DynaVibe is an effective tool for dynamic propeller balancing and vibration analysis. For A&P mechanics, shops and service centers, DynaVibe is also an excellent tool for boosting customer satisfaction and service revenue. It’s not hard to understand the customer value proposition of balancing and vibration analysis – a quick scan of the DynaVibe customer testimonial page confirms the difference flying with a balanced prop assembly makes. Unlike other service procedures, fixing an unbalanced prop or a complex vibration makes a difference customers can feel. So it is with vibration analysis. Customers that have simply lived with annoying (and damaging) vibrations are grateful when mechanics are able to isolate and fix them. And they should be: vibrations are harmful, with the potential to damage the engine, instruments and airframe. Resolving complex vibrations extend the life of the aircraft. Shops, service centers and the mechanics have become a significant segment of the DynaVibe user population. We’ve profiled some of them in recent case studies, such as Skywest Aviation and Ascutney Air and a common theme is emerging: these businesses are using DynaVibe to deliver better service, resulting in more satisfied customers and increased revenues. It’s a scenario where everyone wins. Adding DynaVibe to the services mix that a shop or service center provides has the following benefits:
This video shows how DynaVibe delivers these benefits to the shops and service centers that use it: To learn more about how your shop or service center can boost profits and customer satisfaction by using DynaVibe, contact us at 405.896.0026 or sales@rpxtech.com.
Balancing props with DynaVibe is usually pretty easy, even for first-time users. Once in a while, however, we hear from customers who are having problems balancing, so based on some support exchanges, we've put together some troubleshooting tips when the balancing process is more difficult. Here's the typical scenario: a customer consults the DynaVibe manual, follows the instructions and adds weight where the procedure indicates, but subsequent runups show that the balance hasn't improved, and/or that the location where the weight should be added has moved. After repeated runups, there seems to be no progress being made toward getting the prop balanced. There are a few “gotchas” that may impact how easily the balancing process proceeds. First, make sure you are aligning the reflective blade tape with the phototach, using the position of the accelerometer as zero degrees, with the accelerometer cable pointing up to the zero degree position. Then go in the direction of rotation to the angle indicated; that's the heavy spot. When the pusher is backwards, as in a Long EZ, sometimes people get confused, but if you follow those steps, it doesn't matter which side of the plane you are on or which way the motor is spinning. Just point in the direction that the wire is coming out of the accelerometer and then go in the direction of rotation to the heavy spot (add weight opposite). Second, RPM readings must be completely stable. If you see the RPM jump from 2200 to 1100 then back, or if you see more than a 50 RPM variation in tachometer readings, there is probably an issue with the tachometer. If you experience a tach variation of this nature, contact us and we can make some suggestions.
Third, check the spinner if your airplane has one. "Chasing" the angle during the balancing process is a classic indicator of a spinner that is shifting while running. If you can feel the spinner move by pushing laterally on the spinner, then it will be hard to balance. If your airplane doesn't have a spinner, do a very thorough job of looking for anything else that is loose: cowling rubs, exhaust pipe contact points, or anything that may be causing erroneous readings. Fourth, are you running a long prop extension? If so, pay close attention to where you mount the accelerometer. It should be at the very front of the engine (or the very back of the engine for a Long EZ), otherwise, the accelerometer placement could give unusual results. Fifth, check your static RPM. If your static RPM is lower than your cruise RPM, the low static RPM can be an issue if the mounts are stiff. Sixth, and finally, the blade pitch of the prop could cause difficulty balancing, so you may need to verify the blade pitch on each of the blades to make sure they are all setup the same way. If balancing isn't going smoothly it is a good idea to verify that all the blades are pitching the same (and in track the same). We love hearing from our customers, so if you have a question, comment or problem, please don't hesitate to contact us: sales@rpxtech.com or 405.896.0026. Background Paul Armstrong is the founder and owner of Skywest Aviation, an aircraft sales and maintenance company that operates out of Midland, Texas, at KMAF Airport. Skywest began operations in February 2014 and has already grown to 14 employees. “We’re aircraft mechanics – if it comes in the door, we work on it,” states Armstrong, who is also a commercial pilot, and an integral part of the flying community. Skywest works on aircraft ranging from Cessna 150s up to King Airs, Citations and Commanders. In addition, it also services Embraers through its contract with Mesa Airlines. Dynamic Balancing: SOP Armstrong is an advocate of dynamic prop balancing, a practice he learned early in his aviation career when the company he worked for sent him out to small fields that didn’t have maintenance shops. He would arrive to find owners lined up, waiting to have their props balanced. Today, Armstrong uses a DynaVibe GX2 to dynamically balance props that come through Skywest Aviation. “We always require a dynamic balance when we install a propeller,” says Armstrong. “When I do a prop overhaul, or remove and reinstall a prop, we do a dynamic balance on the prop or both props, depending on what we’re working on. It seems to be a pretty good calling card for us.” Balancing & Vibration Analysis The DynaVibe GX2 is more than just a dynamic propeller balancing solution – it also does full spectrum vibration analysis, a capability that Skywest takes full advantage of. “It’s a really good piece of equipment,” Armstrong continues. “I have used these things and found alternator problems, broken brackets. That’s one reason I sell the tool. Just because there’s a vibration doesn’t mean it’s the prop. We can find a weak cylinder – it will show up at the ½ per.” DynaVibe Economics
