Precision machine balancing, vibration analysis and resolution for motors, rotors, UAVs, drones, experimental aircraft, electric vehicles, large and small, in both civilian and military applications.
We detect all the vibration occurring
Vibration is often very hard to diagnose and cure but we have a great reputation for doing exactly that, even in the most exacting of environments.
We identify all the causes of the vibration
Whether the culprit is mass imbalance, aerodynamic disturbances, bearing issues, manufacturing flaws or a combination, we can diagnose it accurately.
We deliver an immediate solution
We can solve mass imbalance right there, on-the-spot at your facility.
We identify any other vibration and offer workable solutions
We can also clearly identify and reveal any other causes of vibration beyond mass imbalance and can guide your engineers in order to solve it permanently.
Experience second to none
Our specialist's hands-on technical experience spans over 50 years and as well as huge variety of electronics and machines, including a very wide range of aircraft from cold-war era jet aircraft through modern airliners, general aviation (GA) propeller-driven aircraft and the latest VTOL designs
However it elso includes large
and even very small machines, having low mass.
We've
successfuly dynamically-balanced around 700 aircraft of very diverse types during the past 18 years. We've also balanced a great many very small and lightweight rotating systems of many types.
We've provided immediate and game-changing solutions for a wide variety of machines and vehicles - surveillance drones, aircraft, rotors of all types and sizes.
A wide-spectrum background
Having electronics and software design experience spanning over 40 years has given us diagnostic and problem-solving skills far beyond mere vibration analysis. In order to successfully solve vibration issues occuring in sophisticated electronic vehicles and machines it is essential to be able to understand the technical challenges facing the designers of these new machines and to be able to guide them during the prototype phase of their new designs.
Delivering game-changing solutions
Over many years we've seen virtually all the different situations that can cause vibration in machines, power units, propellers and, very importantly, have always been able to provide immediate solutions for them.
This has allowed several major companies to advance to successful completion of the design validation phase of their vehicle prototypes. Usually vibration had completely stopped their progress until we were brought in to solve it.
An example of a real challenge
One example of a challenging vibration environment is that of electric VTOL aircraft.
Their powerplants have to remain in mass balance throughout an extremely wide range of rotational speeds, as they hover and transition to and from forward flight.
Not only that but
their motors often have no shock absorption. They are hard-mounted right onto a carbon fiber or aluminum airframe. This means that if there is any vibration at all it transmits throughout the airframe un-attenuated. Having an extremely wide range of operational RPM means that everything - every piece of equipment bolted to that airframe will likely go into resonance at some RPM and its operational life will drop to a very low number of hours. Now add multiple additional powerplants bolted onto the airframe, all varying wildy in terms of speed relative to each other and the result is a cacophany of vibration sine waves exacting an enormous cost to the development program in terms of equipment wear and tear.
Quite often, as a result, the company gives up and goes back to the drawing board. We can solve those issues much earlier on in the development stage and we have a great track record of doing exactly that and we have an impressive line-up of satisfied customers.
What's causing all the vibration?
Much of it is usually caused by rotor mass imbalance, which is why we target that first. Sometimes that itself is enough to make the product viable, but in many cases there's a lot more going on in addition to mass imbalance and we can quickly identify those other culprits.
Why is it often difficult to diagnose and fix vibration?
Because in some machines vibration comes from a variety of sources. It is often difficult. but rarely is it impossible to cure. It just takes expertise borne of long experience in order to correctly identify the several causes. Then we can always coax the assembly into complying with the design criteria.
What we're doing initially is mass-balancing the machine's rotor. We apply a corrective weight to the rotor or motor hub. This weight will counteract a mass imbalance at a specific, narrow range of RPMs.
For example, it might be the perfect amount of mass balancing weight at 2000 RPM but yet be too much or too little at a higher RPM. Also there will often be not just one but several mass imbalances around the hub, each requiring a corrective weight. These can and will interact with each other to give you a
situation that is very difficult to resolve - unless you've seen hundreds of these and have developed the skills to work around the laws of physics well enough to make the rotating assembly perform acceptably for the designers' specific purposes.
After this any remaining sources of vibration must be clearly identifed and each must be remedied differently....and that's where we are head and shoulders above any other vibration diagnosis and balancing company.
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You can waste days, weeks, months trying to discover the causes and the cure for each of these and end up with nothing - or you can call us to come to your facility and cure it for you. We use our own proprietary analyzers and balancing equipment and we always customize it for your specific requirements and assemblies. We own both the hardware and the software designs complately, so we can precisely tailor it to your situation.
When we arrive the first time on-site we usually already have our sensor package tailored to your machine, so we can go straight to the task of measurement and diagnosis.
We always customize our software
too, to get the most efficiency out of our on-site visit.
How long does it take to dynamically balance an assembly?
- It typically takes 2-4 hours to dynamically balance the first assembly, for example, because we need to run it several times to gather a set of characteristics. Then we analyze them and finally proceed to balance it at a few different speeds. The wider the operational speed range, the more time it takes to get it right.
However we always absolutely 'nail it' on that first visit!
The bottom line:
We can completely eliminate vibration in most cases, or vastly
reduce it.
This will give you a viable product on time and on budget.
Expert advice beyond dynamic balancing
As well as balancing we can most certainly pinpoint the precise cause of all other vibration occurring and give reliable guidance to ensure that you can identify and eliminate manufacturing, mounting and procedural errors.
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