I wasn't the point man on the balancer quote. I believe it was the personal balancer which is much cheaper. The Micro Vib does look like a much more capable unit. I have used the Micro Vib with a tech looking on. Simple system to use. I have no idea about support, they were trying to sell us a system and were pretty eager.

Bill Jepson 

 

Hi Bill,

 

I did get a quote from DSS today, and also talked to them about the personal balancer.   They seemed fine to deal with, so maybe it was just me yesterday.  

 

Anyway, the personal balancer is a no frills unit, that only gives you amplitude, and phase.  You have to do all your own calculations as far as how much weight to put on, etc.  The unit, with no sensors or cables is $1795, and the normal kit they sell is $2885, but includes two accelerometers, cables, etc.  I can easily see how you were trimming this down to about $2400.  

 

While not fancy, it will do what you need it to do, but there is an rpm limit of 4800, so you can't balance any engine parts above that.  

 

I also exchanged a couple more emails with ACES, and found that they have a 2015 unit, that goes for about $3900 in a kit.  The unit can only acquire data from one channel at a time, though it is a two channel unit.  It and the 2020 both come with only one accelerometer in the kit though.  They originally quoted the 2020 because I had mentioned it would be nice to do helo blades if necessary.  They did say that you could do rotor blades with the 2015, but it wasn't as convenient.  

 

I plan to call the ACES guy tomorrow, and decide what to do (if anything) from there.  

 

Thanks,

Rusty