A Procedure for Force-Balancing Planar Linkages Using Counterweights

This paper presents a procedure for obtaining the conditions for a full force-balance of a planar linkage. It includes a check on whether a full force-balance is possible where the presence of prismatic joints or links that cannot be counter-weighted for some reason may preclude this. The procedure automatically uses the minimum number of counterweights and keeps the added inertia low. An example demonstrates the advantages of the procedure over those methods that require the derivation of the kinematic equations of motion for the linkage.