Tool balancing made easy

Imbalances in your tool quickly become a problem in several respects: They run out of round, put a strain on the spindle and machine, impair the cutting performance and ultimately your entire process reliability.

The term "unbalance" is used to describe the ubiquitous phenomenon in rotating bodies that their mass is not distributed over the body in a rotationally symmetrical manner. There are three main types of unbalance:

• Static unbalance: Here, the center of gravity of the rotating body lies outside the axis of rotation. This can already be measured at standstill.
• Torque unbalance: The center of gravity is on the axis of rotation; the unbalance only becomes measurable during the rotary motion.
• Dynamic unbalance: The term dynamic unbalance combines the two other forms of unbalance, in any combination of static unbalance and torque unbalance. This is the rule for technical rotors.

Each specific form of unbalance can be corrected by making appropriate adjustments to the rotating body.

During rotation, the greater the unbalance (linear growth) and the faster the rotational movement (quadratic growth), the more noticeable the unbalance becomes. The faster the rotational movement, the more important balancing becomes and the more important it is to reduce the residual unbalance as much as possible. Balancing should therefore be systematically integrated into the work process.

In the high-speed machining of workpieces with rotating tool systems, any small inaccuracy, any lack of precision, can become noticeable very quickly and very clearly. An imbalance in the tool can cause vibrations, but certainly unsteady running.

Both affect the accuracy with which the tool works and always increase the risk of artifacts and damage to the workpiece: The surface quality is reduced and rejects can occur. However, as your processes are heavily dependent on correctly machined end results, tools that are not precision-balanced require more detailed quality checks. Reworking may also be necessary; in any case, process reliability is not guaranteed.

The rule of thumb is therefore: It is better to balance the tool in good time and more frequently than to end up bearing the costs. In general, a tool should be rebalanced as soon as it is used at a different speed - because even this change can cause significant differences in running smoothness.

Regular balancing increases productivity and the quality of your work.

The balancing system then uses this measurement data to calculate the unbalance correction. With an advanced balancing machine, the measures can then be implemented immediately and fine balancing continues until no more residual unbalance can be measured or all values are within an acceptable tolerance range.

In this way, balancing does not even take particularly long and the unevenly distributed mass can be corrected quickly.

A highly accurate and largely automatic balancing system also makes sense because it enables tools to be balanced again quickly with every changeover. This prevents quality losses due to changes in requirements, speeds or materials without compromising the speed of the work.