Armstrong had previously used another vendor’s prop balancer, so when he decided to purchase a balancing system for Skywest, he was of the mind to purchase the one he was familiar with from past usage. “The cost was so prohibitive, and I couldn’t get these people to call me back,” notes Armstrong. “I was in a real rush because I had two prop overhauls I had just done, and I was trying to contract a local prop shop to do the balance. What I was charged for that was through the roof, $400 a side. That’s when I went ahead with the purchase of the DynaVibe system.” Balancing = Profits Since purchasing his DynaVibe GX2 in October 2014, Armstrong estimates that Skywest has done between 15 and 20 balancing jobs. While Skywest does dynamic balancing as a service, most balancing jobs are part of his overhaul package. Including balancing in this package creates value for Skywest customers and profit for Armstrong. “There is definitely hidden profit from balancing work that can’t directly be accounted for,” states Armstrong. “That machine has absolutely paid for itself. It also gives us a little bit of status, because there is only one other shop in the area – a prop shop – that has this capability. Now that we have this capability, it makes us more competitive.” Summary The DynaVibe GX2 is helping Skywest deliver the highest quality maintenance services to its clients. “It’s a very good preventative maintenance tool, and it’s a good troubleshooting tool,” Armstrong concludes. You can pick up other problems. It’s good for more than just prop balancing. If a shop uses it, it can bring them other work.” DynaVibe Benefits for Skywest Aviation
Contact RPX Technologies to learn how your service center can benefit from DynaVibe: sales@rpxtech.com or 405.896.0026. The Airventure 2015 show in Oshkosh ended a week ago. The show was a great experience for us, and now that we’ve had a week to think about it, we wanted to share a few observations about our time in Oshkosh, what we learned and what made it so great. Prop Balancing Awareness
Topping the list of what we learned was how many pilots and owners still don’t know what dynamic propeller balancing is, and why it’s important. Our booth in the Aircraft Spruce pavilion was in a great location, with lots of traffic. There was a steady stream of Airventure attendees that wandered by our booth, scanned our information, and popped the question: “what is prop balancing?” It was a great opportunity for us to educate attendees about dynamic prop balancing, its benefits and of course, promoting the DynaVibe as an easy-to-use, low cost prop balancer. If you are among those who want to know why balancing is important, check out and share our infographic. Prop Balancing is Still King In 2015, we have been working to educate the aviation community about how full-spectrum vibration analysis can help troubleshoot complex vibrations. The interest in this application of DynaVibe is growing. We are getting testimonials of owners and mechanics who have wrestled with thorny vibration problems for years that were able to quickly isolate the source of the vibration by using the DynaVibe GX2 for full-spectrum vibration analysis. That said, prop balancing is still the primary reason why people buy and use DynaVibe. We think the day will come when vibration analysis will eclipse prop balancing as the primary application for the DynaVibe GX2, but for now, prop balancing is king. Vibration Tolerance is High We had a few discussions at our booth that mirror our experience in the field. When discussing full spectrum vibration analysis as a means to troubleshoot complex vibrations, often the response we’d get was “I don’t need that” or “I don’t have that problem.” As we continued to describe the common scenarios and symptoms of aircraft vibration, many times the response was “I do have that problem!” It seems there are more than a few pilots and owners that have vibration problems to which they’ve become immune. They’ve simply lived with it for so long that they’ve developed a tolerance for it. Meanwhile, the vibration persists and the damage to engine, instruments or airframes continues to accumulate. DynaVibe Price and Value Price is what you pay; value is what you get. We continued to get validation at Airventure 2015 that DynaVibe delivers great value at a very competitive price. More than once, we did a demo in our booth for a prospect, who said “I’ll think about it” and wandered off. Later, they returned, confessing that they had been shopping our competitors who also had a presence at the show. Most of the time, they acknowledged that DynaVibe’s price performance characteristics brought them back to make a purchase. Seeing Old Friends Perhaps the most gratifying part of being at Airventure 2015 was the opportunity to meet with DynaVibe customers and users. In the 8+ years since DynaVibe was launched, we’ve managed to sell many DynaVibe units. It is wonderful to have our customers come by our booth to tell us about their experience using DynaVibe to get a smoother, safer flying experience. It was a great week in Oshkosh. Thanks to everyone who took the time to visit with us. We look forward to going to Airventure next year! Background Aircorps Aviation, specializing in the restoration, maintenance, and rebuilding of vintage WWII aircraft, recently purchased a DynaVibe GX2 to perform dynamic prop balancing and vibration analysis on the warbirds that come through its shop. RPX Technologies co-founder Matthew Dock visited Aircorps Aviation to demonstrate how the DynaVibe GX2 works. During the visit, Bruce Olson’s T-6 was analyzed and balanced with the DynaVibe system. The initial reading revealed a propeller vibration of 0.45 Inches Per Second (IPS), indicating a prop imbalance. Making some adjustments over the course of a few runs, the vibration was reduced to 0.06 IPS, reducing stress on the airplane and providing a smoother ride. Outcome The T-6 owner, Bruce Olson, found the DynaVibe GX2 demonstration interesting beyond just the dynamic prop balancing that was done. “It made it clear to me that there are certain, other areas of that airplane that showed no vibration whatsoever. It gives me an awful lot of confidence that the engine is in good shape. Now we have a baseline for the engine, so if we come back next year and put it on the test stand, and something changes, we’ll know that there’s something going on in the engine.”
