Dampen Drive Vibration

[seismik]

I would like to dampen the vibration from my optical drives. I've heard of people doing this by putting rubber washers on the drive screws. I don't know what size washers I should buy, and what thickness. Will my local Home Depot have what I'm looking for or are they specialized pieces I'll have to look around for? Thanks,

 

[Zepper]

Rubber washers on the mounting screws really won't do it unless you drill out the drive mount screw hole to the size of the washer because you will still have drive metal in contact with case metal either directly or via the mounting screws. Go to evercase.com and look at their removable hard drive brackets with their rubber grommet mounts for an idea. I think that grommet-style sound isolators are the way to go. You can get standard rubber grommets at the Home Depot type stores if you can figure a way to use them.
. Unfortunately the standard 5" drive racks in the cases usually don't have enough slack on both sides to accomodate grommets. But some have the drive mount holes in little peninsulas of metal that can easily be bent to allow for grommets.
. With cases that use slides mounted to the drives, you can sometimes replace the slides with similar sized blocks of neoprene rubber (some shoe repair shops carry sheets of neoprene) or other insulating material.
. As long as you keep the concept of "no metal-to-metal contact" in mind, you should be able to come up with a solution for your case.
. SVC.com and others have sound insulation products and kits that may give you a starting point.
.bh.

 

[seismik]

Yeah, the issue of having space to put some grommets or washers worried me. Now you've confirmed it might be harder than I hoped. I'll check out this links, should I come up with an easy and effective solution I'll post it. Thanks for the reply.

 

[Gravity]

If you go with the antec sonat, they have drive bays that allow you to use the 4 holes in the bottom of your drives and they mount onto rubber washers through the tray.

I was very impressed when I saw the config. No metal to metal contact whatsoever.

 

[0roo0roo]

that doesn't help for opticals