Pump isolation
 

in my quest for a whisper-silent PC, the vibration and noise from my cheap 1000l/h pump are the biggest problem. I did that kind of teflon-trick.

yesterday I made a wooden housing for my pump: I used wood that was 2cm thick and made a box. the pump is attached with bolts and nuts to the base, but it only holds the pump in place (the pump isn't clamped to the base!). between the bolts, pump and base I placed some noise-isolating mats. there's also isolation on the inside of the box. there's a big hole in the front for the intake hose and one in the top for the outtake hose. the top can be removed.

but it isn't perfect: if the hoses touch the wood, or the pump isn't in a certain position it makes noise. the hoses don't touch the wood thanks to some of those noise-isolating mats. for the pump: I don't know. I keep tilding and rocking the housing until it's silent. same for the top piece of wood that's resting on the sides of the box. I placed the top on a metal mesh. the mesh is bigger then the box so it lies on the sides of the box

it certainly reduced the noise: now the pump doesn't make a lot more noise then the rest of my system. but it's still noticeable, so I want to go further.

as I need to mess until the pump is silent, can you give me some advise how I should fix it?
should I...
- tighten the nuts, so the pump is fixed on the bottom/screws. with some isolation between everything offcourse
- attach the pump to the case with elastic bands, just like they do with HDD's to reduce the vibration? that way the pump doesn't touch the case and conduct the vibrations to it. I'll also have to attach the hoses with elastic bands so they won't touch the housing either. a good idea, or not? it might reduce quite some vibration, but it will be hard to handle the pump/hoses. won't the water and hoses conduct all the vibration then?

other ideas are always welcome, the more silent the better I sleep :)

I took a piece of old tubing (all gunked up and no place to go) and cut small squares out of it and punched a holes through them... I then slipped them onto the bolt that holds my pump and tightened them on tight.

It cut down on the vibration and cost me nothing - maybe you could try something similar... I think a old mousemat will work better though.

~ Boli

i put a used dish sponge under mine.

mouse pads suck for dampening pump vibration compared to a soft foam. the problem with foam, however, is that it tends to settle or compress after awhile, thus reducing its effectiveness.

i use two rubber grommets stacked on top of eachother for each of the 4 mounting spots on the pumps baseplate (i have a danner mag-drive 3). it works pretty good. the suspension method wouldnt be a bad idea if you have room for it.

rubber grommits, or whatever you call them
firm surface
screw it down.

I mounted my eheim 1060 down rock solid into my case, not the slightest vibrational noise.

Currently with my bong setup, the pump is outside of the case, and sitting on the big bubble-wrap ... not the little bubbles that are most common, the HUGE ones, they dampen best.

In my current config I am hanging my pump with some rubber mats. Previously I hung My eheim1250 with some brand new Bicycle tube from Walmart. That worked quite well, and lasted until I recently reconfigured my case.

In my next case I will be using my Iwaki MD15rt with some Natural Rubber Precision Equipment Ring Mounts. If you want to see what other mounting options they have, do a search for "Vibration Damping Mounts ".

BTW the link is just to their site. If you want to see what I was refering to, do a search for the text that is the link above.

BrianW

Which model would I need to handle the weight of a side-mounted eheim 1250?

a friend already told me about those thingies yesterday and it seems they do a great job. I'll get some on Monday :cool:

Side mounted. Well you will have to use the shear force rating. The force will be its mass effected by gravity. So I would suggest, dividing the weight by 4, and then selecting one that has a sheasr rating greater than that. Another option is to make a l bracket to mount it on it's side, and attach the l bracket with the mounts to the top or bottom of the case.

BrianW

I've got my pump mounted in a chipboard box covered on the inside with carpeting. The pump is suspended with two small stretch cords, connected with silicone tubing to a couple of hose barbs mounted to the side of the box. The cord outlet is padded with some scrap foam. Completely silent with the top on. :D

http://webpages.charter.net/whinz/wa...v3/pumpbox.jpg

Well right now I'm just using the foam that came with one of my drives in between the pump and the side of the case with flat-ended screws+nuts holding the pump together with the case making a foam sandwich. It's pretty much silent, but I might try getting some of the regular (filled in with rubber) mounts. Think those'd be as quiet?