A balancing weight for vehicle wheels includes a plurality of balancing weight segments held by an adhesive tape. The balancing weight has a center mark formed by a partial cut between adjacent balancing weight segments at a position closest to the center of the balancing weight.

An apparatus includes a receiving module, a conversion module, first and second rollers, a motor, and a cutting head. The receiving module receives a desired weight value. The conversion module converts the desired weight value to a first length of wheel weight material based on a linear density of the wheel weight material. The first and second rollers engage first and second opposing sides of a continuous strip of the wheel weight material. The linear density of the wheel weight material is approximately constant along the continuous strip. The motor directly drives the first roller based on the first length. The cutting head is selectively actuated to cut the wheel weight material.

Apparatus and a method for transporting and positioning of balancing weights connected together to form a chain of balancing weights is disclosed. A drive means comprises at least a transport wheel and/or a transport belt. The drive means has at least one cam to interface with a gap between two adjacent balancing weights of the chain of balancing weights. Furthermore a cutter may be provided for cutting of balancing weights from the chain.

A balancing weight dispenser has a balancing weight storage space for storing a belt of balancing weights on a reel, a belt guide, and a cutter at one end of and/or along a length of the belt guide. The cutter comprises a knife, which is fixedly attached to the balancing weight dispenser. For delivery of a required amount of balancing weight mass, the belt of balancing weights is pulled from the reel until the desired number of balancing weights has been obtained. In the next step, the belt of balancing weights is cut, preferably between two adjacent balancing weights, to separate the selected portion of balancing weights from the remaining belt of balancing weights. The remaining belt falls back to the guide and remains in a desired position for receiving the next portion of balancing weights. This manually operated balancing weight dispenser can be provided at significantly lower costs compared to the automated high performance balancing weight dispensers as known from the prior art. It is very robust and has no serviceable parts.

An automatic dispenser for balancing weights including a transport section and a cutting section. The transport section contains a transport roller with a plurality of teeth at its circumferential outer surface generating friction to a belt of balancing weights to transport this belt to the cutting section. Such belt contains a plurality of individual balancing weight segments. The cutting section has an arc shaped belt guide for forming the belt of balancing weights to a curve thus opening at least one gap between neighboring balancing weight segments. The cutting section has a knife movable from a first side of the belt of balancing weights to its second side, to separate the belt of balancing weights at a gap between two individual balancing weight segments.

A method for balancing a vehicle wheel includes mounting a wheel to be balanced on a rotating shaft of a machine computerized for measuring imbalances, and selecting an optimum commercial balancing weight which, when positioned on a correction plane, minimizes residual imbalance on reference planes of the wheel where the balancing tolerance is considered. One compares the residual imbalance value at the reference planes with the prescribed balancing tolerance after subtracting a vector of the static imbalance generated by the optimum balancing weight. An indicator device is activated to indicate on the wheel the optimum axial position of a correction plane for a balancing weight where the residual imbalance at the reference planes is within tolerance.

A wheel balancing tool includes a body member, an attachment member and an alignment member. The body member includes a notch configured to be aligned with a balancing mark on a rim of a vehicle wheel. The attachment member is connected to the body member. The attachment member includes at least one hook configured to attach the tool to the wheel rim. The alignment member extends outwardly from the body portion and is configured to indicate an attachment position on the wheel for a balancing weight.

A method of correcting imbalance of a tire comprises a step of forming a coated layer on the inner surface of the tire at the point of lightest weight of the tire so as to reduce the imbalance of the tire. The coated layer has a black color substantially the same as the color of the inner surface so that it becomes difficult to recognize the correction of the weight imbalance.

The invention relates to a device for attaching a balancing weight (2) to a mounting surface (17) on an inner side (3) of a rim dish of a wheel rim (4) and provides for a mounting head (1) to be dimensioned in such a way that it fits into the rim dish. The mounting head (1) includes a support element (5), which is radially displaceable relative to the wheel rim (4) and on which a feeler element (6) is axially movably arranged, the feeler element (6) having a convex contact surface (14) and a receptacle (12) for at least one balancing weight (2), said receptacle being oriented towards the inner side (3). The mounting head (1) is configured in such a way that the contact surface (14) may be brought into contact with a boundary surface (18) of the inner side (3), and may be displaced along said boundary surface until the balancing weight (2) comes radially into contact with the mounting surface (17).

An automatic dispenser for balancing weights comprises a transport section and a cutting section. The transport section comprises a transport roller having a plurality of teeth at its circumferential outer surface generating friction to a belt of balancing weights comprising a plurality of individual balancing weight segments for transporting the belt of balancing weights to the cutting section. The cutting section has an arc shaped belt guide for forming the belt of balancing weights to a curve thus opening at least one gap between neighboring balancing weight segments. The cutting section further has a knife movable from a first side of the belt of balancing weights to a second side, to separate the belt of balancing weights between two individual balancing weight segments at a gap.