Balance your motors.

by x3mperformance | January 13, 2014 | (4) Posted in Tips

Here is a picture tutorial on how to proper balancing your motors.

Yes, They are as important to balance, as the propellers, whan you want to mount them on a Multirotor, or anything else hvere there are some stabilizer electronic on. All those sort of gyros and sensors are not keen on vibrations, at all.

 

What you need.

A small piece of hobby plywood. (Not Balsa... It will crack and break.)

A sort of mirror or shiny object. (I use a piese of carbon plate.)

A Motor mount.

A reciver, 

A Lipo battery pack.

A solid clamp.

A bright lazer pointer.

Tape to use as the balance medium.

I recomend balancing the motor complete with prop mount. But without props. They are changeable, and balance seperately.





Here are some photos of the setup.

The setup ready to rock N roll.

The "Mirror" I used a carbon plate, the lazer i use, is bright enough for this.

Here you clearly sees the reflection from the lazer on the wall.

Here you see the tape mountet to balance the motor Spinner combo.

The test rig.

Seen from the bottom

Seen from the top.

 

You spin the motor up at different speeds, and see if there is some fuzzyness to the lazer dot or line.

If that's the case, try adding a small piese of tape an the side of the motor. Then you find the "Sweet Spot" where the un-balanced point is, by trial and error - moving the piese of tape arround until the vibrations get smaller. You can get really good results by this. 

To seal it in, i wrap a pies of tape the entire circle of the motor, to make sure the smaller pieses stay where i intended them to. :-)

The Laser.

The laser is just positioned away from the thin vibrating surface (The plywood.) where you mount the motor. I mounted it on the shelf, laying loose pointing onto the "Mirror" so i can see the green (or red if you use a red laser.) dot or line on the wall.

Here the Laser beam has been visualized by the red line. For illustration only. ;-)

 See the episode og Flitetest's "Laser Balancing Props" too, it's the same basics. Link below.

I have some unbeliveble well balanced FPV and Multi Rotors that almost don't require any form for camera/vibration dampening mount to get jello' free movies and images.

 

Hope you enjoyed this.

 

COMMENTS

bimo on January 13, 2014
Can you please clarify where you positioned the laser and how it relates to the mirror?
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x3mperformance on January 13, 2014
The laser is just positioned away from the thin surface where you mount the motor.
I mounted it on the shelf, laying loose pointing onto the "Mirror" so i can see the green (or red if you use a red laser.) dot or line on the wall.

Hope this clears things up.

See the episode og Flitetest laser prop balancing too, it's the same basics.
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Babysnakes on February 5, 2014
I love this idea and just made myself a similar rig. Then I had a thought, - Because of the orientation of the plywood, won't this only show up vertical vibrations? I use 12mm square hardwood booms, so maybe 10mm pine would give a truer reading?
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x3mperformance on October 12, 2014
Could be.
But i have not had any issues with my balancing, more the opposite, my fotage has become better and better, no jello what so ever.
Think the important in this is plain simple.
Just to balance your stuff as good as possible.
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Royall on January 14, 2014
Not being a video, it would have been nice to see "before and after" photos of a balanced motor.
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x3mperformance on January 15, 2014
There are "Before and After" pictures...
The medium that balance the motor is justsome piece of tapes...

But if you mean as a picture or video of it in-flight with the difference. No.
But the diferrence is just as big, as non balanced vs. balanced props.
It clearly shows in videos, where almost no jello effect is showing, despite my GoPro was haed mounted directly onto the frame, no suspended or anti-vibration mount used.
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Balance your motors.