Balancing motors

[JezUK1]

I understand balancing propellers but how on earth do you balance motors?

[Loopdreams]

From experience you faff around with bits of tape and a vibration phone app until you are so bored that you begin imagining that it's made some slight difference.  I don't bother any more.

[Randall]

+1 to that

Decent motors should be perfectly useable out the box

[cortex]

I understand balancing propellers but how on earth do you balance motors?

get the vibrometer app and some insulation tape. one motor at a time stick a small patch of tape to various sides of the motor until you get the least vibration. If your using DJI motors take the stock stickers off, this decreases vibration.

No need to do it if your just using it for fpv but if you want jello free video on your GP or similar camera then it is a must!


Hope this helps!

[dogzilla]

+1 to that

Decent motors should be perfectly useable out the box

The problem is that "perfectly usable" doesn't mean jello free video, because the tolerances for typical RC are much lower than what is required for vibration free video.

So in a batch of motors, a bunch may be very good for FPV, and others might be terrible and require a lot of balancing.

Doesn't seem to matter how expensive the motor is.

[Smit80]

From experience you faff around with bits of tape and a vibration phone app until you are so bored that you begin imagining that it's made some slight difference.  I don't bother any more.

Best post I've read in days !

Two motor balancing links here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QnjflLDxQQU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tx5vvMxMnas

[JezUK1]

Thanks for the info guys. Which app should I get for the iPhone? What's the best one?

[dogzilla]

Thanks for the info guys. Which app should I get for the iPhone? What's the best one?

I use seismometer. remember don't balance at full throttle, balance at half.

[Randall]

I used iseismometer it was a faf and i gave up but very very sensitive app

[Loopdreams]

+1 to that

Decent motors should be perfectly useable out the box

The problem is that "perfectly usable" doesn't mean jello free video, because the tolerances for typical RC are much lower than what is required for vibration free video.

So in a batch of motors, a bunch may be very good for FPV, and others might be terrible and require a lot of balancing.

Doesn't seem to matter how expensive the motor is.

What I do now is just spin up the motors really fast with no props on, if one starts sounding angry instead of smooth then I've found that it's usually a bad bearing or some maladjustment rather than a balance problem.  Loosening the grub screw and making sure that there's no play between the top and bottom halves of the motor or if that fails changing the bearings generally seems to sort things out.  Certainly I've had much more success with getting jello-free video than I ever did messing around with bits of tape.  Although the correct approach probably varies according to the brand of motor.