If you want everything inline you could hang a plumb line from the center of your ceiling target, then place the balancer with it's laser directly under the plumb line, level the wheel balancer base with a sprit level, remove plumb line and then true up the laser to the center of the target.
Problem I found with my balancer was spring-loaded posts don't all compress to same distance. So wheel doesn't sit perfectly 90-degree to cone and bubble-level. Going to replace spring-loaded posts with fixed height ones to support my Toyota wheels which has 54mm centrebore. Then I'll know for sure wheels are 90-degrees to bubble-level.
If you have gone as far as doing the mod, nothing has to be said about how to use the balancer. The ones that cant make the mod will for sure not even buy the balancer in first case 🤣👍🏼😇. Good job and great video. Im a very technical dude age 55 and it bothers me that I havnt even thought about a laser. I might be born in the wrong era. Laser is to new to me 😁.
lol, i was 62 when making that video..... and going down that rabbit hole. my motto...never give up, never surrender. im a tinkerer and want to know how and why things work. agreed on viewers figuring out how to use the laser once completed as theres more than one way to accomplish the balancing with the laser
Seems like you could do the same thing by placing a mirror (front-surface-reflecting if you want to get super precise) on top of the bubble, then mount a laser to the ceiling pointing at the mirror. It'll reflect back up to a point somewhere beside the laser on the ceiling depending on it's offset but will still move around as the tire's balance-point changes. Just make sure that the plane of the mirror is perfectly perpendicular to the vertical axis of the balancer's hub.
I have balanced by laser a totally different way, I mounted a laser on an independent adjustable stand with the beam travelling horizontally about an inch above the tyre wall level, then adjusted its angle downward until the beam just hit inside the lip, rotate the wheel slowly, stopping ant starting letting it settle till you find the highest (lightest) point, where the dot shows furthest inside the wheel because is has risen due to been lighter, place weight loose and repeat until dot stays same all way round, mark tyre, remove and fix weights. It worked well with mine. I had a homemade stand and a stand like yours. I intend to do something like yours but will simply fit a small round mirror over the bubble so not to play with the balance there and make a laser mount and laser dot target to clamp to the roof beam etc, ect. I created the Trackace laser wheel alignment system so you go for it, you can create better systems than existing ones.
@@golfish8589 I don't it is just my own way, but I have devised a better faster accurate way now, gotta go to work now but I gotta put 2 tyres on within the month so I might make a video.
Before I saw his video, that was what I thought he was going to do. Using that method, I can use my laser level, and not have to make any modifications.
How do you know the laser beam exits the unit at exactly 90 degrees to the mounting flange. If it doesn't that will introduce an offset error and all the tires will be out of balance the same amount. Nice concept though.
it doesnt need to be at 90. if u spin the balancer hub with the laser attached the laser will make a circular reference in ceiling or whatever is above the laser, the center of that circle is your balance point. u can adjust the laser to point to that center point to make it your reference for balancing.... or the other method is with wheel on the balancer and you rotated it 360 degrees put weights on tire to achieve a centered laser point on ceiling when rotating tire 360 degrees. when rotating tire the laser would stay at one point or close enough to one spot on the ceiling
If you want to further increase the resolution, put a mirror on the ceiling. Then put a piece of cardboard with a hole in the center, and place it on the wheel so the laser shoots through. Now you have doubled the resolution, and can mark the cardboard target. Ultimately, you should get a solid dot, but because the mirror is not perfectly plumb, it will be offset from the laser source, but that is ok as long as your end result is a dot. Correction may be opposite from laser location, but you will have to experiment. Glad someone thought to use a laser to increase the resolution of the static balance! How well did this method balance your tire?
How do you know that the laser assembly is exactly level / perpendicular with the hole? The wire will also interfere with you're balance. So, in the long run everything you did turned out to be more trouble than it was worth putting a laser on it.
with no tire on head unit, the laser point at target meets at same place after u turn unit head 180 degree, u know u have it centered. if u watched previous video, i could not get pros to balance said tires, why? idk. hence my venture into a diy solution...which made the tires have a lot less vibration driving +130km/hr / 80miles/hr. maybe i have another problem but no one has found it.
