I live in a third floor apartment and it has some hard sturdy tile flooring. I printed these awesome TPU feet which completely deaden any vibration on the floor, however holding my head to the floor I feel like the swirling and retraction sounds can still be heard in the apartment below.
Do you guys know of anything I could try to deaden that? Maybe the hard TPU feet are transferring the sound more than the stock anti vibration feet?
Should I get some heavy duty rubbering floor tile and put a cinder block on top of that?
I use Hula feet under my P2S, they replace the originals, and seem to work well. Thet sit on about 40mm of HDF on a large 200 year old sideboard in our living room, seems to keep the printer noise down quite well…
Noise isolation often combines several materials as each can absorbe different frequencies.
I have the same issue living in an apartment. The lightweight approach till now have been a stack of materials: anti vibration rubber block (the type for under washing machines) - thick gel based double sided tape - thick felt pads. These materials are all fairly different.
I had to redo the motor noise cancelling calibration to lower air sound; but it seems it transmits less vibrations to the floor.
I still only use “high quality” slicer profile + run it as slow at night though. I will crank up the speed a bit if I don’t get any complaints.
These aren’t the type of neighbors you can talk too… I don’t live in a good neighborhood and honestly I’de rather they didn’t know I even have a 3d printer… I live in the neighborhood where going out to your car at night or day is sketchy so talking to them not ganna happen.
The vibration is totally dampened, its just the mechanical noise of the machine i’m trying to avoid going through the floor.
I am very considerate thanks for saying that, I grew up in a house where if I even walked heel down I would have a parent yelling at me. My father was hyper sensitive to sound grown up, I still don’t walk heal down even in the day time in here. Just always been very quiet.
Yeah.. wish my neighbors felt the same lol. I had to put in a complaint to the landlord as they have woken up at 4am screaming fighting and destroying everything in their apart. Thumping a sub woofer so hard everything was vibrating off my tables hours on end…
But enough about them, I just want to cover my behind. I think i’m going to try the rubberized floor tile and a cinder block. anyone ever done that?
Noise is vibrations though, and different materials will dampen different frequencies of vibrations.
The cinder block is a classic (just look up 3d printer concrete slab), but it has to be heavy in order to be worth the hassle (I tried with a heavy tile, it wasn’t enough), and the block has to be properly isolated from the floor.
I’ll have to order the rubber paver, can’t seem to get that locally. It’s mostly the z motor thing is LOUD on the p2s, i’m thinking having solid concrete beneath it will block a lot of the noise going through. That motor is un covered and RIGHT over the floor. It sounds like a star wars blaster rifle compared to my a1… that thing is super quiet.
I’ve been plugging one ear and putting my other ear flat to the tile floor, I can hear quite a bit but I guess most of it could be the noise reverberating through the floor board to my ear, hard to say without being down there.
I’ll order the rubber paver, and try the rubber tile and cinder block from lows and let you guys know how it goes!
Also: what do you think about the cinder block on the rubber paver over carpet?
OOORR… a small sturdy bench/stand? I would go back to my stock bambu squishy feet for that. These hard TPU feet are meant for a solid surface. took 24 hours to print all 4 lol.
Noise is vibrations though, and different materials will dampen different frequencies of vibrations
Sorry I don’t know how to do the copy the quote thing to answer directly:
YES that is true, however with these feet I printed I can’t feel anything, there is not physical thrashing from the machine, its just the wooshy wooshy, blaster blaster sound that I can hear through the boards… weird I know but I can’t help but feel like if I had something below the printer instead of just the floor it would be better
Sure, for air borne vibrations that might help (and I agree the Z is very noisy; and contrary to XY won’t go away when running slow). The small anti vibration blocks I mentioned exist as washing machine size matts; just to mention it. It is heavy so it is able to absorb noise.
If you use a concrete slab: AFAIK the idea is that the slabs weight (inertia) will absorb much of the vibrations / noise before it gets transmitted to the floor. But for that to happen it has to be decoupled from the floor, with as much possibility to shake on his own (rather than make the floor shake), so soft rubber / hulla feet / etc..
BTW it would be nice if there where magnet based anti vibration feet.. Maybe in the audio domain? I’ll have a look. Edit: yes it exists; might be worth checking out.
See if you can find an old heavy sturdy table or stand locally on Craigslist or some other online market place. Then use the rubber paver on the table, then the printer. Having a table should help more to reduce the transmission of vibration and sounds going to the floor.
I have heard some use Amazon and Ikea, but I haven’t looked into these places. My printers are on a sturdy low dresser. I bought 3 tables for under $60 from Craiglist so I have places to expand when I get more printers.
For limited space, search for bench, school desk, coffee table, etc and see what comes up. Sometimes one can find some very sturdy old style ones on marketplaces like Craigslist that people want to get rid off for cheap. They are much stronger than the thin modern furnitures.