Balanset Software: Rotor Balancing and Vibration Analysis for Windows

Every Balanset-1A and Balanset-4A ships with the same Windows program, which is a vibration meter, an FFT analyser and a field balancing calculator in one application. It measures overall RMS in mm/s, the 1x component with amplitude and phase, RPM, spectrum, waveform, X-Y orbit, vibration trend and run-down, then calculates correction weights for 1 to 4 correction planes from your own trial runs and checks the residual unbalance against ISO 21940-11. The program runs locally on Windows 7 through Windows 11, reads the instrument over a USB COM port, and needs no internet connection or cloud account to measure, balance and report. This page describes program version 2.3.7 with instrument firmware 5.5.2, as documented in the 25-chapter user manual.

What the Balanset software is, and who uses it

The Balanset program is a single Windows application that does two jobs with the same instrument and the same sensors. It measures machine vibration: overall RMS level, the 1x rotational component with amplitude and phase, RPM, spectrum, waveform, X-Y orbit, trend and run-down. It also performs dynamic balancing of rotors in their own bearings, in 1, 2, 3 or 4 correction planes, calculating the correction weight from your own trial runs on your own machine. Diagnosis and repair therefore happen in one session, at the machine, without exporting data to a second tool.

The program is written for maintenance and service engineers who balance rotors on site: fans, blowers, impellers, crushers, augers, centrifuges, turbines, grinding wheels and drive shafts. The rotor stays in its own bearings and is not dismounted, and the machine is balanced at its normal operating speed, which is the condition it actually runs in.

It is an ordinary local Windows application, not a web service. There is no cloud service behind it: the instrument is read over a USB COM port, and measuring, balancing, archiving and reporting need no account of any kind. A field laptop with no network connection at all is a complete working setup. The internet is used only for program and firmware updates, for linking the program to a Vibromera account, which some updates require, and for a support report you choose to send.

The software is included with the instrument. Balanset-1A costs €1,975 and Balanset-4A costs €6,803. Specifications and ordering are on the Balanset-1A product page and the Balanset-4A product page, and a pre-sales question can be sent to us on WhatsApp.

One program, two instruments

The same program serves both instruments and recognises which one is plugged in. It reads the channel count from the firmware and shows exactly the channels of the connected instrument, so the interface always matches the hardware in use.

Channels and correction planes per instrument

Instrument	Vibration channels	Tacho channel	Correction planes	Price
Balanset-1A	2 (Ch-1, Ch-2)	1	2	€1,975
Balanset-4A	4 (Ch-1 to Ch-4)	1	4	€6,803

The number of correction planes follows the number of vibration channels. Balanset-1A balances in 1 or 2 planes; for three and four planes, use the 4-channel Balanset-4A in the Modern balancing form.

Firmware 5.5.0 or newer is required

This belongs at the top of the page rather than in a footnote, because it decides whether the program will measure at all. This version of the software measures only with instrument firmware 5.5.0 or newer. On firmware 4.10.x, and on the intermediate versions 5.0.x to 5.4.x, the device is still detected and its COM port is still visible, but no measurement will start and the connection line reads “Firmware not supported on COMx”. The firmware itself is updated from the program, from the “Updates” window.

Connection, keyboard and colour coding

There is no Connect button anywhere in the program. It scans the COM ports about every 1.5 seconds and picks up the instrument at any moment, including hot-plug while a measurement window is already open. The model, the COM port and the firmware version are shown in the window title, so you always know what you are talking to.

The whole program can be driven from the keyboard, F1 to F10, and F12 saves a PNG screenshot of the active window into Documents\Bs1A\Screenshots, or into a Screenshots folder next to Bs1A.exe when Documents is unavailable, named after the window, the date and the time; while a polar diagram is open, F12 saves the polar diagram. On a field laptop, with one hand on the machine and no mouse surface anywhere nearby, that is the difference between recording a result and losing it.

Channel colour coding is consistent across every chart, table and report, so a colour in a printed protocol means the same thing as on screen:

• Ch-1 is dark red.
• Ch-2 is blue.
• Ch-3 is green.
• Ch-4 is amber.
• Tacho is magenta.

Vibration Meter: live readings, run-down and X-Y orbit

Before it is a balancer, the product is a working vibration meter. The Vibration Meter window streams every channel at once and keeps the values on screen while you move a sensor, change the speed or wait for a machine to settle. For each channel it shows three numbers on its own tile, where the asterisk stands for the channel number, and the rotation speed is shown once for all channels in the yellow Tacho line together with a tacho-signal quality indicator in percent. If a “Vibration evaluation standard” is selected in Settings, the overall value is coloured by its ISO 20816-3 or ISO 10816-1 zone and the zone is appended to the number, for example “V1s= 2.66 – Zone B”.

Live readouts per channel

Readout	What it is
V*s	Overall RMS vibration velocity in the working band, in mm/s.
V*o	The 1x component, that is the part of the vibration occurring at rotational frequency, in mm/s.
F*	The phase of that 1x component, in degrees, referenced to the tacho mark.
RPM	Rotational speed measured by the laser tacho sensor, shown in the Tacho line for all channels together with a tacho-signal quality indicator in percent.

Six tabs sit inside the meter:

• “Wave Spectrum” shows the time waveform and the FFT spectrum together, the spectrum either as velocity in mm/s or as acceleration in m/s2.
• “Speed” shows the intervals between tacho marks on every revolution and the per-channel waveform filtered at the rotation frequency.
• “RunDown” records 1x amplitude and phase against falling RPM during a coast-down.
• “X-Y Orbit” draws the orbit of the bearing housing from two channels.
• “Trend” plots the RMS vibration of every channel against time and saves it as a CSV file.
• “Bump test” finds natural frequencies from a hammer strike; it is experimental, off by default, and appears only after the instrument has been identified.

A stability indicator tells the operator when a reading can be trusted. The program watches the scatter of the last 12 values, about 1.2 s of stream, and reports STABLE when the coefficient of variation stays under 10 percent on two consecutive evaluations, and UNSTABLE when the scatter of an already stable signal goes above 20 percent; a jump of the mean by more than 50 percent, such as a moved sensor or a changed speed, restarts the count. A signal below 0.005 mm/s is treated as no signal rather than as a very small one. The practical lower measurement limit is about 0.05 mm/s for the 1x component, which synchronous averaging extracts from the sensor noise, and about 0.2 mm/s for the wideband value; the upper limit is set by the sensor’s 3 g range and falls with speed, roughly as 200,000 divided by the RPM, about 66 mm/s at 3,000 rpm. This is the practical difference between writing down a measurement and writing down noise.

F9 starts a measurement that collects the set number of revolutions, or in “Auto” mode stops by itself once the 1x vectors have settled, and then holds the result on screen so that it can be read, compared with the next one and placed into a report while the machine is still running; the “Live” button returns to the live stream. The run-down charts export to BMP or WMF with “Save Chart”, and the trend exports to a semicolon-separated CSV file with “Save CSV” when a document has to be assembled somewhere else.

Run-down: find the resonances before you balance

A run-down is recorded by bringing the rotor up to speed, switching the drive off and letting it coast. The program records the 1x amplitude and phase against the falling RPM and stops by itself at the “Low RPM” threshold, which is adjustable from 100 to 2000 and defaults to 300. A resonance shows up as a peak in amplitude together with a phase reversal of roughly 180 degrees, and it is that pair of signs together, not the peak alone, that identifies a resonance.

This is the cheapest test on the whole page in commercial terms. Balancing near a support resonance is unreliable, because the amplitude is amplified and the phase drifts, so a job that refuses to converge after several trial runs is often a machine running close to a critical speed. Two minutes of coast-down before the job tells you that, and saves the wasted runs.

X-Y Orbit: the shape of the bearing housing motion

X-Y Orbit plots the channel 1 signal against the channel 2 signal on a 1:1 axis scale, so the shape is not distorted by the scaling. Because the sensors sit on the housing and measure vibration velocity, this is an orbit of the bearing housing, not the shaft trajectory: it can be read as the path of that housing only when both sensors sit on the same bearing at 90 degrees to each other, and with the sensors on different bearings it shows only the ratio of amplitudes and phases of the two channels. Three modes are available: “Unsynced”, “Sync (raw)” and “1x”, and the choice is remembered. On Balanset-4A a second orbit from channels 3 and 4 is added below the first, so two bearings can be watched in the same window.

What the tacho mark decides

Without a reflective mark and a working tacho signal, only V*s and the spectrum remain available. V*o and phase are impossible to obtain, and the “Sync (raw)” and “1x” orbit modes have no meaning. The program names this state honestly as the “No tacho – RMS only” mode. Balancing cannot be performed in it, because a correction angle can only be computed from phase.

When RPM is shown as dashes, there are no tacho pulses at that moment. The program deliberately refuses to leave a stale speed value on the screen, so the dashes are information rather than a fault.

Reports come straight out of the meter. A steady-state HTML vibration meter report and a run-down report are generated without entering the balancing workflow at all, so an inspection visit that finds nothing wrong still ends with a document you can hand over; both are written to the same vibrometer_report.htm of the session, so export the first before building the second if you need both.

Analyzer: spectrum, harmonics and data export

The Analyzer answers the question that comes before any balancing job: is this actually unbalance? Trial runs cost time and a stopped machine, and no amount of correction weight will fix a worn bearing, a loose foot or a misaligned coupling. The analyser is where you decide whether it is worth starting.

