That's why you should always balance propellers

[Dronelander]

I don't know if everyone knows the importance of flying with balanced propellers: many of my followers complain about a very unstable loiter and fail to understand the reason.

I'm exclusively focused on Arducopter world but I believe that other platforms also suffer from the same problem in case of vibrations.

Before asking for help, like I'm the latest available resource, aggravate the issue with firmware upgrades and hardware changes, but without realizing what is the source of their problems.

Others, however, only care for aesthetics by purchasing Chinese propellers that are balanced as a chewy cookie.

In the end I decided to make a comparative video where I show the differences between a drone with balanced propellers and the same with unbalanced propellers: now, let see if your one are properly balanced.

 

[DroneTalk]

Goes without saying.

 

[Dronelander]

Maybe for expert...I got tons of help request about instability and most of the time was due to crap unbalanced propellers. Hopefully you will advice your students to get always good propellers

 

[DroneTalk]

How do you balance your props? By hub or tips?

 

[Dronelander]

I go for tips with nail polish


Inviato dal mio iPhone utilizzando Tapatalk

 

[DroneTalk]

That is actually the wrong way, unless it's a small prop the correct way in at the hub. You can drill or apply small drop of glue at the HUB.

 

[DroneTalk]

Here is a decent video of one technique

 

[Dronelander]

He used both method...I found mine useful whitout damaging the propeller as he did by removing material from tip...


Inviato dal mio iPhone utilizzando Tapatalk

 

[Dronelander]

Anyway, the best way to do something is the way you fell more comfortable and that gives you the desired result.

 

[DroneTalk]

Their is right way and wrong way.... all my $200 carbon airplane props are balanced at the HUB, not the tip. Nail polish has solvants that eventually evaporate causing the weight to change , crapping the TE of a prop works but then your caning the airfoil. But hey whatever works for you.

 

[Dronelander]

I know that solvant evaporate and that's why you should spin the prop before completing the balancing process.

 

[Trevcharl]

I balanced props using two chromed rods (Smooth surfaces) the prop was on an axle that just fitted through the centre. Used sandpaper to remove material from the heavy side. But by some strange coincidence I found the props liked to settle horizontally no matter what! The rods were 2cm apart, and I discovered that being plastic/nylon, they had a bit of static. This is the first time I encountered a statically charged item being attracted to a metal item? Dronetalk, in the video shows his "jig" sides far apart, that would give much better results. I was a car enthusiast, and could balance flywheels of motor cars, using a washing machine spin-dryer motor, mounted on rubbers, a whip antenna on the side, and a strobe light. If you set the frequency of the strobe to make the flywheel seem as if it was turning very slowly, the whip antenna would indicate the "heavy" side. I could then drill a hole in the heavy side and could get the whole system balanced, sometimes it tool less than a teaspoon of material. So I am just wondering if the same principle could be applied here? The principles shown here are static balancing, the strobe light principle would be Dynamic balancing.

 

[DroneTalk]