dynamic balancer can be more accurate, but sometimes good enough is good enough.
[IMG]http://i65.tinypic.com/33u5oco.jpg[/IMG
I pulled her wheel off and this is what I found . Basically the weights were counter acting each other. I took them all off and it balanced out with 1.5oz the other wheel had 6.75 I balanced it out with .75 and they ride smooth. So in this case good enough is good enough.
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