The analyser, opened with “F7 – Charts” from the main window, has four tabs:

• “F2 – Overall vibration” gives the broadband level per channel.
• “F3 – 1x vibration” gives the rotational component with amplitude and phase.
• “F4 – Harmonics (1x..Nx)” shows the amplitudes of the harmonics 1x to 10x as a bar chart and lists them as numbers in the side table.
• “F5 – Spectrum (Hz)” shows the full FFT spectrum in Hz with harmonic markers and peak callouts; the frequency range is chosen automatically.

Harmonics from 1x to 10x are listed numerically, which is how an engineer separates unbalance from misalignment, mechanical looseness and blade-pass effects. Unbalance concentrates the energy at 1x, while the other faults show themselves in the higher orders. The program supplies the numbers and the interpretation stays with the engineer, which is exactly the right division of labour.

Analyzer acquisition settings

Setting	Available values	Default
“Revolutions” (F2 tab; on the other tabs the length is chosen automatically)	8, 16, 32, 64 or 128 revolutions	16 revolutions
Display FFT	up to 32768 samples	—
Averaging	exponential, over 8 frames	—
RMS window	a fixed 4096-sample window, computed independently of the display FFT	—

The mouse wheel zooms the chart around a peak, and the exact values are printed in the chart title rather than being left for you to estimate against the axis. For evidence and for further work, the analyser exports both pictures and raw numbers.

Analyzer export formats

File	Contents
JPEG image (“F7 – Save Diagram”)	The charts as displayed, for a report or an email; on the F4 and F5 tabs two files are saved, the waveform and the spectrum or harmonics.
Garmoniki.txt (“F8 – List”)	The harmonic table from 1x to 10x, or on the F5 tab every spectrum line, as a tab-separated text table written to the output folder next to the program.

The columns are tab-separated and a “,” / “.” switch sets the decimal separator, so the table pastes directly into Excel and a spectrum recorded today can be compared with one recorded six months ago in whatever tool your company already uses. The analyser itself has no CSV export; for logging measurements over time, use the “Trend” tab of the Vibration Meter. The “Averages” setting on the “F4 – Settings” tab does not affect the analyser.

One operational note that saves a support ticket: the Analyzer and the Vibration Meter stream from the same instrument over the same COM port. If both streaming windows are left open, a classic “Run 0” can fail with a port error. Close them both and repeat the run.

Bump test: finding natural frequencies (experimental)

Bump test is marked experimental in the manual and is switched off by default. It is enabled with a checkbox on the “F4 – Settings” tab, after which it appears as a tab in the Vibration Meter. We describe it here exactly as the manual does, as a feature in trial use.

The test itself is simple. With the rotor stopped, you strike the structure next to the sensor with a soft hammer, or pluck a flexible part that carries the sensor. The support rings at its own natural frequency, the program captures that ringing, and it reports per channel the natural frequency f0 in Hz and in RPM, the quality factor Q, and the damping z = 1/(2*Q). The analysis band is 2.5 to 600 Hz, the lowest natural frequency reported is about 3 Hz, and the result is the average of the normalised spectra of all accepted strikes, so a strong and a weak strike carry equal weight.

How the capture works, in numbers you can check

Bump test capture parameters

Parameter	Value
Background calibration	about 0.25 s, followed by about 0.5 s of pre-trigger buffer filling, before arming
Trigger threshold	8 times the measured background level, combined with a sharp jump in the signal, so the smooth vibration of a running rotor does not trigger a capture
Capture window	at least 4 s, so that even a slow 3 to 10 Hz ring-down fits, with a result after about 5 s; roughly a tenth of the window lies before the strike
Arming timeout	30 s
Analysis band	2.5 to 600 Hz, lowest reported f0 about 3 Hz
Clipping flag	raised at about 91 percent of the ADC scale

The accuracy claimed by the manual, quoted without rounding it up, is about plus or minus 5 percent on Q, for Q between 20 and 100, at resonances between 80 and 400 Hz, on a clean strike.

Technique, and how to read the warnings

• Strike the structure next to the sensor, and never the sensor itself.
• Stop the rotor before striking: a bump test on a running machine is possible because the steady tone of rotation is filtered out, but a clean decay gives more accurate f0 and Q.
• Avoid a double strike caused by hammer bounce, because the second impact lands inside the capture window.
• A (!) marker means the signal was clipped at roughly 91 percent of the ADC scale and the result is approximate; strike more softly and repeat.
• A steady tone message means a sustained oscillation was recorded instead of an impact, so that record is not a valid bump test.
• The most pronounced peak enters the result table.

The reason to use it is narrow and valuable. It tells you whether the operating speed sits near a support resonance, which is the usual reason a balancing job refuses to converge. A run-down finds the same thing while the rotor is spinning down; a bump test finds it with the machine stopped, which is sometimes the only opportunity a production schedule will give you.

How balancing works: Run 0, trial runs and the trim run

Balanset performs dynamic balancing of rotors in their own bearings. The rotor stays in the machine, on its own supports, and is balanced at its normal operating speed. Nothing is taken from a database of machines: every gram and every degree the program prints is derived from measurements made on that particular rotor during a short and fixed sequence of runs. The sequence is identical for 1, 2, 3 and 4 correction planes, and identical in both balancing forms.

Three stages, and what each one produces

The whole measurement lives in the difference between Run 0 and each trial run. From that change the program computes the influence coefficients of the machine in front of you, and from the coefficients it computes the correction mass in grams and the installation angle in degrees for every plane at once, taking the cross-effect between planes into account.

There is no separate Calculate step in a balancing job. As soon as the last trial run finishes, the calculation starts by itself, the log reads “Auto-calculating correction weights…” and then “Correction calculated successfully”, and the correction mass and angle appear in the plane columns. In the Classic windows the result is read on the “Result” tab.

Sizing the trial weight

Size the trial weight by its centrifugal force, not by a fixed share of the rotor mass. The manual’s starting point is a weight whose centrifugal force is about 7 percent of the rotor weight, with 5 to 10 percent acceptable: m = 0.07 * M * g / (r * w^2), where M is the rotor mass in kg, r the mounting radius in m, g = 9.81 m/s^2 and w = 2 * pi * n / 60 for a speed n in rpm. A 10 kg rotor at a 50 mm radius and 3,000 rpm gives about 1.4 g. Too heavy a weight is harmful and dangerous, because it pushes the system into nonlinearity, so check the allowable loads on the rotor, the bearings and the weight attachment before fitting anything. In the Modern form, “Menu” and then “First trial weight estimate” does this calculation for you after Run 0, from the rotor mass, the support type, soft or rigid, and the mounting radius, and also proposes the installation angle from the tacho mark provided the sensors are mounted co-axially with the tachometer; it is an estimate whose job is to land in the correct half of the rotor. Whatever the estimate, the deciding criterion is the response in the trial run. The same rule is available as the trial weight calculator, and the operation manual describes the trial-run procedure step by step.

When a trial run counts, and what to do when it does not

A trial run is only informative if the trial weight actually disturbed the rotor. The target is a change of at least 20 percent in amplitude or at least 30 degrees in phase. If the amplitude changed by less than about 10 percent and, at the same time, the phase by less than about 5 to 10 degrees, the run is rejected with the message “Trial weight too small. Increase trial weight and repeat Run 1”, where the run number follows the plane. A vector that merely rotated without growing still counts as a valid trial run, and the program does not check an upper limit on the response.

• Fit a heavier trial weight and repeat that trial run: too light a weight yields unreliable influence coefficients.
• If the vibration did not change at all, the weight was too small or landed at a node; the calculation is not performed until the run is repeated. The angle of the trial weight does not affect the calculation.

Where the correction angle is measured from

This is the most common operator error in the whole workflow. The correction angle for a plane is measured from the point where that plane’s trial weight was installed, in the direction of rotation. It is not measured from the tacho mark. Marking the trial weight position physically on the rotor takes a few seconds and removes the ambiguity for good, including for any repeat job on the same machine.

Install the correction weight at the same radius as the trial weight of that plane. The radius is only a lever arm: it converts mass into unbalance in g*mm and does not change the correction mass in grams. If a different radius is unavoidable, the mass must be recalculated by hand as the calculated mass multiplied by the trial radius and divided by the actual radius.

Built-in checks against a plausible but wrong answer

Any unbalance calculation will return a number. The value of the checks below is that they stop the program from returning a confident number that the measurement does not support.

• In the Modern form a run whose readings match the previous run is not accepted: the program reports “Measurement is unchanged from the previous run.”, which usually means the trial weight was not installed or not moved.
• An overloaded, clipped signal is rejected instead of being processed as valid data.
• A speed that differs from Run 0 by more than 40 percent raises “WARNING: RPM changed significantly!”, showing the speeds of both runs and the likely causes, double tacho triggering or a real change in speed; the run is kept, but the result may be unreliable, so repeat it at the Run 0 speed. A deviation above 15 percent is marked by an orange line in the log, because influence coefficients are only valid at one speed.
• If two planes produce linearly dependent responses, the calculation is refused with “Failed to calculate influence coefficients” instead of inventing a solution. The angle of the trial weight does not affect this. Check that each trial weight was in its own plane and that each sensor is connected to its own channel and gives a signal; if the trial weight barely changed the vibration, use a heavier one; if the correction planes are close together on a narrow rotor, balance in one plane. Then repeat the trial runs and do not reuse the previous result.
• A trial mass is mandatory for a result in grams. In the Modern form the unit indicator shows a bold orange “%” while the trial mass is missing on any plane and the calculation is refused in that state, with the empty field highlighted in red; it switches to “g” (or “oz”) as you type. The Classic windows show the result as a percentage of the trial weight until the mass is entered, and recalculate it into grams as soon as it is, even after the calculation.

One condition rests with the operator: the choice of speed. Balance at the operating speed, and not close to a support resonance, because near a resonance the amplitude is amplified and the phase drifts, so coefficients measured there do not describe the machine at its working speed.

