Assembled machine balancing on force sensors

When it makes sense

No bare rotor to mount

A standard balancing machine needs a bare rotor mounted on its own bearings. Force-plate balancing on the assembled machine helps when:

The product is a finished assembly, and no bare rotor exists to mount separately.
The correction must match how the machine runs on its own bearings and feet.
Every assembled unit needs an unbalance check built into the test sequence.

Hardware

What the station uses

Force sensors under the feet of the running assembly measure the shaking force and moment. The OpenEOL workflow turns that into a correction plan, with no rotor to mount.

The test

How a balancing run works

Set the assembly with its feet on the force sensors.
Run it at operating speed, and record the force and the moment at each foot.
Fit a rigid-body model to the forces and moments, and calculate the correction in two planes.
Show the correction plan, and store the result with the serial number.

Software

The open-source software behind it

Your plantReceives the results

MES and quality databaseResults over OPC UA, MQTT or SQL

OpenEOLRuns the workflow

Task engine Open sourceRuns the run-up, the measurement and the correction step

GUI framework Open sourceOperator screens with live data and the result

Reports and database Open sourceOne correction record for each assembly

AnalysisFinds the correction

FFT and filtering Open sourceOpenEOL functions used to extract the running-speed force component

Force and moment fitRigid-body fit that turns feet forces into a two-plane unbalance

Correction and tolerance checkCorrection plan and a pass or fail result

DriversTalk to the hardware

OpenEOL IO drivers Open sourceNI DAQmx, Dewesoft or other OpenEOL drivers for the force sensors

Vendor runtimeNI-DAQmx from NI, when NI hardware is used

The parts marked open source are code your team can read and change. Vendor runtimes, such as NI-DAQmx, come from the hardware maker.

Related use cases

Other balancing work

Balancing machine retrofit

New measurement electronics and software for a Schenck, Hofmann or CEMB machine that still runs.

Details

Custom balancing machine for rigid rotors

A machine built around one rotor, for rotors that fit no standard balancing machine.

Details

Flexible rotor balancing

Correction mode by mode for rotors that bend above their first critical speed.