Rick E
I'm a bit surprised that you found the Vibrex inaccurate, the ones I've tested have always been very precise. Could you please explain in more detail what you mean by accurate. If your problem was inconsistent results (ie wildly different IPS/angle readouts for the same flight/balance condition) that is more likely to be a question of accelerometer mounting, pilot input to controls during data capture, varying rotor rpm or turbulence. I've struggled with all of them at some time or another.
We did a back to back test of the PB3 against the Vibrex and it was published in a French magazine and in PSF (
http://www.rotaryforum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=43921).
Basically with modern accelerometers and computing hard and software making a prop/rotor balancer isn't rocket science and all the balancers:
Vibrex site :
http://vibratech.fr/,
ACES site
[email protected] ,
DynaVibe site
http://rpxtech.com ,
DSS MicroVib site
http://dssmicrovib.com .
Smart Avionics site :
http://www.smartavionics.com/contact.html
are good and give basically the same results. The big difference is the cost and local customer support.
What you must remember is that, except for the PB3, the balancers on the market were developed for helicopters and the manufacturers have a wealth of experience with helis but not that much with gyros. The PB3 was developed as gyro balancer and most of our experience is with gyros although we've done a few helis and some customers are using the PB3 successfully on multi bladed helis.
To be fair to the other manufacturers they all have to have largish organisations with sales/marketing departments and field service guys because their customers are usually the pros in the helicopter maintenance field who are very demanding.
Smart Avionics is a very small company with low overheads and a very simple website whose target customers are in the light aviation sector . Support is either an email/telecon from Mark Burton (the brains behind it) or me (the tester). As a result the PB3 is cheaper. There are nearly a hundred users out there and most manage to operate the PB3 out of the box, a few email me at the start because they haven't read the manual (which is very well written) and then they're off solo.
I did the demo of the PB3 at the Magni airfield (they use a Vibrex) and Magni ordered 10 PB3's for their service operators (I heard they just ordered another 10), Autogyro have 2 and are considering buying more, Trendal (Xenon Poland) have one, Chris was impressed when we did a demo at Arrowcopter (they had just bought a Vibrex).
After a few years plugging the PB3 to individuals my recommendation now is that unless you're really fascinated by the subject or out in the sticks on your own don't buy a personal balancer, buy it as a group.
a) It obviously reduces the cost
b) You only use it once maybe twice a year and each time you have to go up the learning curve.
c) Get the most enthusiastic hands on type member to be involved each time it's used so the group gets some collective memory.
d) play with it on a ceiling fan or using an electric drill spinning a piece of wood before you try it out on a gyro.
e) try balancing props first they're easier.
f) buy a balancer with the frequency spectrum option, it isn't essential for balancing but is essential for diagnosing other sources of vibration and allows you save a lot of time.
SmartAvionics also has some very simply (but very smart), ridiculously cheap rotor blade tip LEDs that allow you to check the tracking of a rotor in flight.
Mike Goodrich