The trim run and the BALANCING SUMMARY

Run T verifies the correction on the real machine. After it, the program writes a “BALANCING SUMMARY” block into the log containing the vibration before and after, the reduction in percent, the initial and the residual unbalance, and a PASS or FAIL verdict for each plane. That block is the same data that goes into the HTML balancing protocol, so the number shown on screen and the number handed to the customer are the same number.

Two balancing forms: Classic and Modern (unified)

The program offers two different interfaces to the same balancing method. The switch is on the “F4 – Settings” tab, in the group “Balancing form”, and it has two values: “Classic” and “Modern”. It takes effect immediately, with no Save button to press and no restart of the program.

How many correction planes you actually get

This is the point most easily misread, so it is stated here without ambiguity. The number of correction planes follows the number of vibration channels on the instrument, and 3 and 4 planes are balanced in the Modern form. Balanset-1A has 2 vibration channels and balances in 1 or 2 planes in either form. Balanset-4A has 4 vibration channels, so it reaches 3 and 4 planes, but only when the Modern form is selected.

The plane count is chosen before Run 0. Changing it rebuilds the interface and clears the measurements already taken, so it is not something to reconsider halfway through a job.

The Modern form: one window, run cards, live charts

Modern is a single window called “Multi-plane Balancing”. Every run is a card in that window: “0 – Initial”, “1 – Trial Pl.1” and the equivalent card for each further plane, “T – Trim” and, when mandrel compensation is enabled, “E – Eccentr.”. All of them are started with the same “F7 Run” button, which becomes “F7 Stop” while a measurement is running. The waveform and the spectrum are visible during the measurement itself, so an operator can see a bad signal while it is being recorded rather than after it has been accepted.

The Classic form: two windows, one button per run

Classic keeps the layout that long-standing users already know: two separate windows, “Single-Plane balancing” and “Two plane balance”. Each run has its own button, “F7 – Run 0”, “F7 – Run 1”, “F7 – Run 2”, “F7 – Run T” and, with mandrel compensation enabled, “F7 – Run Ecc”, which is clicked with the mouse because the F7 key does not press it at that step, and the calculated correction is read on the “Result” tab.

Same mathematics, different workflow

The calculation behind both forms is the same. With the same input data the result is identical, so the choice between them is a question of workflow and habit, not of accuracy.

In “Auto (adaptive)” mode the program keeps accumulating revolutions until the result settles; progress is shown as the coloured fill of the active run card, and the number of revolutions and the reached uncertainty (SE/V) are written to the log when the run finishes. If it reports “Additional averaging does not improve accuracy.”, read it in context: at a noticeable vibration level it is a sign of a mechanical problem, looseness, bearings or an unstable speed, that more averaging cannot repair; at a very low residual vibration the dialog explains instead that the spread is measurement noise, not a machine fault. You can accept the result as it is or discard the measurement.

The recalculation function unique to Classic deserves one operating note. “Change corr. planes” is clicked with the mouse; in that window the F5 key acts as Back.

The two forms share one archive. The archive window opened with F8 lists only 1- and 2-plane records and opens whichever form is selected in Settings; the coefficients of 3- and 4-plane jobs are loaded from inside the Modern form with “Menu” and then “Load Coefficients”.

Where to put the weight: correction methods and polar diagrams

A calculated mass and angle is only half an answer. The other half is whether that position can be reached on the real rotor, which is why the program carries four weight installation methods, selected in “Weight installing method”, and recalculates the correction into the form each one needs. Like the “Add mass” and “Remove mass” switch, the method applies to all correction planes at once: you cannot drill in one plane and add a weight in another.

Polar diagrams: the check before anything is fitted

The polar diagram is the operator’s last look before touching the machine. Up to 4 circles are shown side by side, one per correction plane, with rings at 20, 40, 60, 80 and 100 percent and an arrow showing the direction of rotation. Seeing the weight drawn on a circle that turns the same way as the rotor is what catches an angle counted the wrong way round, which is the failure mode that costs an extra run.

Two switches change how the same solution is expressed. “Add mass” and “Remove mass” in the “Correction method” group convert an add-mass solution into a remove-mass solution: the displayed angle is already rotated by 180 degrees, so do not add another 180 yourself, and the mass stays the same, which is what you want when the practical option is grinding or drilling rather than welding. The choice applies to all planes at once and is synchronised with the balancing form; with “Drill”, which always removes mass, and “Circular groove”, which always adds it, the switch is locked. “Mirror”, a checkbox per plane, mirrors the drawing for rotors that are physically viewed from the other side: the marker at 60 degrees moves to where 300 degrees used to be and the rotation arrow reverses, while the numeric angle in the data panel does not change.

Fixed positions: fan blades and existing holes

On a fan, an impeller or a flange with a bolt circle, a weight can only go where there is somewhere to put it. In “Fixed positions” the operator enters how many positions the rotor has, in the “Blades” field of the Modern form; the program treats them as evenly spaced around the circumference, so the mode fits only rotors where they really are. The trial weight goes on one of the positions, which counts as position 1, the numbers run on in the direction of rotation, and the program splits the correction between the two adjacent positions that bracket the calculated angle, giving a mass for each. The result is directly executable: two numbers, two blades.

Circular groove: three equal weights in the slot

Rotors with a circular groove, such as many grinding wheel arbors, take standard weights that slide in the groove. Here the correction is expressed as three weights of equal mass, each one third of the plane’s trial mass, one placed at the correction angle and two at calculated angles, so that their vector sum equals the required correction. Before Run 0 the three weights are spread evenly at 120 degrees so that their effects cancel, and before the plane’s trial run all three sit together at the trial-weight position; the “3-Weight Balancing” window shows these placements step by step. The method has a physical limit built in: if the correction is larger than one third of that plane’s trial mass, the program refuses it with “TOO HEAVY for 3-weight groove method!” instead of proposing weights that would not fit the scheme, and if two of the weights end up closer than 20 degrees to each other it asks you to verify the positions physically.

Drill: turning a correction into holes

When mass has to be removed rather than added, the built-in calculator in the “Drilling – settings” window converts the correction into the drilling depth H, the number of holes N and the angle f. It needs three inputs: the drill diameter, the maximum allowed drilling depth and the material density. Choosing Drill always switches the method to Remove mass, and the angle it prints is already the drilling spot on the heavy side, 180 degrees from where a weight would go, so do not add 180 degrees yourself.

Densities are preset in g/cm3 for Steel 7.85, Cast iron 7.1, Aluminum 2.7, Copper 8.95, Brass 8.5, Bronze 8.8 and Titanium 4.5, and a custom value can be typed in for any other material.

Two honest notes about the drilling calculator. H is the depth of each hole measured to the apex of the drill cone, assuming a 120-degree point angle, so enter the maximum depth as the part’s real mechanical limit, wall thickness and neighbouring holes included. If the whole mass would need a deeper hole, the correction is split across several holes, none of them deeper than that limit; place them next to each other and confirm the result with a trim run rather than assuming it.

Mandrel eccentricity: the Run E compensation

A rotor balanced on a mandrel carries an error that has nothing to do with unbalance: the runout of the mandrel itself. The program handles it with a dedicated eccentricity run, enabled before Run 0: in the Modern form with “Menu” and then “Eccentricity”, which adds an “E – Eccentr.” card, and in Classic with the “Mandrel eccentricity elimination” checkbox, which adds the “Run E – Eccentricity” card with its “F7 – Run Ecc” button. After Run 0 the rotor is turned 180 degrees on the mandrel, with the mandrel and its tacho mark left as they were, and measured again; the program computes the runout vector and subtracts it from all subsequent measurements, so only the true unbalance is corrected and the job continues from Run 1 without turning the rotor back. If the vibration barely changed after the turn, it warns “WARNING: It appears the rotor was NOT rotated 180 degrees between Run 0 and Run E!” and asks whether to skip the compensation.

When the calculated plane cannot be reached

Sometimes the correct correction plane is simply not accessible with a tool. The Classic form can recalculate a finished two-plane correction from the planes it was computed for, H1 and H2, into two other planes, K1 and K2, using the rotor geometry. Four geometry schemes cover the usual arrangements of the new planes relative to the old ones, and the distances between them are entered in mm together with the new radii. The result is the same unbalance expressed as weights you can actually fit.

Tolerances and standards: ISO 21940-11, ISO 20816-3 and ISO 10816-1

A balancing job is only finished when somebody can say, on paper, that the rotor is inside a documented tolerance. The Balanset software applies different standards to different questions. ISO 21940-11, the current edition of the former ISO 1940-1, answers the acceptance question at the end of a balancing job: is the residual unbalance small enough for this type of rotor? ISO 20816-3 and ISO 10816-1 answer the condition question: is this machine running in zone A, B, C or D? All of these criteria are built into the program, and every number used by them is printed below so you can check the arithmetic against your own machine before you buy anything.

ISO 21940-11: the residual unbalance is checked automatically, plane by plane

The tolerance is calculated in the “Disbalance tolerance (ISO 21940-11)” window, opened with the “Calculator…” button next to the tolerance field: in the Modern form it sits in the “Residual unbalance” block, in the Classic windows on both the “Balancing settings” tab and the “Result” tab. You select the balance quality grade G, enter the operating speed and the rotor mass, and “OK” transfers the permissible residual unbalance into the tolerance field, from where it is stored with the session and printed in the HTML report; it can be set before Run 0 or after the correction has already been computed. After the trim run the measured residual unbalance is compared against that value: the field is highlighted green when the result is inside the tolerance and red when it is not, and the program states an explicit PASS or FAIL for each correction plane. Nothing has to be looked up in a table by hand, and nothing depends on the operator’s judgement of what “good enough” means.