20:23 isn't it interesting that you placed a weight next to the red dot which that dot actually suggest that you align the valve next to it to counter the weight. Red dot suggest it's the lightest part of the tyre.
Red dot always takes precedent. Red dot marks high spot on tire, it goes at the valve hole on aluminum wheels which is the low spot on the wheel. If a steel wheels the red dot goes on the white paint mark inside the wheel that marks the low spot if there is one. If no red dot on tire or white dot on steel wheels then yellow dot goes at valve hole
i showed with batteries, and w/out, depends on which method people prefer, as with batteries' im not sure on how long the will last but where to attach it might be more than a pain, but either way has positives and negatives, thx for commenting
@@diyvinny6300 The way the old type (1960s) Bear balancers worked, was to have the shaft that mounted the wheel, pinned on both sides, until it was spun up. Then the anchors were removed, to let the wheel spin as a free assembly. The motor was no longer driving the shaft, but there was a fast enough wheel spin, that you had plenty of time to take the reading. You could mount the laser on the end of the shaft, and have the paper target on the wall. The only problem is, that you would need a strobe to index the tire. They sell cheap strobes, for use as an RPM counter on small engines.
I think I get the concept of balancing with the laser, would it be like centering stock in a large chuck? If you're familiar with that concept, instead of moving the stock around to be center, you're adding weight so that the laser doesn't move as you rotate the tire. I'm assuming that's what you mean. Either way, I'd like to see a video demonstrating what you've learned on how you do it.
the wheel balancer is always at its balance point w/out a tire/weight on it either with or without a laser. the bubble or laser was just for us to get a visual of where the balance point is, adding weight to it told us how to get it back to that visual balance point. but yes to your question. if the laser stayed at a single point when rotating the head then that would be our visual balance reference point without a weight on it. once you put a wheel on it you put weights on the wheel to get it to be at a single point when rotating the head
Hi Vinny, have you already driven the car after the winter and is there no vibration in the steering wheel and body? Kind regards from the Netherlands Akko
yes i have driven with my winter tires and its all good. fyi my summer tires are much better after my diy balancing, no vibration at 120km/hr with barely a vibration at 130km/hr. b4 i did the balancing myself i would start getting vibration approaching 120km/hr
@@diyvinny6300 Thanks Vinny for the Update, that sounds very good. I'm going to copy your modification. If that's okay? Kind regards from the Netherlands Akko
It looks like you have a piece of paper or something like that right above the lazer and I'm not sure if you're doing what my idea was to do with it but I'm thinking put a piece of frosted glass, plastic or whatever you can find, Dollar General has a white frosted shower curtain cheap, and mount it over the lazer beam and the frosted semi transparent sheet should be able to capture the lazer beam and place the spot where you can look down and see it rather than all the way up on the ceiling. Just a thought.
i actually tried it with paper as laser will was easily visible through paper, i show it near end of video 22:40. and yes its much easier on the neck and also faster at getting results
You do realise you now need to balance the head after adding all the circuitry,don’t you? It’s not sufficient just to zero the laser on the roof as the balance of the actual head is now upset and the unbalance will be increased or reduced depending on where the heavy part of the wheel lies..The head will be balanced during manufacture and you have just upset that by adding weight to the head that will no doubt now be off centre..
I do have one but a different make I’m guessing..When I purchased it second hand 22 yrs ago from it’s previous owner who I believe sold it because it wasn’t balancing wheels properly,I was having problems with people returning with steering wheel wobble..An engineer asked if the head had been balanced..I turned the head over and could see that the sticky backed balance weight had fallen off from the balance area inside the head..After using a wheel I knew was balanced on a digital balancer and experimenting with different balance weights on the head I never had any problems again and still use this balancer today..The head still has to be balanced and you will need to find out a way to balance the head for true readings..Best of luck..
