[TheForge] Re: Off-topic: ...dynamic balancing, vibration...

[Mike Spencer]

Bruce wrote:

> So, I've spent the day reading up on dynamic balancing and have
> learned a fair amount, but nothing I can put to immediate use.

In the mid-70s, I was working in a sports/foreign/performance car
shop.  I visited a friend in Marblehead, Mass. who built formula Ford
engines and watched him use his dynamic balancing machine on
crankshafts that were going into high-performance racing engines.

So when I got home, I started researching dynamic balancing because
our existing auto racing customers might be happy to pay for the
service and, as well, there was a lot of off-shore work going on in
Halifax and balancing engine and turbine parts might have been a cash
cow.

> As anyone knowledgeable in the field can tell, I'm in over my head
> here.

Your (mathematical) head may stand higher than mine but that's what I
found, too.  This isn't something you can cobble together with duct
tape and a TIG welder unless you're Danny Hillis.

Find a high-end speed shop, racing engine builder, turbine
maintainance shop or the like in your area and get them to put your
as-good-as-you-can-get-it piece on their machine.  There are just too
many vibrational modes and degrees of freedom to hand-hack it.

Or maybe I'm just a wimp, y'know? :-)


- Mike

-- 
Michael Spencer                  Nova Scotia, Canada       .~. 
                                                           /V\ 
mspencer at tallships.ca                                     /( )\
http://home.tallships.ca/mspencer/                        ^^-^^