The formula, printed in full so it can be verified

The program uses the standard ISO 21940-11 expression, and there is nothing hidden behind it:

Uperm [g*mm] = 1000 * G * M / (2 * pi * f)

Here G is the balance quality grade in mm/s, M is the rotor mass in kg, and f is the operating speed in Hz, that is RPM divided by 60. The worked example from the manual is easy to repeat on a calculator: grade G 6.3, a speed of 3000 RPM and a rotor mass of 10 kg give a permissible residual unbalance of about 200.5 g*mm. With several correction planes the program splits the tolerance evenly, so the “Tolerance” field receives Uperm / N for one plane: Uperm / 2 for two planes, and Uperm / 3 or Uperm / 4 in the Modern form on a Balanset-4A. That split suits a rotor whose centre of mass lies roughly midway between the correction planes; for an asymmetric or overhung rotor ISO 21940-11 allocates the tolerance according to the position of the centre of mass, so calculate the shares by hand and type the per-plane value into the “Tolerance” field yourself. In the Imperial system the tolerance is shown and checked in oz*in.

Because the tolerance is derived from your own three inputs, the verdict on the screen is reproducible by anyone who reads the report, including your customer’s inspector.

Choosing the balance quality grade

The “Disbalance tolerance (ISO 21940-11)” window offers the grades from G 4000 down to G 0.4. The table below repeats the application hints given in the manual, so the grade can be chosen before the instrument is even connected.

ISO 21940-11 balance quality grades offered by the program, with their typical applications

Grade	Typical application
G 4000	Crankshafts of very large, slow-running marine diesel engines
G 1600 to G 100	Crankshafts of large and high-speed diesel engines, and complete engines
G 40	Car wheels, rims and drive shafts
G 16	Propeller and drive shafts, parts of crushers and agricultural machines
G 6.3	Fans, pump impellers, machine tool parts and electric motor rotors; the usual general industrial default
G 2.5	Gas and steam turbines, rigid turbogenerator rotors, machine tool drives and electric motor rotors with special requirements
G 1	Grinding machine drives and small electric motor rotors with special requirements
G 0.4	Spindles, discs and armatures of precision grinders, and gyroscopes

For most field work on fans, blowers, pump impellers and machine tool components, G 6.3 is the grade that will be expected of you, and it is the one to start from unless the machine builder specifies otherwise.

ISO 10816-1: machine classes and vibration zones

Assessing the condition of a machine is a separate question from accepting a balancing job, and the program uses separate standards for it. The “Vibration evaluation standard” list on the “F4 – Settings” tab offers “Off”, the default, ISO 20816-3 with its machine groups 1 and 2 on rigid or flexible supports, and ISO 10816-1 with machine classes I to IV, the classification formerly published as ISO 2372, with the four zones A, B, C and D. The ISO 10816-1 table is also the one Route Inspection scores every spot against, and its thresholds are reproduced here. Zone A is a newly commissioned machine, zone B is acceptable for unrestricted long-term operation, zone C means the condition is only acceptable for limited operation, and zone D means the vibration is severe enough to cause damage. The thresholds are published here in full, in mm/s.

ISO 10816-1 vibration velocity zone boundaries in mm/s, by machine class

Class	Machines	A/B, mm/s	B/C, mm/s	C/D, mm/s
Class I	Small machines	0.71	1.8	4.5
Class II	Medium machines	1.12	2.8	7.1
Class III	Large machines on a rigid foundation	1.8	4.5	11.2
Class IV	Large machines on a compliant foundation	2.8	7.1	18.0

One point of honesty is worth stating clearly, because vibration standards are easy to blur in marketing text. The program carries two evaluation tables: the machine class table of ISO 10816-1, classes I to IV, and the ISO 20816-3 zones A to D for Group 1 and Group 2 machines on a rigid or flexible support. Either one can be selected as the “Vibration evaluation standard” on the “F4 – Settings” tab, it is “Off” by default, and the overall vibration Vs in the Vibration Meter and in the balancing windows is then coloured by zone; after the trim run the “T – Trim” card also shows Vs per plane with its zone, for example “Vs1: 2.66 – Zone B”. Route Inspection scores every spot against ISO 10816-1. Limits for particular machine types from other parts of ISO 20816 or from ISO 14694 for fans are not calculated by the program.

The measurement band behind the number

A vibration severity figure only means something if the frequency band it was measured in is known. The default upper limit in the program is RMS High, Hz = 1024, which together with the default lower limit RMS Low, Hz = 10 gives the standard ISO 10816 / ISO 20816 band of 10 to 1000 Hz. On a machine running below 600 RPM the rotational frequency lies below 10 Hz; as long as there is a tachometer signal, the program itself lowers the bottom of the band for such a rotor to half the rotational frequency, so the 1x component stays inside Vs. Without a tachometer the value from the settings applies, so on a slow machine reduce the lower limit by hand to 1 or 2 Hz before the reading is compared with any zone table. The setting changes the number on the screen but affects neither the 1x component nor balancing, which is exactly why it is documented here rather than buried.

Past jobs stay auditable

The tolerance verdict is not only a live indication. In the session archive the residual vibration and residual unbalance cells of every record that has a tolerance are highlighted green when within tolerance and red when exceeded, so a whole list of previous jobs can be scanned at a glance for results that fell outside the limit. For a service company this is the difference between having done the work and being able to prove it a year later.

Session archive, repeat balancing without trial runs, and reports

Trial runs are the expensive part of a balancing job. Every one of them means stopping the rotor, fitting a weight, starting up again and waiting for a steady speed. The session archive exists so that this work is paid for once per machine instead of once per visit, and so that the paperwork handed to the customer is produced by the program rather than typed up afterwards.

Every session is archived, with the coefficients that made it work

An archive record is written automatically; there is no dialog to remember at the start of the job. Together with the measurements the program stores the influence coefficients it calculated for that machine, the trial masses, the trial mass radii, the number of fixed positions and the tolerance that was in force. The record is created after the first trial run. When the balancing window is closed and the record has no name yet, the close confirmation turns into a “Save to archive” card with the “Rotor name” and “Place” fields, so the record can be found again by a human rather than by a number; a name left empty becomes an automatic one such as “Rotor 12.06.2026 14:05”, and in the Modern form the name can also be set at any time with “Menu” and then “Rotor name…”.

One warning the program gives on its own is worth knowing before the first job: if the Documents folder is synchronised by a cloud service such as OneDrive, cloud sync can freeze the program and damage the archive database, so move the BalSoft folder out of cloud sync or mark it as always kept on this device.

Balancing the same rotor again does not require new trial runs

This is the part that a service company actually pays for, and it is worth stating as a mechanism rather than as a slogan. The influence coefficients describe how that particular machine responds to a weight in each plane. Once they are stored, a repeat job on the same rotor only needs the initial measurement: the saved coefficients are loaded, Run 0 is measured, and the correction masses and angles are calculated immediately. The trial runs are not repeated at all.

There are three ways to load stored coefficients:

• In the Modern form, “Menu” and then “Load Coefficients”.
• In the Classic form, “Data Management” and then “Load Coefficients”.
• From the main window, F8 for a 1- or 2-plane record, then select a record that shows a green V in the “Coeff” column and press “F5 – Apply coefficients”; 3- and 4-plane records are reached from the Modern form set to the same number of planes.

Two caveats have to be published with that promise, because ignoring either of them produces a confident but wrong result.

• In the archive, “F10 – OK” does not load a session and does not transfer any coefficients. Only “F5 – Apply coefficients” does that. This is the single most common misunderstanding of the archive window.
• Coefficients are valid only for the same machine and the same rotor type, with unchanged sensor and tachometer placement, the reflective mark in the same place and an unchanged running mode. For that reason the trial weight location should be marked physically on the rotor during the first job, so the next visit starts from the same geometry.

The result of a repeat job is saved as a new archive record. The original record is not modified, so the history of the machine stays intact.

Trim iterations cost almost nothing

If the residual unbalance is still above the tolerance after the trim run, the trial runs are not repeated either. The coefficients already exist, so the program calculates the additional correction straight away. The extra weight is added without removing the weights that are already fitted, and the trim run is repeated. This can be done as many times as the job needs, which is why a difficult rotor costs time in start-ups rather than in measurement work.

Reports the program writes for you

Three HTML documents are produced by the software itself, all encoded in UTF-8 and all openable in any browser on any operating system, including a customer’s phone:

• protocol11.htm, the balancing protocol for a completed job.
• vibrometer_report.htm, the vibration meter report for a measurement session.
• report_YYYY-MM-DD.htm, the route report for one inspection day.

A report is not a dead end file. The program includes a report editor with a print preview, and the preview can be zoomed from 10 to 200 percent from the list, or up to 500 percent by entering the value manually, which matters when checking a small number on a laptop screen next to a machine.

Export formats, and the one requirement nobody expects

Report export formats and what each one is normally used for

Format	Typical use
PDF	The document sent to a customer or attached to a work order
HTML, single file	One self-contained file with the images embedded, easy to e-mail
HTML with an image folder	Editable version for publishing or for pasting into another document
RTF	Opening and editing the protocol in a word processor
RVF	Native rich text format of the built-in editor

One requirement has to be stated plainly, because it surprises people on a fresh laptop: PDF export needs at least one Windows printer to be installed. The printer driver is used only to compute the page layout, and nothing is actually printed. If the computer has no printer at all, enable “Microsoft Print to PDF” in Windows and the export will work.