The preventative maintenance value of the DynaVibe GX2 analysis was not lost on Olson: “After having a baseline and basically finding out if there is anything wrong with my airplane, it’s like having a full physical of your own body. You now feel comfortable that everything’s okay, and there’s nothing I have to worry about… it lets us see if there’s anything going on inside that airplane that you could catch well in advance of a failure.” Olson summarized the experience of having his T-6 dynamically balanced and getting a full-spectrum vibration analysis: “I’m very happy with what the guys did, it’s better than it was before.” To learn more about DynaVibe and how to dynamically balance your prop, use the form below and enter your email address, visit the RPX Technologies online store or contact us directly: 405.896.0026 or sales@rpxtech.com. We were chatting not long ago with an aircraft owner whose propeller we had balanced during a DynaVibe demo session. He related a conversation he had with a prop shop tech about dynamic prop balancing. The tech’s position was this: “when we come out with a prop, it's balanced, it's perfect. By putting weight on it [during the dynamic balancing process], you're just fixing a problem somewhere else in the engine." This statement merits some scrutiny and analysis to uncover the truth. There’s a myth that needs busting here, so let’s dissect this statement and examine it more closely: “When we come out with a prop, it's balanced, it's perfect.” This may sound like pride of craftsmanship, but that’s okay! Airplane owners want professionals who stand by their work to take care of their airplanes. Regarding the truth of the statement, it’s highly likely that it is true. Shops as a matter of course statically balance props before they’re mounted. The ability for a shop to ensure that a prop is perfectly, statically balanced requires no stretch of the imagination. What’s wrong with the statement is the assumption that nothing changes once that propeller is mounted. In fact, many things can change, because now the entire prop assembly enters the picture, not just the perfectly balanced, ready-to-hang prop. Even the slightest change in mass anywhere in this assembly can throw the balance off, introducing vibration. Here are some numbers to illustrate: a perfectly balanced prop, if offset by even 0.0005 inches during installation, can cause a 0.6 Inches per Second (IPS) vibration! How common is this scenario? It happens more often than most pilots or owners realize, because most blades don’t have an indexing mechanism to ensure that a prop is perfectly centered with the crankshaft when it is mounted. For these reasons, dynamically balancing a statically balanced prop is still recommended, because the dynamic balancing process corrects “coupling” errors that result from mounting the prop. “By putting weight on it, you're just fixing a problem somewhere else in the engine." The second part of the statement we’re dissecting simply reveals a misunderstanding about the need for, and benefits of, full-spectrum vibration analysis. One of the frustrations with troubleshooting vibrations is the many potential sources of those vibrations. The prop is often the culprit, but not always, and we listed many of these sources in a recent blog post. Fortunately, the science of vibration analysis comes to the aid of frustrated pilots, owners and mechanics that have spent time and money trying to chase down the source of a complex vibration. Different frequencies of vibration point to different sources, and when the source is not the prop, putting weight on the prop isn’t the solution to stopping the vibration. The best approach is to address the root cause of the vibration. The DynaVibe GX2 is a prop balance and vibration analyzer that tells you what the source or sources are, so you can fix them. As a case in point, the RPX Technologies team worked with the owner of a Grumman Widgeon (pictured) where each engine exhibited a vibration. The DynaVibe analysis was able to pinpoint different vibration sources in each engine, and the propeller was not the cause of either one. Full-spectrum vibration analysis creates certainty about vibration causes and sources, preventing speculative service work.