@@briansalvona3475 Wrong. The head need not be balanced. As long as the bubble (or laser dot) is centered with no tire resting on the balancer, you will get accurate results assuming that the pivot point has been modified to allow smooth movement.
except for the fact that 2 mechanics on dynamic pro balancers failed to balance it properly, i was left to try something, anything , on my own to rectify the situation, fyi i got better results doing it myself, but still not perfect, at high speeds over 125km/hr i get vibration where as b4 it would start at 115km/hr
So you still have to dynamically balance? Not trying to be funny here, but actually considering static balancing before dynamic, if that has any effect... @@diyvinny6300
I admire your persistence to get it solved yourself! If i may, I could recommend doing wheel alignment yourself too (if not already, I tried using laser and a sewing thread, the latter is far more accurate than any laser I could buy)@@diyvinny6300
Unless there is another issue, such as the belt of the tire, having shifted during manufacture, if you are only adding a small amount of weight, dynamic balance won't normally be an issue. In the late 1950s, my buddy, worked at a tire store, where they used a special lathe to true up mounted tires. It was amazing, how badly some tires were not true. We experimented with the machine, using our own tires, and after about 8 months, (for a multitude of possible reasons) the tires were slightly out of true when they were re-mounted in the lathe.
guys like you is what makes youtube great as diyers like us can learn from one another, kudos
agreed and thx
If you want everything inline you could hang a plumb line from the center of your ceiling target, then place the balancer with it's laser directly under the plumb line, level the wheel balancer base with a sprit level, remove plumb line and then true up the laser to the center of the target.
Problem I found with my balancer was spring-loaded posts don't all compress to same distance. So wheel doesn't sit perfectly 90-degree to cone and bubble-level. Going to replace spring-loaded posts with fixed height ones to support my Toyota wheels which has 54mm centrebore. Then I'll know for sure wheels are 90-degrees to bubble-level.
Because the base may move easily, it won't be practical but I respect your creativity! 👍
i just finished balancing tires for another car, worked like a charm
If you have gone as far as doing the mod, nothing has to be said about how to use the balancer. The ones that cant make the mod will for sure not even buy the balancer in first case 🤣👍🏼😇. Good job and great video. Im a very technical dude age 55 and it bothers me that I havnt even thought about a laser. I might be born in the wrong era. Laser is to new to me 😁.
lol, i was 62 when making that video..... and going down that rabbit hole. my motto...never give up, never surrender. im a tinkerer and want to know how and why things work. agreed on viewers figuring out how to use the laser once completed as theres more than one way to accomplish the balancing with the laser
The bubble works just fine.
maybe, but visually laser was easier to see, plus i just wanted to add a laser
Laser is extremely slick. The taller the ceiling, the more accurate the balance.
Try it by night on a cloudy sky and this will be even more accurate with your laser (may be you will need more power)😂
Other guys are building a complete hotrod at the same time 😂
I love this👍but working underneath the ladder will give you bad luck?
now that you mention it, it does explain my life lately
Seems like you could do the same thing by placing a mirror (front-surface-reflecting if you want to get super precise) on top of the bubble, then mount a laser to the ceiling pointing at the mirror. It'll reflect back up to a point somewhere beside the laser on the ceiling depending on it's offset but will still move around as the tire's balance-point changes. Just make sure that the plane of the mirror is perfectly perpendicular to the vertical axis of the balancer's hub.
k, u convinced me, im buying one just to be able to add a laser to it, not even sure im ever going to balance the tires with it, lol
thx
I have balanced by laser a totally different way, I mounted a laser on an independent adjustable stand with the beam travelling horizontally about an inch above the tyre wall level, then adjusted its angle downward until the beam just hit inside the lip, rotate the wheel slowly, stopping ant starting letting it settle till you find the highest (lightest) point, where the dot shows furthest inside the wheel because is has risen due to been lighter, place weight loose and repeat until dot stays same all way round, mark tyre, remove and fix weights. It worked well with mine. I had a homemade stand and a stand like yours. I intend to do something like yours but will simply fit a small round mirror over the bubble so not to play with the balance there and make a laser mount and laser dot target to clamp to the roof beam etc, ect. I created the Trackace laser wheel alignment system so you go for it, you can create better systems than existing ones.
Do you have a link to your balancing system?
@@golfish8589 I don't it is just my own way, but I have devised a better faster accurate way now, gotta go to work now but I gotta put 2 tyres on within the month so I might make a video.