Your letterhead, your logo

Report templates are ordinary HTML files in the ReportTpl folder next to Bs1A.exe and can be edited so that the protocol carries your company letterhead, logo and contact details. Edits are preserved across automatic updates: a modified template is renamed to name.user-YYYYMMDD-HHMMSS.htm before the new factory file is written, the program lists the preserved files once after the update, and the customisation is carried over into the new template by hand. Reinstalling with Bs1ASetup.exe does not make this check and replaces the templates with the factory ones, so copy your templates elsewhere before a reinstall.

When the tolerance came from the ISO calculator, the protocol fills in its “Applied Standards” section automatically: ISO 21940-11:2016, formerly ISO 1940-1, the balance quality grade G, the rotor mass, the maximum service speed, the total permissible residual unbalance and its allocation to the tolerance planes. The results section lists the recommended correction weights per plane as mass and angle, both after the trial runs and after the verification run.

The data is yours and it is portable

The archive and the reports live in Documents\BalSoft\Bs1A. They survive program updates and a full reinstallation, and they move to another computer by installing the program there with the wizard, closing it on both machines and copying the database folder and every folder whose name starts with Arc from that location; the finished HTML reports in the Arc folders can be moved freely on their own. There is no database server to migrate, no licence server to contact and no cloud account holding your measurement history.

Route Inspection: walk-around monitoring by ISO 10816-1 (experimental)

Route Inspection is marked as experimental in the user manual and it is disabled by default. It is switched on with a checkbox on the “F4 – Settings” tab.

What it adds is a second life for the same hardware. Between balancing jobs, the instrument and the laptop become a walk-around vibration monitoring set: you follow a defined route through the plant, measure the same points in the same way every time, and watch the numbers move.

How a route is organised

The data model has three levels, and it maps onto the way a plant is actually walked:

• A route is one walk-around, for example a workshop or a production line.
• A point is a machine on that route.
• A spot is one bearing combined with one axis, which is what the sensor actually measures.

A point can hold up to 8 bearings, and each bearing has 3 axes: X horizontal, Y vertical and Z axial. That gives a maximum of 24 measurement spots on a single machine, which is enough for a multi-stage pump or a motor and fan set with several supports.

Every spot is scored against ISO 10816-1

Each measured spot is compared with the ISO 10816-1 thresholds for the machine class you assigned to that point, classes I to IV, and is coloured by zone A, B, C or D. That colour is the point of the module during a walk: an unmeasured point is visually distinct from a healthy one, so it is obvious at the end of the round whether the route was completed, and obvious immediately which machine needs attention before you have opened a single chart.

Trends and the forecast

Three trend views are available for each spot. “Overall level” plots the broadband vibration velocity over successive visits against the ISO 10816-1 zone boundaries. “Frequencies” follows individual frequency components, which is how a developing bearing fault separates itself from a slow rise in unbalance. The waterfall view stacks up to the 12 most recent channel 1 spectra, so a new peak that was not there three visits ago becomes visible as a ridge rather than as a number.

The program also extrapolates. Using up to the 6 most recent visits it fits a straight line and phrases the outcome as approximately N days to zone X. It is important to present that exactly as the manual does: it is a rough estimate for maintenance planning, produced by linear extrapolation of a handful of points. It is not a guaranteed remaining life, and a fault that develops non-linearly will not respect it. Used honestly, it is a way of deciding which of two machines to schedule first.

What a visit can carry besides numbers

A vibration reading on its own often loses the context that made it meaningful. Each visit can therefore also record a free text note, a temperature reading and a photo in jpg, png or bmp format, so that the loose guard, the oil leak or the temporary coupling is documented next to the measurement that it explains. A run-down of up to 120 s can also be recorded inside the route, which means a coast-down of a suspicious machine can be captured during the walk instead of being scheduled as a separate visit.

The route report

One HTML report is produced per inspection day, named report_YYYY-MM-DD.htm. It is the document that goes to the maintenance planner or to the customer at the end of the round, and like the other reports it opens in any browser without the software being installed on the reader’s computer.

Operational notes worth knowing in advance

• If no COM port has been accepted, the measurement buttons are not greyed out. They answer “Measurement is not available.” instead, so a missing instrument looks like a refusal rather than like a disabled interface.
• Opening a route window stops a running Signal Monitor or Run-down. The instrument has a single port, and the route module takes it over. This is expected behaviour, not a fault.
• Reducing the number of bearings on a point is blocked if the bearing that would disappear already has measurement history. The program protects the trend rather than the layout.
• Deleting a route or a point does not erase the data. The folder is moved to Routes\_deleted, so a deletion made in the field can be undone back at the office.

The data stays readable outside the program

Route data is stored in plain files, in SI units, with a decimal point regardless of the Windows regional settings. That last detail sounds trivial and is not: it means a route recorded on a laptop configured for a language that uses a decimal comma opens correctly on any other machine, and the files can be parsed by your own tools without a converter.

Settings, units, languages and screen scaling

Everything that changes how the program measures and how it looks sits on one tab of the main window, “F4 – Settings”. There is no nested tree of preference dialogs to hunt through: sensor sensitivity, the signal parameters, the interface language, “UI Scale”, the “Units” system, the “Balancing form” switch and the “Experimental” feature checkboxes are all on the same screen, and the values you see there are the values the instrument is using right now.

Two buttons at the bottom left control persistence. “Save” writes the current settings into the Bs1A.cfg configuration file so that they become the defaults at the next start, and “Discard” cancels unsaved changes and re-reads the values from that file. Most parameters — “Tacho filter”, “Averages”, “Spectrum, Hz”, the RMS band and the unit system — take effect the moment you change them, and they are written to Bs1A.cfg automatically when the program exits normally. Language, “UI Scale”, “Balancing form” and the experimental checkboxes are written to the file immediately on change, so for those you never need to press “Save”.

Sensor sensitivity, locked on purpose

The “Vibration sensitivity” group holds one coefficient per channel in mV/(mm/s). The default value is 20, but a calibrated instrument writes its own per-channel coefficients into these fields when it connects, because every instrument is calibrated as a set with its sensors and the values can differ noticeably from 20. A four-channel Balanset-4A adds the Ch-3 and Ch-4 fields. The fields are protected against accidental edits: nothing can be typed into them until you click the group and confirm the “Do you really want to change it?” prompt. That single question is what stops an operator from silently recalibrating the whole instrument with a stray keystroke in the middle of a field job. A wrong coefficient scales every reading in mm/s in proportion, but has practically no effect on the calculated correction masses and angles, because all runs are measured by the same sensor. Change these numbers only if your sensor differs from the standard one; if an instrument is connected when you save them, the program asks “Write the new sensor coefficients to the device?”, and “Yes” overwrites the calibration stored in the instrument itself.

Signal parameters

Signal parameters on the “F4 – Settings” tab

Parameter	Values	Default	What it changes
“Tacho filter”	“Auto”, “Fine (1%)”, “Normal (2%)”, “Coarse (5%)”, “Very coarse (10%)”, “Rough (20%)”, “Off (40%)”	“Auto”	The permissible speed variation between adjacent revolutions
“Averages”	“Auto” / 8 / 16 / 32 / 64 / 128 / 256	“Auto”	How many revolutions are averaged into one measurement in the Vibration Meter and in the Classic balancing windows; more means a steadier result and less noise, but a longer measurement. “Auto” picks the count itself
“Max. repeat”	1 / 3 / 4 / 8 / 10 / 15 / 20	3	How many measurements each run of the Classic single- and two-plane windows takes; their vectors are averaged into the run result and a large spread is reported in the session log
“Spectrum, Hz”	100 to 8000, or “Auto”	“Auto”	The maximum frequency shown on the spectrum; “Auto” picks the range from the rotation speed
“RMS Low, Hz”	1 to 10	10	The lower bound of the overall vibration level band; with a live tacho signal the program itself lowers it to half the rotation frequency on a slow rotor
“RMS High, Hz”	1024 / 2048 / 4096 / 8192	1024	The upper bound of the RMS band; with the 10 Hz lower bound, 1024 gives the standard ISO 10816 / ISO 20816 band of 10 to 1000 Hz, larger values widen it towards the top of the spectrum
“Vibration evaluation standard”	“Off”, ISO 20816-3 (Group 1 or 2, rigid or flexible support), ISO 10816-1 (Class I to IV)	“Off”	Colour-codes the overall vibration Vs by the zones of the selected standard: A green, B yellow, C orange, D red

The “Auto” tacho filter picks its tolerance adaptively: it starts at 2 percent and, if the rotation is uneven, relaxes in steps up to 40 percent while flagging the measurement as taken at reduced accuracy. For the live stream in the Vibration Meter, “Auto” corresponds to a fixed 20 percent. The trade-off is worth knowing before you touch it: too strict a filter throws the rotation speed away entirely on a belt drive or a vibrating support, and too loose a filter accepts the measurement but reduces phase accuracy.

“Auto” averaging picks the number of revolutions for the most accurate result: a Vibration Meter measurement stops as soon as the 1x vector has settled, after at least 16 and at most 256 revolutions, or after about 20 seconds once 8 revolutions are in; in the Classic balancing windows, where the count must be known in advance, it takes the revolutions that fit into about 4 seconds at the current speed. The Modern balancing form does not use this field, because its own “Measurement mode” decides how long it measures.

The “Vibration evaluation standard” list is the newest entry on the tab. It colours the overall vibration Vs in the Vibration Meter and in both balancing forms by the zone of the selected standard, either ISO 20816-3 for Group 1 or Group 2 machines on a rigid or flexible support, or ISO 10816-1 for machine classes I to IV: A green, B yellow, C orange, D red. “Off”, the default, disables the evaluation. The choice applies at once and is written to Bs1A.cfg together with the other signal parameters, and the RMS band behind the number is set only here, on the F4 tab.

