Is my bubble balancer OK?
I have the Harbor Freight bubble balancer.
I put my last fully used-up set of four mounted wheels on it, just to see what happens.
There's a circle, as you know, and the tiny bubble is supposed to be in the circle. The bubble is much smaller than the circle. You could get maybe five bubbles inside the circle.
The wheels/tires were Hoosier mounted and balanced at our last National.
One wheel came up perfect, the bubble right in the center of the circle. Two wheels came up good, with the bubble inside the circle but not in the center.
One wheel came up not so good, with the bubble just outside the circle.
Is this as good as it gets from the tire guy? Should I check the bubble machine? Is it possible to calibrate it?
In my case, bubble's are OK
I've recently mounted a set of Hoosiers and used my HF Bubble Balancer. I could only get repeatablity 3 out of 5 times trying, so I decided to double check.
A local reputable shop had to put their computerized balancing machine on "Fine" (some shops do not have this feature) to find any discrepancy. Even then, only 1 wheel was only off just a 1/4 of an ounce.
Now I think at least my HF Bubble Balancer is OK.
I guess it's like looking at kids on a playground teeter-totters.
Balanced is balanced & you don't necessarily need a computer to tell you that.