Has anyone been experimenting with a 3D printed solution to wheel balancing? I’ve been using adhesive 5g counter-weights but there are a few problems with them. First, 5g is a bit too much for accurate balancing. Second, if I change tyres and need to re-balance I have to replace the weights. They can’t be easily re-used.
I was thinking of a 3D printed counter-weight holder that would somehow attach to the spokes. Then maybe use bolts and/or nuts as weights. I have some ideas but don’t want to reinvent the wheel.
It’s not a rocket science. Just flip your board around and spin the wheel freely and very slowly. As it’s about to end spinning and you get the pendulum effect, it’s not well balanced and you’ll want to add some counterweight.
ok, so this makes sense, but hard to do with gears. I guess taking them off and putting on stand a lone pole to do the pendulum effect. Also, once you find that heavy side, where and how do you attach the counter weights.
lol, that’s obvious, but I meant inside of the rim, outside, middle. Where is the best place to place it so it doesn’t fall off or get knocked off etc.
Doesn’t matter IMO. I’ve been putting mine both on the inner and the outer rim and haven’t noticed any difference.
Regarding gear drive, best to take the wheel off and put it on the front truck for balancing. Or maybe if you just flip it over on the rear truck that should do the trick as well.
First test. The print came out pretty well. I used M3x8 bolts as weights. They just sink in without coming out of the other end. They are basically drilled in (the holes are 2.5mm) and I think they might hold in even without being secured with a nut. We’ll see after some riding. Not using the nuts makes the installation faster and more hassle free.
Balancing test. This is without any counter-weight at all. Lot of pendulum effect.
This is my best effort in in getting the wheel balanced by adding the bolts only. Unfortunately (as I expected), the bolts don’t add enough weight to counter-balance the valve. Still, they do help a lot. The pendulum effect is much reduced.
Last I put just one 5g weight to counter-balance the valve. I then used the bolts to finetune the balancing. This worked perfectly.
Looks promising so far. Here are the STL and STEP files if anyone wants to play with it.
It would probably shave off a gram or two which is not a lot but it’s not insignificant either. It’s a good idea. Then again I have some wheels where (strangely) I needed to put more weight on the valve side to get them balanced.
Genius! What a great idea. Could you estimate the weight of the valve stem and add spots for one or two larger bolts of similar weight across from the stem to offset the weight, and use the smaller bolts for fine tuning? And make these for MBS Rockstar and 5 stars? Pleeaase??
The bigger bolts spots are a good idea. I’m thinking one big hole on each side of the spoke opposite the valve.
Unfortunately I don’t have any MBS wheels on hand. Also I think making something that could be easily attached to the Rockstar/Fivestar hubs would be more challenging since the bolts that hold the two parts together don’t stick out.
