Clever flexible mount

[Bob Engelhardt]

This is a part of a camera mount for a helicopter. Two surfaces are connected all around with coiled wire rope. It's intended to keep helicopter vibration from the camera. Really clever I think and something I hadn't seen before. (From this YouTube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2pDw8C8965I)

[Jerrythepilot]

Ingenious!

[J Tiers]

It is clever, but it is not new at all. I think the idea was used in the 1960s, and was not new then.

Makes a good "decoupler", with enough friction to not bounce.

[Illinoyance]

Those cable loop vibration isolators are a commercial product.
https://vibrodynamics.com/our-produc...ope-isolators/

[ikdor]

We use them as well on our ships for mounting electronics racks. It's old but the first guy to come up with it was clever indeed.

[Fasttrack]

We use them as well on our ships for mounting electronics racks. It's old but the first guy to come up with it was clever indeed.

Yep - used all the time to decouple our sensors from various military ground vehicles, too.

[metalmagpie]

Looking at that site, I see they have tuned dynamic dampers made from wire rope. These are clamped onto pipes adjacent to vibrating machinery to absorb vibration. That is so awesome it makes me want to turn cartwheels!

If you crimped a mass onto one of those wires and then coupled it to a source of vibration of known frequency you could measure its resonant frequency. If you did that with a few different lengths you could use the data to extrapolate other length/resonance data points and then you could build a vibrometer. Hold it against a machine like a tuning fork and see which wire went crazy.

I made a simple dynamic damper for a Jet 17MF drill press once. It worked pretty well; cut vibration a lot.

metalmagpie

[Bob Engelhardt]

...
If you crimped a mass onto one of those wires and then coupled it to a source of vibration of known frequency you could measure its resonant frequency. If you did that with a few different lengths you could use the data to extrapolate other length/resonance data points and then you could build a vibrometer. Hold it against a machine like a tuning fork and see which wire went crazy.
..

Speaking of resonance-based vibrometers, I have a small-engine tachometer that works on that principle. It has an adjustable length wire that vibrates at calibrated frequencies. Pretty cool: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0044AV5VK/
Video: https://www.amazon.com/vdp/eb9b9b45b...=dp_vse_lbvc_0

[Doozer]

I used to be intimately involved in making those.
From 3/32" cable, all the way up to 1-1/8" cable.
I made the machines and the tooling. I made
crimp presses, cable tensioners, straightening
machines, cutting machines, the whole gamut.
I even made duplicate machines and tooling for
a production line we started in China.
Any questions about these isolators, I probably
know the answer.

--Doozer

[Doozer]

We use them as well on our ships for mounting electronics racks. It's old but the first guy to come up with it was clever indeed.

We built those too. Mounted the panels on linear guide rails, and supported with isolators.

-D

[JRouche]

Iall the way up to 1-1/8" cable.

--Doozer

Well that would be intimidating. Inch and eight spring wire? No thanks. Way passed my pay grade. JR

[Doozer]

Well that would be intimidating. Inch and eight spring wire? No thanks. Way passed my pay grade. JR

What, We had girls making them !? !! ?!
Seriously.
Good tooling is all it takes.

-D

[darryl]

To further dampen vibrations- I once built a camera mount for an RC helicopter. I used those squishy yellow balls for damping material. You could add stuff like that for an increase in damping ability.

[JRouche]

To further dampen vibrations- I once built a camera mount for an RC helicopter. I used those squishy yellow balls for damping material. You could add stuff like that for an increase in damping ability.

I know thoughs. The wires would "sing" under tention so they applied various dampers on the lines. I remember the bright color they used for them. Big dampers. Bright colors. JR

[darryl]

I used the yellow smiley face balls. Comes to mind you could use memory foam mattress material.