Metric and Imperial units

The unit system is switched in the “Units” group, between “Metric” (the default) and “Imperial”. The switch covers every quantity the program handles, on screen and in the reports alike.

Metric and Imperial units in the program

Quantity	Metric	Imperial
Weight mass	g	oz
Radius and length	mm	in
Unbalance (moment)	g*mm	oz*in
Vibration velocity	mm/s	inch/s
Rotor mass for ISO 21940-11	kg	lb
Material density	g/cm3	oz/in3

Internally the program always computes and stores data in SI, that is in g, mm, g*mm, mm/s and kg, and converts only on input and on display. This is the reason an archive record or a saved session does not break when a colleague opens it with the other unit system selected. After switching, the unit labels on every window, chart and report update immediately. The Modern balancing form also converts the numbers already entered and shown, so 2 oz becomes 56.7 g; the Classic windows do not recalculate numbers already on screen, and if the Classic form is selected or a Classic window is open the program warns about this and recommends a restart, so choose the units before you start a Classic job. Small correction masses are displayed with adaptive precision down to 0.001 g, or 0.001 oz, so the value of a fine weight is not lost to rounding.

27 interface languages

The program and its manual are translated into 27 languages: English, Bulgarian, Czech, Danish, German, Estonian, Spanish, French, Indonesian, Italian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Hungarian, Dutch, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Portuguese (Brazil), Romanian, Russian, Slovak, Slovenian, Finnish, Swedish, Turkish, Ukrainian and Japanese. The language list is in the top-right corner of the settings tab.

The names in the list are written in the Latin alphabet, so Russian appears as “Russkiy” and Japanese as “Nihongo”, which means you can always find your way back even after switching to a language you cannot read. The choice is written to Bs1A.cfg at once and applies after the program is restarted; the notice “The new language will take effect after the program is restarted.” is deliberately shown in two languages at the same time, the current one and the one you have just selected. The interface language also controls the labels inside the HTML reports, so a balancing protocol handed to a customer comes out in the customer’s language.

UI Scale for field laptops

“UI Scale” offers 100, 125, 150, 175 and 200 percent, and it is applied on top of the Windows system DPI scale, so the final size of the elements is the combination of the two. Like the language, the scale takes effect after the program is restarted. In the “Vibration Meter”, “Charts”, balancing and “Balancing archive” windows the Maximize button additionally scales fonts, buttons, fields and chart axes to the available screen area, and restoring the window returns the base scale; this behaviour is on by default and can be turned off in the configuration file with the key MaximizeZoom=0 in the [UI] section. Every window is kept inside the desktop work area, so at 150 and 200 percent a dialog no longer runs behind the taskbar or clips its bottom row of buttons, and the program shrinks the font of a label or a button automatically when a long translation does not fit. A fixed-layout dialog that would not fit vertically, such as the tolerance calculator at a large scale on a small screen, is shown at a reduced scale instead of being clipped.

Balancing form and the experimental switches

The “Balancing form” group decides which window the “F6 – Balancing” button opens, “Classic” or “Modern”. The choice is saved immediately and applies the next time the balancing window is opened, with no restart. The group itself appears only after the program has identified a connected device with supported firmware; until then it stays hidden, while the value previously saved to Bs1A.cfg remains in force.

The “Experimental” group carries three checkboxes, all of them off by default. “Bump test” adds the natural-frequency tab to the Vibration Meter. “Route inspection” adds the “F9 – Route Inspection” button, and toggling it rebuilds the main window right away without a restart. “Recover clipped 1x” changes what happens when the vibration signal goes off scale: instead of rejecting the measurement, the program reconstructs the rotational component from the undistorted portions of the signal, at reduced accuracy, and marks the result as approximately reconstructed. The “Bump test” checkbox, like the “Balancing form” group, is not shown at all until a device with supported firmware has been identified; the saved setting survives a restart, but the tab appears in the Vibration Meter only at the moment the device is identified, and clearing the checkbox removes the tab and stops any test in progress.

Bs1A.cfg: the settings are a plain text file

All settings are stored in a single text INI file, Bs1A.cfg, which lives next to Bs1A.exe, or in %LOCALAPPDATA%\BalSoft\Bs1A when that folder is not writable. The program does not use the Windows registry at all. The file can be edited by hand while the program is closed, which is the simplest way to roll out an identical configuration across a fleet of service laptops: copy one file. Numeric values for sensitivity, noise floor, presets and drilling are accepted with either a decimal point or a decimal comma, so changing the interface language or the Windows regional format does not reset them.

Installation, system requirements and where your data is kept

The Balanset software is an ordinary Windows desktop application. You install it once on the laptop that will go to the machine, and from then on the instrument is just a USB device that the program finds by itself.

The program ships on the USB drive in the kit and can also be downloaded as the Bs1ASetup.exe installer or as an archive. Need a replacement copy? Contact Vibromera support with your instrument model to confirm the appropriate software version.

Computer requirements

Parameter	Requirement
Operating system	Windows 7, 8, 10 or 11, 32-bit or 64-bit; 64-bit Windows 10 or 11 is recommended
Processor and memory	A dual-core processor and 1 GB of RAM; 2 GB recommended
Port	One free USB port; the instrument, its sensors and the tachometer are all powered from it
Disk space	About 150 MB
Display	1280×1024 at an interface scale of 100 percent; at 125 percent and above the balancing window needs proportionally more pixels
Administrator rights	Not required for the program itself, which installs into the user’s own folder; the instrument driver and the database component (BDE) installers run by the wizard may ask for them
Internet connection	Not required for measuring, balancing or reporting; needed for updates, for linking to a Vibromera account and for sending a report to support

Two ways to install

The wizard install is the recommended route on a computer that has never had the program. Run Bs1ASetup.exe and step through the wizard; the default location is the current user’s Documents\BalSoft folder, and the program lands in the Bs1A subfolder, giving Documents\BalSoft\Bs1A\Bs1A.exe. The instrument does not have to be connected while you install. One step in that wizard is worth reading twice: at the end it automatically runs the instrument driver installer and then the database component (BDE) setup, one after the other, and Windows may ask for administrator permission for each; let both finish and do not cancel them, because without the database component the session archive will not work. The wizard then creates a “Bs1A” desktop shortcut, unless you cleared that checkbox, and a “Bs1A” Start menu group containing the program, the “Manual”, a link to the manufacturer’s website and the uninstaller.

The program is also portable. It does not touch the Windows registry, and all of its settings live in Bs1A.cfg next to the executable, so the whole application can be unpacked into any convenient folder and run from there — including from a USB stick that travels with the instrument. Two caveats apply. It is better not to unpack it into Program Files: without administrator rights nothing can be written there, so the program would keep its settings and logs in %LOCALAPPDATA%\BalSoft\Bs1A instead, and an update may need administrator approval. And if the computer has never had the wizard install, run the wizard once on that machine, because only it installs the database component (BDE) and the instrument driver, without which the session archive does not work; after that you can update by any method.

First run

Start Bs1A.exe and the main window opens with the program version in the title bar. The connection status line at the bottom of the window tells you immediately which of three situations you are in: “USB module found on” with the COM port number means the instrument is ready, “USB module not connected” means it was not found, and “Firmware not supported on COM…” in red means the instrument answered but its firmware is older than 5.5.0. The program never opens twice — starting it again simply brings the existing window to the front and restores it if it was minimized — because two instances would compete for the same COM port.

You can install and explore the program before the hardware ever arrives. With no instrument attached the main window still opens and stays fully usable — there are no blocking dialogs — and the status line simply reports that nothing was found. Choosing your language is usually the first thing to do after installation: pick it on the “F4 – Settings” tab, then close the program with “F10 – Exit” and start it again.

Where the files are

Program files and user data

What	Where	Note
Settings	Bs1A.cfg, next to Bs1A.exe	Plain INI text; language, scale, the “Balancing form” choice and the “Experimental” checkboxes are written the moment they change, the rest on “Save” and on a normal exit. If the program folder is not writable, settings, logs and downloaded updates go to %LOCALAPPDATA%\BalSoft\Bs1A
Session archive and reports	Documents\BalSoft\Bs1A	Always in the current user’s Documents folder, wherever the program itself is installed
Operation logs	The logs folder next to Bs1A.exe	bs1a.log plus bs1a.1.log to bs1a.5.log, capped at 5 MB per file and 5 files
Report templates	The ReportTpl folder next to Bs1A.exe	Editable, so the protocol can carry your own letterhead
Window screenshots	Documents\Bs1A\Screenshots	Written by the F12 key as PNG files

Because the archive is deliberately kept in the user’s Documents folder rather than beside the executable, it survives program updates and even a full reinstall; if the program is installed in another folder and an archive of an earlier version is left next to Bs1A.exe, the program copies it once into Documents\BalSoft\Bs1A on the first run, provided there is no archive there yet, without deleting the original. Moving a technician to a different laptop means installing the program there with the wizard, because the instrument driver and the database component cannot be carried over by copying folders, and then, with the program closed on both computers, copying Bs1A.cfg and your report templates from the program folder and the archive, the database folder and every folder whose name starts with Arc, from Documents\BalSoft\Bs1A into the same places on the new computer. There is nothing to deactivate, transfer or re-license.