If you’re experiencing a vibration problem, there’s no need to guess where it’s coming from. The DynaVibe GX2 can perform a full-spectrum vibration analysis and tell you exactly where to focus your efforts to fix complex vibration problems. How often should your prop be dynamically balanced? There are differing opinions on this subject, and we wanted to weigh-in with ours.
Almost everyone in the flying community agrees that where balancing is concerned, once is not enough. You should not assume that once a prop is in balance, it stays in balance. There are simply too many ways a propeller can achieve an imbalance. Here are some conditions under which you should dynamically balance your prop:
Anytime any of the conditions listed above occur, the balance of your prop can change and dynamically checking the balance is advised. Wood propellers require special attention because of variations in humidity. Typically, wood props should be retorqued and rebalanced every 25 hours, or anytime the aircraft experiences a shift in ambient humidity. For more information on why to balance your prop, or on how to do it, enter your information on the Contact Us page to be contacted by a member of the DynaVibe team. The DynaVibe GX3 is a second-generation prop balancer with full-spectrum vibration analysis capability available for purchase online. The GX3 “learns” as you balance, making balancing quick and easy by telling you precisely how much weight to add and where to add it. It will balance your propeller with a minimum number of runups! Aircraft fatigue is the result of stress, and it can seriously erode the longevity of your airframe. There are no good outcomes to leaving fatigue unaddressed. “Fatigue damage and its consequences are the most serious structural design and maintenance issues that have to be addressed.”* From an engineering perspective, fatigue is caused by vibration and the number of vibration cycles. The greater the magnitude of the vibration, the more stress it produces. When a propeller that isn’t in balance is producing the vibration, you can’t eliminate the cycles, or prop rotations, but you can reduce – even eliminate – the vibration associated with each one. An out-of-balance propeller produces a vibration with each rotation. This stress often manifests itself as airframe fatigue cracks, as pictured in the photo above. There is good news: stress that is the result of propeller imbalance is easy to address. Dynamically balancing your propeller can eliminate almost all of this vibration, and it’s important that you do so, as there’s a direct relationship between stress and the number of prop rotations. Unresolved, each prop rotation produces stress that steadily produces fatigue cracks and then propagates their growth. Pilots and owners don’t have to live with prop vibration that stresses the airframe. If you have fatigue cracks you’ll still need to stop-drill them, but dynamically balancing your prop will reduce or eliminate this source of stress, arresting fatigue crack propagation and preventing new ones from forming. Using the DynaVibe Classic, a dynamic prop balancer, it’s easy to reduce or eliminate this damaging vibration (the DynaVibe GX2 allows you to identify all sources of vibration, not just prop imbalance-induced). It’s a great investment in extending the life of your aircraft, and a balanced prop produces a smoother safer ride! If you have fatigue cracks on your airplane and you’d like to know about propeller balancing and vibration resolution, contact us for a consultation at sales@rpxtech.com or by calling: 405.896.0026. *Finda, et. al., "Prediction of Fatigue Crack Growth in Airframe Structures", 1985.
Here at RPX Technologies, we believe that planes shouldn't shake themselves apart, and therefore propeller balancing should be easy. Read the "Why Balance Your Prop?" webpage for a complete discussion of reasons to balance your prop. This infographic summarizes why it is so important, and how simple it is to dynamically balance your prop with Dynavibe: The DynaVibe Classic is the most affordable dynamic balancing solution on the market. For dynamic prop balancing and vibration survey capability, use the DynaVibe GX2. Buy the right DynaVibe for your needs by visiting our online store. If you have any questions, please call us at 405.896.0026 or simply enter your email address in the form below.
Aircraft vibration is more than just annoying. Left untreated it has the potential to damage all parts of the aircraft: engine, airframe and instruments. The reality is that piston engines vibrate, but when there is vibration, most of the time it is the result of propeller assembly imbalance and not from combustion. Here are common signs that your airplane is suffering from vibration that could easily be resolved by dynamically balancing your propeller:
Even the slightest misalignment of any part of the rotating assembly, such as the spinner, propeller, prop mounting hardware, starter ring, crank or any other rotating component can cause damaging vibration. There are many potential sources of vibration, which you can read about on our “Why Balance” web page. Left unchecked, vibration has some nasty side effects, like producing fatigue that reduces the longevity of the airframe and avionics that are continually stressed and fail prematurely. Fortunately, the solution is easy: dynamic propeller balancing using the DynaVibe Classic or DynaVibe GX2. The prop balancing process with DynaVibe is simple, as this short video explains. The difference dynamic prop balancing makes is often dramatic. Many pilots feel like they’re flying an entirely different aircraft, as these testimonials share. To learn more about dynamic propeller balancing, visit the RPX Technologies website or contact us by email: sales@rpxtech.com. |