Before I saw his video, that was what I thought he was going to do. Using that method, I can use my laser level, and not have to make any modifications.
1st mod was revealing on how the balancer actually works but this mod is awesome
thx
How do you know the laser beam exits the unit at exactly 90 degrees to the mounting flange. If it doesn't that will introduce an offset error and all the tires will be out of balance the same amount. Nice concept though.
it doesnt need to be at 90. if u spin the balancer hub with the laser attached the laser will make a circular reference in ceiling or whatever is above the laser, the center of that circle is your balance point.
u can adjust the laser to point to that center point to make it your reference for balancing....
or the other method is with wheel on the balancer and you rotated it 360 degrees put weights on tire to achieve a centered laser point on ceiling when rotating tire 360 degrees. when rotating tire the laser would stay at one point or close enough to one spot on the ceiling
If you want to further increase the resolution, put a mirror on the ceiling. Then put a piece of cardboard with a hole in the center, and place it on the wheel so the laser shoots through. Now you have doubled the resolution, and can mark the cardboard target. Ultimately, you should get a solid dot, but because the mirror is not perfectly plumb, it will be offset from the laser source, but that is ok as long as your end result is a dot. Correction may be opposite from laser location, but you will have to experiment. Glad someone thought to use a laser to increase the resolution of the static balance! How well did this method balance your tire?
How do you know that the laser assembly is exactly level / perpendicular with the hole? The wire will also interfere with you're balance. So, in the long run everything you did turned out to be more trouble than it was worth putting a laser on it.
with no tire on head unit, the laser point at target meets at same place after u turn unit head 180 degree, u know u have it centered. if u watched previous video, i could not get pros to balance said tires, why? idk. hence my venture into a diy solution...which made the tires have a lot less vibration driving +130km/hr / 80miles/hr.
maybe i have another problem but no one has found it.
20:23 isn't it interesting that you placed a weight next to the red dot which that dot actually suggest that you align the valve next to it to counter the weight. Red dot suggest it's the lightest part of the tyre.
Red dot always takes precedent. Red dot marks high spot on tire, it goes at the valve hole on aluminum wheels which is the low spot on the wheel. If a steel wheels the red dot goes on the white paint mark inside the wheel that marks the low spot if there is one.
If no red dot on tire or white dot on steel wheels then yellow dot goes at valve hole
Wow man thanks, you are a very patient Person and it is well explain don't worry.
Why didbyou make the laser wiring so complex? Just use a battery operated laser.
i showed with batteries, and w/out, depends on which method people prefer, as with batteries' im not sure on how long the will last but where to attach it might be more than a pain, but either way has positives and negatives, thx for commenting
neato, amazing what people can do once they get their mind in doing it, for cheap on top of that
ty
if you spin the tire fast enough, maybe the laser dot motion can show you an indication of dynamic balance instead of static balance.
i should try that but it would be some what difficult to not introduce a wobble to the spin
@@diyvinny6300 The way the old type (1960s) Bear balancers worked, was to have the shaft that mounted the wheel, pinned on both sides, until it was spun up. Then the anchors were removed, to let the wheel spin as a free assembly. The motor was no longer driving the shaft, but there was a fast enough wheel spin, that you had plenty of time to take the reading. You could mount the laser on the end of the shaft, and have the paper target on the wall. The only problem is, that you would need a strobe to index the tire. They sell cheap strobes, for use as an RPM counter on small engines.
I used a piece of steel tubing with laser, push button on/off switch and a CR2 battery mounted inside. Much neater without loose wires and tape.
i would like to see a pic of that. tape was just temporary until i worked out the kinks, will eventually neaten it up.......one day
@@diyvinny6300 there's nothing more permanent than a temporary fix! 😉
@@Eyes0penNoFear lol, all my diy projects are in a permanent state of flux
Any updates
I think I get the concept of balancing with the laser, would it be like centering stock in a large chuck? If you're familiar with that concept, instead of moving the stock around to be center, you're adding weight so that the laser doesn't move as you rotate the tire. I'm assuming that's what you mean. Either way, I'd like to see a video demonstrating what you've learned on how you do it.
the wheel balancer is always at its balance point w/out a tire/weight on it either with or without a laser. the bubble or laser was just for us to get a visual of where the balance point is, adding weight to it told us how to get it back to that visual balance point.
but yes to your question. if the laser stayed at a single point when rotating the head then that would be our visual balance reference point without a weight on it. once you put a wheel on it you put weights on the wheel to get it to be at a single point when rotating the head
I like it brother....but I'm always looking to McGiver stuff anyway so this is the kind of stuff I do.
