Patent ID: 8695556

Claim:
A method for balancing mass forces of a crank drive of an internal combustion engine having at least one cylinder, comprising: providing at least one balancing unit which has at least one balancing weight which serves as an unbalance and which rotates about a rotational axis when the balancing unit is operational, the at least one balancing unit being embodied as a switchable balancing unit; and switching on and off the at least one balancing unit as a function of at least one operating parameter of the internal combustion engine, wherein the at least one balancing unit is switched on as a function of a rotational speed n of the internal combustion engine; and if the balancing unit is operational, switching off the at least one balancing unit as soon as the rotational speed n of the internal combustion engine exceeds a predefinable rotational speed n threshold,up and is higher than a predefineable rotational speed n threshold,up for a predefinable time period Δt 1 .