Ever witnessed one of those cheap ceiling ventilators wiggling around its axis? Ever driven your car with improper balanced wheels? Scary isn’t it? Dynamic balancing of reciprocating things is important. Be it a ceiling fan, car wheel or whatever.
So when was the last time your propeller was dynamically balanced?
An improper balanced propeller can lead to extra wear on the bearings of your expensive engine, extra vibration that can destroy just about everything that isn’t fixed properly in your engine compartment, the instruments in your cockpit, can lead to metal fatigue and can numb your hand and feet. And all that for want of half a gram of weight on your propeller.
Unfortunately, statically balancing it just won’t cut it here. A statically balanced prop (both blades being of the exact same weight) can still vibrate a lot. The weight distribution plays a key element here. And no matter what you try, you’ll always end up coming to the same conclusion: you need to spin the prop in order to balance it properly.
So you’ll need specialized equipment to dynamically balance a prop, just like your tire center around the corner has specialized equipment for balancing car wheels. Prekas has invested in such equipment.
Many balanced props later, we can really testify that balancing is like smoothing out your propulsion system. Try it and you’ll see what we mean. Call us or drop by to make an appointment to have your prop balanced.