Connecting the instrument, and the firmware 5.5.0 requirement

Connect the vibration sensors to the channel connectors Ch-1 to Ch-4 marked on the case — two of them on a Balanset-1A, four on a Balanset-4A — and the laser tacho to the Tacho connector. On older revisions of the case the same inputs are marked X1 and X2 for vibration and X3 for the tachometer, so do not be surprised if the labels on your unit differ. Mount the vibration sensors on the bearing supports of the rotor being balanced, stick a reflective mark on the rotor, and connect the USB module to the computer with the USB cable. The order is not strict, because the device is picked up at any moment, including while the program is already running.

One detail causes more support calls than any other: the tachometer is powered through its own cable from the instrument and needs no batteries, so there is no reason to open the battery-compartment cover. After connecting it, press ON, then AUTO, which lights the laser beam, and finally LASER, which brightens the beam so that the mark is read reliably; with LASER not pressed the beam is dim and revolutions may be read with gaps. The closer the tachometer is to the mark the more reliable the reading: usually 20 to 50 cm, up to about 500 mm in good conditions. Do not look into the beam.

There is no Connect button

The program scans the COM ports by itself, roughly every 1.5 seconds, finds the device and queries its firmware. The port that was found is remembered, so the next start connects faster. A port held open by another program does not stop the scan — the remaining ports are still checked, and the busy one is tried again on a later cycle — and a foreign Arduino board on a neighbouring port does not block the search either. The COM port driver is installed by the setup wizard; with it, the instrument appears in Device Manager as a COM port named “Arduino Due”. Clicking the USB status line forces an immediate search instead of waiting for the next cycle.

What the USB status line says

Status-line text	Colour	What it means
“USB module found on” plus the port number	Green	The device is connected and responding
“USB module not connected”	Blinking yellow-orange	The device is not found and a background search is running
“USB module disconnected”	Orange with red text	The cable has just been pulled out; the line then changes to the blinking “USB module not connected” until the device returns
“USB module on COM4 – not responding”	Orange	The COM port exists, but the firmware does not answer, usually because another program holds the port
“Firmware not supported on COM4”	Orange with red text	The device answers, but its firmware is below 5.5.0 and measurements are blocked

Model, port and firmware are always on screen

Next to the status line the program prints the device firmware as a line like firmware ver.5.5.0 2ch. The number is the version of the program inside the instrument, and 2ch or 4ch is the channel count, which is how the software knows whether to show Ch-3 and Ch-4 and how many correction planes to offer. The same three facts — model, COM port and firmware — are repeated in the title bar of every window, for example Balanset-1A on COM4 (firmware ver.5.5.2 2ch), so a screenshot taken during a job always carries its own provenance. The “F1 – About” window adds the program version, currently 2.3.7.0, the device identifier shown as Device UID, which is the number burned into the chip and not the serial number printed on the instrument label, the calibration date and the per-channel sensitivity coefficients written into the instrument at the factory.

Firmware 5.5.0 or newer is required

This version of the program measures only with device firmware 5.5.0 and newer. Older firmware is not supported, and that means both the old 4.10.x line and the intermediate 5.0.x to 5.4.x versions — an instrument that measured yesterday on firmware 5.2.0 is refused until it is updated. The refusal is explicit rather than silent. The device is still identified and its COM port is deliberately kept assigned to it, because the built-in updater needs that port. The status line turns orange with the red text “Firmware not supported on COMx”, the firmware version below it is shown in red, and once for each pair of port and firmware version, and again after a restart of the program, it asks “Update the device firmware now?”. Answer “Yes” and the “Updates” window opens; if you answered “No”, open it yourself later from “F1 – About” with “Updates…”. Until the firmware is updated, the mode buttons still work and the windows still open, but the live streams in the Vibration Meter and the Analyzer do not start and a balancing run is not accepted.

One consequence has to be stated plainly, because it affects data you may already own: archive records made on pre-5.x firmware can no longer be read correctly by this version. The files are intact, but the levels are displayed 16 times too small and on a different frequency scale, so such a record must not be treated as a measurement. Re-measure the machine on current firmware, or open the old record with a program version earlier than 2.3.0; records made on 5.x firmware are unaffected, and the program gives no warning about the old ones.

Updating the firmware from the program

Firmware is updated from inside the application, with no third-party flashing utility: open “F1 – About”, press “Updates…”, and use the “Firmware” block. The factory calibration is not lost: the program saves a copy of the sensitivity coefficients before flashing and writes it back afterwards. The program downloads the build for the selected channel, verifies its checksum and flashes the device; the whole operation takes 15 to 30 seconds, and the log field under the button shows the progress as “Downloading… NN%” followed by the flasher messages. Do not disconnect the device while it runs. When it finishes, “Firmware updated successfully.” appears and the link is restored automatically — there is no need to unplug the cable or restart the program, because the device is re-identified at once and the new version appears in the titles of all open windows. The channel count is re-read at the same time, since a firmware update can change it. If a previous attempt was interrupted and the device is stuck in the bootloader, the window recognises that state and reports “Bootloader detected (no firmware)”, and flashing it again is the standard recovery path.

Losing the cable is not a crash

Pulling the USB cable out mid-job is handled without blocking dialogs. The status line changes to “USB module disconnected”, a measurement in progress terminates cleanly and writes “ERROR: USB cable disconnected. Check USB connection.” into the session log, and a red “USB disconnected” caption appears in the measurement window. The background search keeps running, so plugging the cable back in restores the connection by itself, and a live stream that was running in the Vibration Meter or the Analyzer restarts automatically without reopening the window. Only an unfinished F9 capture has to be started again.

Program updates and support

The program can keep itself current, and it tells you what it is doing. It checks for new versions on the updates.vibromera.com server over an HTTPS-only connection, in the background at startup and again when you open the “About” window, and the result is cached for 24 hours so the server is not called repeatedly. When a newer version exists on your channel, a “New version available” link appears in the bottom-right corner of the main window; when there is no update, that corner is simply empty. The automatic check can be switched off entirely with the “Check for updates automatically” checkbox in the “Updates” window; with it off the link and the indicator line are not shown, and the program contacts the server only when you open the “About” or “Updates” window yourself. A check from the “About” window and an installation send the server service information: the program and helper versions, the Windows version, the interface language, the device model and a random identifier of this installation.

Server indicators in the “About” window

Line in “About”	Meaning
“Connected” or “Offline”	Whether the update server is reachable; while the check runs it shows “Checking server…”
“Update available: X.Y.Z”	A new version exists; click the line to open the installation window
“Up to date”	The latest version is installed; clicking repeats the check at once, bypassing the 24-hour cache
“Update check failed”	The server is unreachable; the tooltip explains why and a click retries
“Link to account…” or “Linked as …”	Whether this copy of the program is linked to a Vibromera account, see below

Installing an update

Clicking the link opens the “Update available” window, which shows the new version number, the “Current version”, the release date, the download size and the release notes. “Install now” starts the process and “Later” postpones it. The program downloads the package, verifies its integrity with a SHA-256 checksum, closes itself and hands the installation to the BsUpdater.exe helper, which reports its phase and a live file counter such as “Extracting… 1234 / 3288” while it works. The helper then replaces the files and launches the new version, which shows a short notification about the version that was installed. If a download fails, the window stays open and shows “Download failed” or “Update verification failed” with the reason, your current version stays installed, and you can fix the cause and press “Install now” again.

Your data is not touched by an update. The settings in Bs1A.cfg are preserved, the balancing archive is preserved because it lives in the user’s Documents folder, and report templates you have modified are saved alongside the new ones under names of the form name.user-*.htm, with the program listing them after the update. A company letterhead is carried over from those saved files into the new template by hand.

Rollback is built in as well. Before replacing anything, the helper stores a backup of the previous version in the updates subfolder of the program folder, Documents\BalSoft\Bs1A with the default installation. If the helper cannot install the update, its window says “Could not update” or “Could not update – changes rolled back” and the current version keeps working. An update interrupted by a power cut is either finished or cleaned up on the next launch, and as a last resort BsUpdater.exe from the program folder can be run manually to restore the previous version. You can also step back deliberately at any time with the “Roll back” button in the “Updates” window, which asks for confirmation before it acts. Windows asks for UAC confirmation only when the installation directory is not writable by the current user, such as Program Files; a portable installation or one under Documents updates without any prompt. And if you happen to start the program while the helper is running, the launch is refused with a window titled “Update in progress” — that is normal, and the next start does not treat it as an abnormal termination.

Update channels

The “Update channel:” list, shared by the program and the firmware

Channel	What it offers
“Stable”	Tested versions; the default and the recommended choice for production work
“Latest”	The most recent official release
“Experimental”	Preview builds, with an explicit warning that they may be unstable
“Legacy”	A pinned older program version for older hardware; the channel carries no firmware, so the firmware block shows “No build on this channel”

The “Program” block of the “Updates” window shows “Installed: X.Y.Z” and “Channel offers: X.Y.Z”, and its button follows the situation: “Update” when the channel has a newer version, “Roll back” when it has an older one, “Up to date” when exactly the channel’s version is installed. The “Firmware” block works the same way for the connected instrument.

Linking the program to a Vibromera account

The update server delivers some updates only to copies of the program that are linked to a Vibromera account. The link status is shown in the “About” window and in the bottom-left corner of the “Updates” window: “Link to account…” means this copy is not linked, “Linked as …” with the account e-mail means the link is active, and “Account link was revoked – enter a new code” means the server has disabled it. When a newer version is available only after linking, the program says so instead of the usual offer, with “Update available after linking: X.Y.Z” in the “About” window and a “Link account…” button in the “Program” block. Linking takes a minute: click the link line, open the page address shown in the “Link to Vibromera account” window, sign in to your Vibromera account, copy the 6-digit pairing code into the “Pairing code:” field and press “Link”; the program then checks for updates again at once. If an update requires a subscription, the “About” window shows “Update requires a subscription” and the “Program” block explains that updates for this version require an active subscription, with no update button. Measuring, balancing, archiving and reporting never depend on the link.

