I successfully download the 'Tension des Courries' soft ware, after a recommendation from someone on this site ( can't remember who is was now as it was sometime late last year) clip on microphone plugged in and ready for action to tension my belts, but I have no idea how to use the soft ware. Here is a screenshot of what I have showing on my screen, it appears that the bottom section of the software isn't showing for some reason, so I have no idea what is meant to be there. Can anyone who is familiar with this software give me any guidance. I know I have to pluck the belt like a guitar string and am looking for a tension of 110Hz +/- 5Hz, but not being very good with computers and having no instructions I'm a bit stuck!
Ive not used it but it looks like the sound measurement might be above the graph? i.e. 54.8852 Hz It looks like you can set a range etc but if it has a live number I would just pluck the belt and watch the screen.
jc I've been plucking away like Bert weedon, the vertical red line represents 110Hz, but no idea what the 54.8852 represents!
Couple of vids here mate. There are a few in the sidebar too. Hope this helps. JC Courroies - YouTube Hahaha beat me to it
The numbers at the top are the sampling rates - how many times per second it reads the audio. You shouldn't need to play with this from the default setting. Make sure you have the latest version as it has a drop-down selector for most Ducati models in there, as well as being in English! Direct link is here for the latest version: http://jpl250rs.perso.sfr.fr/download.php?file=Courroies
Thanks Antoyne I understand 'sampling rate, I didn't touch anything, it's still set at the default setting from when I first downloaded it. 5512 samples/second seems an 'abstract' number to me, any reason for that being the default? Don't understand the default of 8192 in the 'sample' box, any idea what that is? do I need to play with that? My minimal understanding is that I need to pluck the belt and 'capture' a sample of the sound, any idea how I do that?
Here's another piece of free belt tensioning software. Compare them back to back. Home of CBMTool the Ducati belt tensioning tool
Chris That's the one I spent several hours attempting to download, never did get there in the end. btw I finally got an aerosol of carb cleaner today; the trouble with living in the sticks like I do means I have to drive miles to get things like this , rigged up the apparatus you showed me and successfully cleaned through my injectors. anything to do with computers always seems to raise my blood pressure to dangerous levels, my laptop 'locks up' and I then spend a disproportionate amount of time sorting it out. Give me mechanical problems and I can happily spend all day fiddling!
Try this link to download. Scroll down to where it says Download fron Sendspace in Blue Download CBMTool.zip from Sendspace.com - send big files the easy way
I expect these numbers are arbitrary and that they are used as part of the FFT to sample the incoming wave. 5512 is the samples per second and 8192 is probably the upper bound limit when computing this. Differences in your computer power (speed) and the microphone quality will all affect the sampling, so it's nice that JP allows you to fiddle with the numbers to clean up the sampling, but to be honest it's probably overkill and should be hidden away in some options to save confusion! To use the software, all you need to do is plug in an external microphone and hold it close to the centre of the belt. You can rig up a simple holder with some wire (a paperclip or similar) like this one. Run the software and "pluck" the belt. The software listens to the sound the belt makes and should show a waveform on the screen - the green line. In this waveform will be a peak, which is the resonant frequency of the belt... this is what you are reading. The idea is much like a guitar string in that the tighter it is tensioned the higher the frequency. In the software, selecting a bike will show a red line which is the target frequency for the belts on that bike. You therefore need to tighten/loosen the belt to get your waveform spike on the red line. "Belt and Braces" says you shouldn't rely on this as the only testing method. I would be tempted to tighten using the Allen Key method (or the 10mm spanner trick where possible) and use the frequency check as a backup. I have a Facom DM.16 tool (in fact I have quite a few :wink which I use as my reference on the 4V, but use the allen key and frequency check on the 2V.
Antoyne Thanks so much for your understandable explanation, exactly what I was looking for! I have now found out; by experimenting with an elastic band, that the waveform spike when the band is plucked is represented with a yellow vertical line. So by increasing or decreasing the tension of the band as required, the yellow line moves closer, or further away from the target frequency of 110Hz represented by the vertical red band. So the object of the exercise is to increase or decrease the belt tension ,so that the yellow band moves on top of the red band when the belt is plucked! I have found out that the number on the top of the graph represent the position of the vertical red line in Hz, and that each square on the X axis represents 15Hz A sound engineer I ain't , but I understand that there are mysterious things such as harmonics involved in all of this, which I presume are all taken into consideration using this witchcraft method? Am I proceeding in the right direction here, or have I got it all wrong? I'm not sure why the green line sometimes changes to red though, maybe something to do with too much volume for the processing of the data ? Now all I need to do is to buy a 22mm ring spannner, which Halfords has in there proffesional range £8.95, and grind the outside of the spanner to enable it to fit in the nut's recess. I was going to go down the route that Neil ( Nelly) uses , which is to use internal circlip pliers, but I couldn't find a sturdy enough pair ,so the ring spanner looks like a good idea.
Yes, you're doing it right! The software is just a spectrum analyser and the graph shows the sound wave that the microphone is reading. All you need to worry about is getting the peak near the target line. I think the line changes to red when the software can't get a decent lock on the sound; as you say probably due to too much noise or it could be due to using a low-quality microphone or similar. You could possibly trim this out with the settings as we discussed above, but I wouldn't touch the standard settings to be on the safe side! Try moving the microphone closer/further away to see if it helps.
Thanks antonye all understood. Btw my clip on microphone, which looks very well made cost me .99p delivery inclusive. How is it possible to design, tool up for the moulds, assemble, package, and then retail to the other side of the world for that amount? Slave labour no doubt, but still incredible to me that it can be done!
