CD-Rom Balancing Balls

[@NickMoore]

If anyone can think of any projects that involve ~900 BBs let me know. I only had about 100, of the 1000 that I bought, fly off into the garage.

[@barabolak]

Make a BB gun using a coke bottle and an air compressor. Look up a video, it shoots a billion bbs per second

[@AppliedScience]

That's a great demo! I always wondered how effective this approach really is.

[@NickMoore]

Thanks! I was shocked how tolerant it was too. As long as the weight of the BBs was more than the weight of the bolts it eventually found a balance.

[@Nighthawkinlight]

Wow, I need to throw some ball bearings into my old washing machine

[@NickMoore]

Looks like LG had the same idea: kzbin.info/www/bejne/pYOmeZqkqs6WZ5I

[@55Ramius]

First I have seen such a thing and explained well too. Good to see you back.

[@NickMoore]

I know it's been a while. All of my projects lately have been software and don't really translate well to video. This however was too much of a brain-candy moment to pass up.

[@PrincipalAudio]

Physics is so interesting! This is one of those things that, at first, appears totally counterintuitive, until you think about it for a long while and suddenly get it. Man, the people who came up with this in the first place must've been geniuses! Thanks for the vid. Really appreciate your vids. :)

[@NickMoore]

Glad you enjoy them. What got me stuck was thinking about the motor shaft as rigid, if there is no wiggle room the beads don't work at all. It should be possible to put the bottle on the end of a long shaft and still have it spin at full speed without wobbling to death.

[@PrincipalAudio]

@@NickMoore Yeah. That got me, too, thinking it was a rigid mechanism. Amazing how they managed to overcome such a limitation in the CD spin speed. I was always in awe at the noise my CD/DVD drive made when it was writing a disc at 52x. Couldn't believe it could spin that fast without self-destructing!

[@AaronALAI]

Really cool demo of the idea!

[@NickMoore]

Thanks, it freaked me out how quickly it locked in to balance the first time I tried it.

[@bccanoe]

Washing machines use this method to prevent shaking during the spin cycle. They have a balance ring partially filled with fluid (lightweight oil I believe). If the load is unbalanced, the fluid redistributes in the ring (much like the BBs in your demo) to counterbalance the load.

[@NickMoore]

I saw a couple promotional videos in my research showing washers that use closed rings with balls or open rings that use the wash water for balance as well.

[@Barely_Creative]

I always thought those tire balancing beads were a scam product. Incredible to see how they might actually work!

[@rogeriocosta1035]

Me too! It is very counterintuitive!

[@NickMoore]

If I had found the tire product before the CD-Rom I might have thought so as well. It blow me away that this technology has been around since the 50's and some how I never ran into it before this week.

[@mwoliver]

Tire balancing beads absolutely work. I have used them for for 20+ years, exclusively. It used to be quite a challenge to get tire shops to accept, but not so anymore. They are especially useful when you venture off-road and may end up with chunks of mud in your wheels. Unlike static wheel weights, the balance beads can adjust to counteract the mud and you never know it. It's actually pretty amazing.

[@cuthulu1984]

I've been using the beads inside the tires of my work truck for years now. Brilliant invention. I deal with a lot of very bad mud that can build up inside the rim and I was always loosing wheel weights when I would pressure wash the mud out. They're not as good as wheel weights when compared to good wheel weight application but for me they are a life saver.

[@NickMoore]

Awesome, I have a set of winter tires that are just barely out of balance and researching this has me pretty tempted to try them. I figure it would help with snow stuck in the rims as well.

[@1ucasvb]

Extremely ingenious. I never heard of this system before. Also @ 4:04 Meow!

[@NickMoore]

@@1ucasvb I had a helper while narrating.

[@keepcalmandfarmon5401]

That was a great demo! I find the physics of this hard to understand, but its hard to argue with your demo. The balancing balls placed in your car tire do actually balance the tire. KZbinr Warped Perception put a GoPro camera in his car tire to demonstrate the balls moving to a spot to balance the wheel...see kzbin.info/www/bejne/i4u0iYOCm7SDjsU for his video.

[@NickMoore]

I agree it's super unintuitive, it took me 2 days of searching before I finally got the 'ah-ha" moment.

[@piranha031091]

Neat! I wonder if you could make a self-balancing spinning top like that?

[@NickMoore]

I was thinking that as well. In order to work the device has to be spinning faster than 'resonant' speed, so it might take a rubber bushing between the spindle and the ball-balancer. The resonant speed (I think) is when you get the off center mass moving straight up and down with the rest of the system flopping around it, you can see this when I add the weight to the bottle before adding the balls.

