Metric
Well-known member
I mentioned that I was using these when I posted about my new No Mar tire machine. I said I would put a thread together about it, and here it is.....
A while back I came across these. There are different companies selling them and they all use different material. There is a company selling a red material that looks like small polished fish tank rocks, one that is using Teflon coated shoot, another one using ceramic beads and some sort of dust. I ended up zeroing in on the 1mm ceramic beads Innovative Balancing uses. They sell them as Dyno Beads. Originally, I was an instant skeptic thinking that they are definitely snake oil!
I started doing searches for the different beads online. I came across two 4X4 Truck forums (guys running hugely oversized tires on trucks that were all jacked up and modified), one forum was for the GM guys and one was Ford owners. The guys on the Ford forum were kinda split. Some of them liked the beads and some didn’t. There was one good reason for the guys that didn’t like them, they were running a tire that had large rubber patches in them straight from the factory. The patches are installed to help balance the tire. The big mud tires they run are hard to balance because of there size. They also tend not to be made with the same precision that most smaller tires can be/are made with. And don’t come close to being as quality as a motorcycle tire by a long shot. Basically though, the beads would cause the patches to come loose. Once they were loose they then had these large chunks of rubber floating around free in the tires cause havoc. The guys on the GM forum however where going nuts about them claiming that they are the best thing since sliced bread. None of them were running tires with the patches in them. Currently I have orders for pounds of these beads pending for several of these guys!
I also started reading about Dynamic balancing and Static balancing. Dynamic balancing is used because larger tires can actually be heaver on the inside then the outside (or the other way around). This is why you have weights on the inside and outside of your wheels on your car in various places. Motorcycle tires don’t benefit from this. And this is why all your wheel weights are in the center of your wheel. Motorcycle tires don’t benefit from it because they tend to be very high quality in comparison to most tires on the road. The guys on the truck forums mentioned that for some tires (typically specific brands or models) they could need close to a pound of weights on the outside of the wheel to get the tire to balance correctly while they didn’t need anything on the inside! NOTE: For anyone that is thinking they want beads for their big truck tires, it is possible that you may still need a weight or two on the wheel in addition to the beads to get a truly perfect balance! This is because of the potential for large differences in weight of the tire from inside to outside. The beads just don’t seem to be able to fix that when it is really bad.
I also read one review in a magazine about them (can't remember which magazine). They went into there ‘test’ also thinking that there was nothing more to it then good advertising. They also admitted that they did nothing more then just put them in the tire and ride. They didn't actually do any testing. Yes there is something to be said for how something feels, but your feelings can be skewed by disbelief. I also really didn't expect them to work but thought I would give them a try since they so thoroughly had my attention.
I've been running them in my FJR for a few weeks now. I did a little test of my own the night I put them in. With the bike on the center stand, I set up a micrometer to measure movement in the swing arm. I set the micrometer to read from the furthest point back on the arm and from the bottom side. First I measure the movement with the tire balanced with typical weights. I measured 15 units (thousands) of bounce at 55 mph once the speed was steady. Then I pulled the weight off the wheel all together and measured it again, I measured 30 units of bounce at 55 mph. Then I took the weights and stuck them back on the wheel 180 degrees from their original position to really throw things out of wack. I measured 48 units of bounce at 55 mph.
After all that I put the beads in the tire. With the weights still on the wheel in the wrong position, and we ran the speed up to 55 mph again. This time I measured 12 units of bounce from the swingarm! No matter where I put the weights or if they were even on the wheel, I got the same reading.
The last test will be on my back tire, not sure when I’ll get it done though. I'm taking the wheel and tire in to have them balanced on a normal spin balance machine (without the beads inside). But instead of actually putting the weights on the wheel when it is done, I'm putting the beads in the tire. Then we'll run it through again and see what the machine says. I highly doubt that it says that the wheels needs no weight, but I will be impressed as long as it comes up with something significantly less then the original weight. I have a couple of thousand miles left on the back tire right now, but since its starting to get nice, it shouldn’t take me to long to use up what’s left.
