Tire Balance Beads ?

DrewE wrote:

fj12ryder wrote:

Dutch_12078 wrote:

fj12ryder wrote:
The Balance Beads are kind of like a seance in that you can't really prove they work, or don't work. They don't work with a regular tire balancer, so there's no way to prove that they actually do what they say they do.

A spin balancer will quickly show how well the beads work. A static balancer obviously won't...

That was my point, the balance beads makers say they won't work with a spin balancer. From Dyna Beads: "Dyna Beads cannot be tested on an electronic spin balancing machine or any other balancer with a fixed mount". So you just have to take it on faith that they work, you can't check that they work. Just like a seance.

Surely there is a stage intermediate between complete faith and fully being able to explain and demonstrate the physics with sufficient rigor for, say, a university lecture; and that would be on-the-road vehicle trials. It's not as though it's especially difficult to discern when driving if the wheel balance is acceptably good or not.

Beads (or similar technologies, such as Centramatic rings) have been around for quite some time, plenty long enough for word to get around if they didn't work. They do in fact work pretty well in practice. Mathematically modeling the response of a slightly deformable tire with loose beads in it rolling over uneven terrain with its axle mounted on a damped suspension is not exactly an easy task.

Well you can find lots of people who say they don't work. People who have tried them and find them not working. Lots of them on the motorcycle forums especially. If they work, they should work all the time, not just some of the time on some of the tires.