Hi Vinny, have you already driven the car after the winter and is there no vibration in the steering wheel and body? Kind regards from the Netherlands Akko
yes i have driven with my winter tires and its all good. fyi my summer tires are much better after my diy balancing, no vibration at 120km/hr with barely a vibration at 130km/hr. b4 i did the balancing myself i would start getting vibration approaching 120km/hr
@@diyvinny6300 Thanks Vinny for the Update, that sounds very good. I'm going to copy your modification. If that's okay? Kind regards from the Netherlands Akko
It looks like you have a piece of paper or something like that right above the lazer and I'm not sure if you're doing what my idea was to do with it but I'm thinking put a piece of frosted glass, plastic or whatever you can find, Dollar General has a white frosted shower curtain cheap, and mount it over the lazer beam and the frosted semi transparent sheet should be able to capture the lazer beam and place the spot where you can look down and see it rather than all the way up on the ceiling. Just a thought.
i actually tried it with paper as laser will was easily visible through paper, i show it near end of video 22:40. and yes its much easier on the neck and also faster at getting results
I take it you last video with the ballencer didnt work if your still trying to improve on it.
Or have I misunderstood.
freakin awesome, im doing this for sure, thx
yw
The broken drill bits are acting as weights in the stand that’s why you are getting different reading with the tire on to wen it’s off bud
FIRST MOD TO THE WHEEL BALANCER
th-cam.com/video/XgqStt9Bgwc/w-d-xo.html
You do realise you now need to balance the head after adding all the circuitry,don’t you? It’s not sufficient just to zero the laser on the roof as the balance of the actual head is now upset and the unbalance will be increased or reduced depending on where the heavy part of the wheel lies..The head will be balanced during manufacture and you have just upset that by adding weight to the head that will no doubt now be off centre..
you're assuming they machined the head to be balanced? if you had one in your hands im pretty sure you wouldn't think that
I do have one but a different make I’m guessing..When I purchased it second hand 22 yrs ago from it’s previous owner who I believe sold it because it wasn’t balancing wheels properly,I was having problems with people returning with steering wheel wobble..An engineer asked if the head had been balanced..I turned the head over and could see that the sticky backed balance weight had fallen off from the balance area inside the head..After using a wheel I knew was balanced on a digital balancer and experimenting with different balance weights on the head I never had any problems again and still use this balancer today..The head still has to be balanced and you will need to find out a way to balance the head for true readings..Best of luck..
@@briansalvona3475 Wrong. The head need not be balanced. As long as the bubble (or laser dot) is centered with no tire resting on the balancer, you will get accurate results assuming that the pivot point has been modified to allow smooth movement.
Static balance is not worth the time spent on doing it.
except for the fact that 2 mechanics on dynamic pro balancers failed to balance it properly, i was left to try something, anything , on my own to rectify the situation, fyi i got better results doing it myself, but still not perfect, at high speeds over 125km/hr i get vibration where as b4 it would start at 115km/hr
So you still have to dynamically balance? Not trying to be funny here, but actually considering static balancing before dynamic, if that has any effect... @@diyvinny6300
I admire your persistence to get it solved yourself! If i may, I could recommend doing wheel alignment yourself too (if not already, I tried using laser and a sewing thread, the latter is far more accurate than any laser I could buy)@@diyvinny6300
Unless there is another issue, such as the belt of the tire, having shifted during manufacture, if you are only adding a small amount of weight, dynamic balance won't normally be an issue. In the late 1950s, my buddy, worked at a tire store, where they used a special lathe to true up mounted tires. It was amazing, how badly some tires were not true.
We experimented with the machine, using our own tires, and after about 8 months, (for a multitude of possible reasons) the tires were slightly out of true when they were re-mounted in the lathe.