If you are doing your searches for this stuff to try and figure out what you believe, you may quickly notice each company selling them tries to explain how this actually works. None of the explanations really sounds the same as the last. I have tried to find anyone that could explain why this works, and have yet to get an answer. The most qualified person I know is a mechanical engineer and he couldn’t explain it. I’ve done a limited search for different laws of phys., but in the end its all a completely different language to me. I can’t even tell if what I’m reading would actually pertain to what I want to know half the time. I’ve decided that I’m not going to be able to offer a scientific reason for why it works. Its basically turned into one of those things that just is. I am going to offer them to people that I’m installing tires for. If they want to try them, I am going to give them a ‘Warranty’ for the balance. If for some reason they don’t like them, I’ll take them out and do a regular balance on the tires. This way I can get feedback from people also, if they don’t work, I’ll know about it.
Currently I have 55 lbs of the little buggers coming (that is the smallest quantity they can be ordered in directly from the manufacture, I’m not buying them from Innovative Balancing, they want to much for them!) and as of just this week I have 4 people waiting to get tires installed until I have them. I also have about 10 lbs of them sold to the different truck guys. One of them plans to put beads in every tire he has from his truck to his RV to his trailers!
There are two things about these that are appealing. First, for motorcycle guys that do their own tire changes, no more time spent balancing your tires. Second, because the tire gets a fresh balance each time you start moving, you are supposed to get more tire life. Tires change as they wear and actually become unbalanced over time. Most people don’t take the time to have their tires balanced through the life of the tire and end up shortening the life of the tire. The beads are supposed to be the answer for that. I haven’t ridden long enough to know myself, but these are being used in the Semi Truck industry in an attempt to prolong tire life. My buddy is the manager of a convenience store in south Kansas. Directly across the street from his store is a Semi Truck garage. The mechanics come over to buy lunch and snakes during the day. I had told him about these and he asked a couple of the guys about it. They said that they are in about 60% of the truck tires they pull off now. He said “they claim they are working”. I’ll have to use them for awhile before I can comment on that claim personally, but it does make sense.
A while back I came across these. There are different companies selling them and they all use different material. There is a company selling a red material that looks like small polished fish tank rocks, one that is using Teflon coated shoot, another one using ceramic beads and some sort of dust. I ended up zeroing in on the 1mm ceramic beads Innovative Balancing uses. They sell them as Dyno Beads. Originally, I was an instant skeptic thinking that they are definitely snake oil!
I started doing searches for the different beads online. I came across two 4X4 Truck forums (guys running hugely oversized tires on trucks that were all jacked up and modified), one forum was for the GM guys and one was Ford owners. The guys on the Ford forum were kinda split. Some of them liked the beads and some didn’t. There was one good reason for the guys that didn’t like them, they were running a tire that had large rubber patches in them straight from the factory. The patches are installed to help balance the tire. The big mud tires they run are hard to balance because of there size. They also tend not to be made with the same precision that most smaller tires can be/are made with. And don’t come close to being as quality as a motorcycle tire by a long shot. Basically though, the beads would cause the patches to come loose. Once they were loose they then had these large chunks of rubber floating around free in the tires cause havoc. The guys on the GM forum however where going nuts about them claiming that they are the best thing since sliced bread. None of them were running tires with the patches in them. Currently I have orders for pounds of these beads pending for several of these guys!
I also started reading about Dynamic balancing and Static balancing. Dynamic balancing is used because larger tires can actually be heaver on the inside then the outside (or the other way around). This is why you have weights on the inside and outside of your wheels on your car in various places. Motorcycle tires don’t benefit from this. And this is why all your wheel weights are in the center of your wheel. Motorcycle tires don’t benefit from it because they tend to be very high quality in comparison to most tires on the road. The guys on the truck forums mentioned that for some tires (typically specific brands or models) they could need close to a pound of weights on the outside of the wheel to get the tire to balance correctly while they didn’t need anything on the inside! NOTE: For anyone that is thinking they want beads for their big truck tires, it is possible that you may still need a weight or two on the wheel in addition to the beads to get a truly perfect balance! This is because of the potential for large differences in weight of the tire from inside to outside. The beads just don’t seem to be able to fix that when it is really bad.