Reporting a problem from inside the program

Support is not an e-mail address you have to compose a description into from memory. Open “F1 – About”, press “Report a problem…”, and the “Send report to Vibromera support” window collects the technical context for you. You add a comment in the “Comment (optional):” field, and since the report carries no contact details of yours, put your e-mail or phone number there if you expect an answer; you attach screen captures with “Attach screenshots…” in PNG, JPG, BMP or GIF up to 25 MB in total, and decide about “Attach full log (bs1a.log + rotated)”. For an ordinary report that checkbox is on by default and worth leaving on, because the log is what shortens the diagnosis; for a complaint about a failed update it is effectively mandatory, since only that archive contains the update helper’s own log. A quick screenshot of any window is one key away: F12 writes a PNG into Documents\Bs1A\Screenshots.

If the previous session ended abnormally, the next launch asks “The previous session ended unexpectedly. Send a report to the developer?” and opens the same dialog with a service comment already filled in; the full-log checkbox is on here too, and it is worth leaving on because the log shows what happened before the crash. An unfinished balancing job is not lost while this happens, because the session is auto-saved at every step and the program offers to restore it. If the server cannot be reached, the program offers to save the report as a support-report-YYYYMMDD-HHMMSS.json file and opens Explorer at that file, so it can be sent by any other route, for example to the e-mail address shown in the “About” window. Pre-sales and compatibility questions can also go straight to a person over WhatsApp, at https://wa.me/37258364849.

Working offline, and what leaves your computer

The Balanset software is a local Windows program that talks to a USB device. There is no cloud service behind it and no licence server to reach before you can work. Measuring vibration, running a balancing job, calculating correction weights, checking the result against ISO 21940-11 and producing the HTML protocol all happen on the laptop in front of you, and every one of them works with the network cable unplugged and Wi-Fi switched off. This matters in the places these instruments actually go: a ship’s engine room, a mine, a cement plant, a paper mill, a site where policy forbids connecting a foreign laptop to the plant network at all.

Only three things ever use the internet, all of them optional and all going to updates.vibromera.com over HTTPS only. The first is the update check, which can be switched off with “Check for updates automatically”, after which the program contacts the server only when you open the “About” or “Updates” window yourself; a check made from the “About” window and an installation carry the program and helper versions, the Windows version, the interface language, the device model and a random installation identifier, nothing more. The second is linking the program to a Vibromera account with a pairing code, which some updates require and which you start yourself. The third is a support report, which is only ever sent when you press “Send”, and which requires the access token file installed with the program. Nothing is transmitted in the background beyond these paths.

When you do send a support report, the contents are not a mystery. The window lists them, and the “Show payload preview” button shows the exact payload before anything is sent: the program version, the firmware version and the device UID, together with the helper version, the device model and the random installation identifier; system information such as the operating system, language, DPI, displays, processor, memory and disk load, the list of COM ports, the program path and only the first two letters of the computer name and of the Windows user name; up to 50 KB of recent diagnostic log lines including your recent actions in the application; your comment; and the files you attached. The manual states the boundary explicitly, and so do we: session files and measurement results are not included in the report. Your customers’ machines, rotor names, vibration levels and balancing protocols stay on your disk unless you choose to attach them.

The same principle runs through the way the program stores things. Settings are a readable INI file rather than registry keys. The archive and the reports are ordinary files in Documents\BalSoft\Bs1A that you can back up, copy to another computer or hand to a client. Reports are UTF-8 HTML that opens in any browser on any operating system. Route Inspection files are plain files written in SI units with a decimal point regardless of the Windows regional format, so a route recorded on a German laptop reads correctly on a Turkish one. There is no proprietary container between you and your own measurements.

The manual: 25 chapters, including a field guide and the specifications

The user manual shipped with program version 2.3.7 has grown to 25 chapters, in the same 27 languages as the interface. Chapters 1 to 18 cover every window and mode described on this page: quick start, installation, connection, the Vibration Meter, the Analyzer, the bump test, the two balancing forms, polar diagrams, the archive, reports, Route Inspection, settings and the ISO 21940-11 tolerance calculator, updates and support, troubleshooting and hotkeys. The program opens the manual in the interface language, with the Classic or Modern form already selected, and links to the Field Guide from the “About” window.

Chapters 19 to 24 are a new Field Guide, distilled from several hundred support conversations and hands-on experience with about a thousand machines: the rules that decide most jobs and the safety rules, where sensors and the reflective mark may and may not go, what correction weights to use and how to attach them, the specifics of mulchers, harvesters, fans, crushers, driveshafts and spindles, a printable balancing record sheet, and the theory in plain terms with the three go/no-go checks before a run. The program offers its first chapter on the first run and links to the “Field balancing guide” from the “About” window. Two of its rules are worth repeating here: zero degrees is the trial weight, not the reflective mark, and in practice most “it won’t balance” cases are bearings, cracks or resonance rather than unbalance.

Chapter 25 is the technical specification of the instrument and the program. The figures that decide whether the kit fits a job are repeated below; where a value depends on conditions, the manual says what it depends on.

The instrument is not a certified legal-metrology measuring device and no verification certificate is issued for it; if your work requires a formal confirmation of metrological characteristics, it has to be arranged with an accredited calibration laboratory. No recalibration interval is prescribed, and a firmware update does not lose the calibration: the program saves a copy before flashing and writes it back afterwards.

Frequently asked questions

Is the software sold separately, or is it included with the instrument?

The software is part of the kit and is not sold separately. Balanset-1A costs EUR 1,975 and Balanset-4A costs EUR 6,803, and both include the same Windows program plus updates from the vendor's update server. There is no per-seat licence. Some updates are delivered only to copies linked to a Vibromera account, and some require an active subscription; the program itself keeps measuring and balancing either way.

Which instrument firmware does this version of the software require?

Firmware 5.5.0 or newer. On firmware 4.10.x and on the intermediate versions 5.0.x to 5.4.x the instrument is still detected and its COM port stays visible, but no measurement will start and balancing runs are rejected. The status line shows Firmware not supported on COMx, and the firmware can be updated from inside the program in 15 to 30 seconds.

Can the software balance in 3 or 4 correction planes?

Yes, with the 4-channel Balanset-4A and the Balancing form on the F4 – Settings tab set to Modern. The number of correction planes follows the number of vibration channels, and the 2-channel Balanset-1A balances in 1 or 2 planes. The Classic form supports 1 and 2 planes in either case.

Does the software need an internet connection or a cloud account?

No. It is an ordinary local Windows program that reads the instrument through a USB COM port, and all measuring, calculating, archiving and reporting works fully offline with no registration. An internet connection is used only for three optional things: checking for and installing program and firmware updates over HTTPS, linking the program to a Vibromera account with a pairing code, which some updates require, and sending a support report if you choose to.

Which languages does the interface support?

The interface and the user manual are available in 27 languages, selected from the language list on the F4 – Settings tab. Changing the language requires a restart of the program. Unit symbols such as g, g*mm, mm/s and RPM, and standard designations such as ISO 21940-11, stay in their standard form in every language.

What is included in the kit besides the software?

Two kit versions exist, and balancing works with either. Both contain the Balanset-1A or Balanset-4A measuring unit, one vibration sensor per channel with a 5 m cable, the laser tachometer with a 5 m cable, reflective tape for the mark, the USB cable and a USB drive with the program and the manual; 10 m cables are available on request. The Full kit adds a magnetic stand for the tachometer, digital scales for weighing the weights and a rigid carrying case, while the OEM kit comes in a protective box and needs your own scales with 0.1 g resolution and your own way of holding the tachometer. A computer is not part of either kit. The tachometer is powered through its cable from the instrument, so it needs no batteries.

When I balance the same rotor again, do I have to repeat the trial runs?

No. The influence coefficients are saved into the archive automatically, and loading them with F5 – Apply coefficients, or with Load Coefficients inside the balancing window, brings back the coefficients, trial masses, radii, fixed-position count and tolerance. Only Run 0 is then measured and the correction is calculated immediately. The saved coefficients are valid for the same machine and rotor type with unchanged sensor and tachometer placement, the reflective mark in the same place and the same running mode, so mark the trial weight location on the rotor during the first job.

What are the PC requirements, and do I need administrator rights?

Windows 7, 8, 10 or 11 in 32-bit or 64-bit, with 64-bit Windows 10 or 11 recommended, a dual-core processor with 1 GB of RAM (2 GB recommended), one free USB port, about 150 MB of free disk space, and a screen of 1280×1024 at the 100 percent interface scale. The program itself installs into the user’s own folder without administrator rights, and a portable copy can simply be unpacked, as long as it is not placed in Program Files; only the instrument driver and the database component installers run by the wizard may ask for them. Settings are kept in a Bs1A.cfg file rather than in the Windows registry.

Are Route Inspection and Bump test ready for production use?

Both are marked experimental in the manual and are switched off by default; you enable them on the F4 – Settings tab. They are usable and documented, but should be treated as features in trial operation. The Route Inspection forecast in particular is a straight-line extrapolation over the last few visits and is described in the manual as a rough estimate for maintenance planning, not a guaranteed time to failure.

In what formats can I export a report, and why does PDF export fail on some machines?

Reports export to PDF, HTML as a single file, HTML with an image folder, RTF and RVF, and the HTML files are UTF-8 so they open in any browser on any system. PDF export needs at least one Windows printer installed, because the printer driver is used only to compute the page layout; on a machine with no printer at all, enable Microsoft Print to PDF and the export will work.