[@francoiswagnier6148]

Thank you! You've solved two mysteries for me as I once had a video game explode in a CD drive and I've heard that rolling noise before without having any clue about why balls would come loose.

[@NickMoore]

Ha, sorry about your game >_< I never had any discs explode on me but I do remember having a few that were super loud and refused to read in my brand new, year 2000, 52x drive.

[@AABB-px8lc]

I feel it somewhat related with Hula-hoop with a bit of sand inside.

[@joostvanwijk3842]

Interesting effect, nice video explanation as usual!

[@NickMoore]

Thanks!

[@alan.schertz]

Hi Nick, I was running thru my subscriptions in the youtube interface (view all) and when I saw your icon I was so excited and burst out load with a "yes"! With YT's additions of "shorts" to the youtube interface the algorithm for me has "lost" all of the great things that I loved about youtube, like content creators such as you! I immediately watched your latest video and was so rewarded by your awesome content. Super interesting! I remember as a kid "hacking" the safety switch with a pencil to watch the top holding cloths washer go thru it's cycles. I watched in wonderment how the spinning drum could have "self righted" itself when the clothes were initially out of balance. I was imagining a type of counterbalance system that would take the "cam" input (movement) of the drum and and via pushrods try to add a counter weight to self balance the spinning drum. I guess is I was maybe 10 years old in the 70's when I made this observation. But it was not until today that I learned there is a much simpler way to handle this problem. It was probably a good thing I did not try to take apart my families washing machine to find out. But I did want to thank you for sharing the solution these 54 years later! My mom thanks you too! (from the other side of that rainbow) Again I need to realize that I cannot rely on the YT's algorithm. Thank you for continuing to add content and I will do a better job of seeking out your channel. You are the best! your friend out in the ether, alan

[@NickMoore]

Yeah, I have found the current system for video suggestions is really not up to par. There used to be a never ending stream of genuinely new stuff, both impromptu and produced for KZbin videos. Lately it only gives me made-for-advertiser meta-content, oh well. Though it was much more recent, I did the same thing with a top loading washer, wondering how the clothes somehow always ended up straightening up after it got up to speed. Glad you like my videos! I can't promise that I will be making them any more frequently but I will at least try to keep up the quality.

[@rudiedirkx]

What happens with the almost balanced bottle without the bolts? That's a more realistic example, right? Because discs are somewhat balanced, not perfect, but not crazy like with the bolts. Do the bbs spread evenly, or does it add IMbalance?

[@NickMoore]

@@rudiedirkx They spread out evenly but it takes a couple seconds for them to arrange into a stable distribution.

[@st_us]

I think that System was made for the advertisment CDs back then, they came Laser cut to different forms as Gifts sometimes. They weren't round at all and I always wondered how come they didn't explode in my 48x drive

[@NickMoore]

I remember seeing heart shaped mini-discs and maybe some kind of oval or chopped off circle. Holy hell it's been a while.

[@tinygriffy]

Mighty interesting, thanks for the Video !!

[@NickMoore]

@@tinygriffy Glad you liked it. It's hard to find 'new' things.

[@weijholtz]

Exellent!

[@NevinWilliams71]

Hiya Nick! I have seen the tire balancer beads before; there are videos on KZbin where someone mounts a gopro to the inside of a rim, and put the wheel on a tire balancer. It did seem to show the tire balanced. However, when driving, there's going to be a lot of deformation, and I doubt balance will be maintained; probably worsened. I think the ABS-like systems are more for steady-state operations, such as clothes in a washer during spin cycle (I believe water is used to balance laundry loads), or the weight of ink on the label of a CD/DVD/Blu-Ray. As for what to do with 900 BBs... still have that cannon? :) See ya!

[@NickMoore]

I would have thought that the bending of the tire would make things worse as well but the balls used seem to be small enough that they get stuck in the ribs on the inside of the tire. There is a good video where someone uses them on an old Citroen and it goes from a paint-shaker to dead smooth. I am very tempted to try them on my vibrating snow tires. The cannon might not be able to throw so much weight but it would make a good first stage for a light-gas gun...

[@manobrass]

Great visual demo!

[@ovalwingnut]

ShOcK & AWE eXplanation (formerly Twitter). I've gone decades not "understanding" this.. And in ~6mins you blew my mind. This is going straight onto my resume. All I can say is; "The check in is the mail". Thank you! Cheers from So.Ca.USA 3rd House On the Left (but call before stopping by:)

[@NickMoore]

Nice, glad I could help. It took me 2 days of beard pulling for me before it finally clicked.