I also read one review in a magazine about them (can't remember which magazine). They went into there ‘test’ also thinking that there was nothing more to it then good advertising. They also admitted that they did nothing more then just put them in the tire and ride. They didn't actually do any testing. Yes there is something to be said for how something feels, but your feelings can be skewed by disbelief. I also really didn't expect them to work but thought I would give them a try since they so thoroughly had my attention.
I've been running them in my FJR for a few weeks now. I did a little test of my own the night I put them in. With the bike on the center stand, I set up a micrometer to measure movement in the swing arm. I set the micrometer to read from the furthest point back on the arm and from the bottom side. First I measure the movement with the tire balanced with typical weights. I measured 15 units (thousands) of bounce at 55 mph once the speed was steady. Then I pulled the weight off the wheel all together and measured it again, I measured 30 units of bounce at 55 mph. Then I took the weights and stuck them back on the wheel 180 degrees from their original position to really throw things out of wack. I measured 48 units of bounce at 55 mph.
After all that I put the beads in the tire. With the weights still on the wheel in the wrong position, and we ran the speed up to 55 mph again. This time I measured 12 units of bounce from the swingarm! No matter where I put the weights or if they were even on the wheel, I got the same reading.
The last test will be on my back tire, not sure when I’ll get it done though. I'm taking the wheel and tire in to have them balanced on a normal spin balance machine (without the beads inside). But instead of actually putting the weights on the wheel when it is done, I'm putting the beads in the tire. Then we'll run it through again and see what the machine says. I highly doubt that it says that the wheels needs no weight, but I will be impressed as long as it comes up with something significantly less then the original weight. I have a couple of thousand miles left on the back tire right now, but since its starting to get nice, it shouldn’t take me to long to use up what’s left.
If you are doing your searches for this stuff to try and figure out what you believe, you may quickly notice each company selling them tries to explain how this actually works. None of the explanations really sounds the same as the last. I have tried to find anyone that could explain why this works, and have yet to get an answer. The most qualified person I know is a mechanical engineer and he couldn’t explain it. I’ve done a limited search for different laws of phys., but in the end its all a completely different language to me. I can’t even tell if what I’m reading would actually pertain to what I want to know half the time. I’ve decided that I’m not going to be able to offer a scientific reason for why it works. Its basically turned into one of those things that just is. I am going to offer them to people that I’m installing tires for. If they want to try them, I am going to give them a ‘Warranty’ for the balance. If for some reason they don’t like them, I’ll take them out and do a regular balance on the tires. This way I can get feedback from people also, if they don’t work, I’ll know about it.
Currently I have 55 lbs of the little buggers coming (that is the smallest quantity they can be ordered in directly from the manufacture, I’m not buying them from Innovative Balancing, they want to much for them!) and as of just this week I have 4 people waiting to get tires installed until I have them. I also have about 10 lbs of them sold to the different truck guys. One of them plans to put beads in every tire he has from his truck to his RV to his trailers!
There are two things about these that are appealing. First, for motorcycle guys that do their own tire changes, no more time spent balancing your tires. Second, because the tire gets a fresh balance each time you start moving, you are supposed to get more tire life. Tires change as they wear and actually become unbalanced over time. Most people don’t take the time to have their tires balanced through the life of the tire and end up shortening the life of the tire. The beads are supposed to be the answer for that. I haven’t ridden long enough to know myself, but these are being used in the Semi Truck industry in an attempt to prolong tire life. My buddy is the manager of a convenience store in south Kansas. Directly across the street from his store is a Semi Truck garage. The mechanics come over to buy lunch and snakes during the day. I had told him about these and he asked a couple of the guys about it. They said that they are in about 60% of the truck tires they pull off now. He said “they claim they are working”. I’ll have to use them for awhile before I can comment on that claim personally, but it does make sense.
