Vibration Damping?

[elf]

Sorbothane

[fixerdave]

Make a shallow box. In the box put a partly inflated wheelbarrow tire innertube. On the innertube, put a heavy plate. This could be metal, or maybe a scrap piece of granite countertop. Make sure the plate is suspended on the innertube. Put your vibrating thingy on the heavy plate.
If the damped mass doesn't stop your vibrations from coupling, probably nothing will.

BTW: give some thought to removing the spindle and anything that bolts to it and take them to a pro balancing shop and have the thing dynamically balanced. First have them do the spindle by itself, then with everything added to it, marked so you can remove each piece and put it back just the same way. Should cost about $100, and you will like the results.

metalmagpie

Well, the idea of clamping the mill to the box, instead of just resting on rubber feet, made no discernible difference. On the other hand, the basic design and available materials made testing with an inner-tube quite easy. That worked. Sitting next to it, I can still sort-of feel the buzz, but when I start wondering if it's just in my head, or something else in the building, then I can call it good enough

Thus:


Quick and easy solution, almost like the box was made for it. Gotta love those post-perfect designs

Thanks to all, lots of good information. And, I would not have thought of using air.

David...

P.S. NO, I am not going to pay $100 to have a $12 spindle motor balanced... that would be like blueprinting/balancing an engine out of a Ford Pinto, or even taking the engine out of one with the intend of anything besides throwing it away, or ... ever owning a Ford Pinto.

Edit:

Try a piece of thick carpet between the wooden base and the concrete floor.

Actually, I missed that in the description... the floor is carpeted.

... Usually motors that run in the matter your describing have a shorter than expected life...

The key to enjoying uber-cheap Chinese tooling is to have very, very low expectations, and occasionally being pleasantly surprised.

[1-800miner]

Machinist from the navy base told me how they would float machines in mercury to stop vibration. Sounds simple enough. If you have lots of mercury.

[fixerdave]

Machinist from the navy base told me how they would float machines in mercury to stop vibration. Sounds simple enough. If you have lots of mercury.

I'm sure that would go over great with the condo committee And, I'm sure my kid would enjoy all the Hazmat trucks.

That said, your machinist-friends in the navy managed to stick around long enough to talk about it, and they could still talk, and remember, and (hopefully) weren't completely insane. Make you wonder... Of course, being honest, if someone had open pails of mercury in my building, I'd have my kid out and the hazmat crews in pretty quick-like. Something about being a parent skews a person's perspective.

Getting way off topic here, but maybe those Victorian era Brits had the right idea. Ship your 10 year old kids off to live with someone else. Have other people's kids come live with you. The kids end up basically being slave labour, and grow up quick. The kids in your house aren't yours, so you don't get all parent-weird about them. Probably very good from a societal perspective. Not personally nice... not sending my kid off, and don't want somebody else's kid either. But, probably a good "stiff upper lip" building exercise. I can see that. From a social perspective, we're going to have to do something along that line sooner or later... it's getting pretty weird these days, 24 year old babies still living at home and all. Not going to end well.

David...