Du-Bro Tru-Spin Prop Balancer, The Most Precise in the Market, Fully Adjustable for Small and Large Props, Tires, and Rotors

This is an excellent propeller balance, and yes, in case you're wondering, you should balance your props. I've just gotten into quad flying and at first I thought nothing of the info I saw on prop balancing; I thought, these props are so light, how could it matter? Well it does matter. Some props are so small, it may not matter. For instance, I don't balance my Hubsan X4 props, but I continue to think of how I could because of what I've learned from balancing other props. I started balancing my V262 props with this balance and that's why I can easily say that balancing matters. There is a very noticeable difference. Whatever you fly will work and fly smoother: less vibration and oscillation.Back to the Du-Bro 499 itself. At first I ignored this balance because of some of the negative reviews, and some of the negative reviews are not unfounded. But there are an awful lot of positive reviews also. So when I began to really consider how I'd balance props I had to look at this again because it got the best reviews, overall, and because I'd watched some videos on it. Longer story shorter, I ordered one. I did have a little difficulty putting it together, but was able to get it together and WOW, what a difference balancing makes.I had some problems getting the last rod into the nut beneath the base, took a good few minutes of fiddling around. I can't tell for sure if the nut insertion spot is a little crooked or if the rod had a little bit too much of a machining problem on the first few threads (in other words, I can't tell if there is actually a problem with the rod or if I messed it up trying to force it into the nut, doesn't really matter). But as I said, got it together and it works great. However, I did call Du-Bro even though it was working perfectly because I was worried about rearranging the balance setup later; because there are different ways to arrange it to work on larger props, etc. Du-Bro immediately sent me two new rods and nuts at their cost. I cannot ask for more. Actually putting it together was very straightforward and easy, except for the last corner rod.The magnetic balances look OK to me and, in a perfect world one, of them would probably be the way to go (the concept of a magnetic balance is simple, the execution is much more difficult). But it is not a perfect world and this balance is the way to go, at least for me. However, this balance is expensive compared to many others and any balancing is better than none. Balance your props. Do your research. Have fun.

This review is for:Du-Bro Tru-Spin Prop Balancer, Cat No. 499=================================================This specialized tool has many positive, excellent reviews for balancing RC airplane and helo blades. but it can be useful for balancing other types of blades that move air too. I bought this tool to balance the blades on a small antique (~1930) fan. The stamped steel blades were in good condition but showed some signs of catastrophic damage - meaning the edges of two blades had non-conforming contours close to the hub. Those old steel blades are heavy duty, unlike those on fans manufactured today, so a lot of force would have been required to bend them like that.Anyway, before utilizing this tool, that old fan had to be held down or screwed to my bench or it would have violently bounced to the floor in just a few seconds. And that's after I had aligned the blades with a strobe so they all had the same contour and traveled along the same plane. That meant the blades were not balanced. (In other words the blades did not have the same weight, resulting in severe vibration.)This tool allowed me to quickly find the heavy blade so some material could be removed from the end. To balance all four blades and eliminate all vibrations, material also had to be removed from the other three blades. Now that beautiful old fan is back in service with a new paint job and moving a lot of air - with no vibrations. (Sorry Beach Boys -- When it comes to fans there is no such thing as ♫_good vibrations_♫.I know of no other way I could have balanced these blades without this tool. If you need to balance fan or RC blades, I recommend this tool!

Simplistic in design but does as stated. Is it worth the money to balance props in the grand scheme of things????? Not sure since I have yet to really find a issue with even a unbalanced prop. Some state it saves on battery life to enable longer flight times???? Not sure if they mean in minutes or seconds on this to be quite honest. However, I am willing to try it out and see. If you have a Autel XS/XSP drone then also get the 6mm prop shaft to be able to balance your props. They are the same as the DJI P3 and work great. However when mounting the red cap prop on the XSP you use the end of the prop shaft with the score line around the shaft prop. I was able to balance 4 props in about 30 minutes while taking my time. My question will be that most use a tape like electrical tape to place on the props to add weight and balance.......will this affect the tracking since the balancing of the prop with the prop edges up and down you have to put tape around the hub area that screws onto the drone. It can be tedious to try and get the tape flat working around curves and dome areas. Time will tell. Were my props severely off........a little but the drone prior did just fine......so I am ultimately trying to conserve battery effort I suppose like stated by some of the drone geeks have hinted to. So if you are into the science of flying or you fly other things like RC planes and such you can also balance those with this device. I gave it 5 stars because it worked as indicated.............however, the proof is in the flight and how the drone reacts now that the props are what we refer to as "balanced". Just so you know I used 3mm black electrical tape for adding the weight where needed. I may seek a white electrical tape to blend with my white props since I have a white XSP rather than the Pumpkin orange version with black props!