Steel tank expiration dates

Oh, I'm not looking to silence the garage compressor. As I said, I'm looking to escape and/or replace it. That was only a $90 compressor anyway, so bulk and portability issues aside, it isn't worth spending half the cost of a new (better) compressor building a box for it.

What I'm looking to silence is the little Badger compressor. The 180-11, which is (or appears to be) an older version of this. It's a lot "quieter" than the garage compressor, but not actually quiet by any means (I've noticed that what hardware people consider "quiet" tends to be around 40db above what a laymen would consider quiet). I wouldn't feel safe running it with someone sleeping in the same house.

At the moment I'm cobbling together an intake muffler. I've been doing some reading, and it looks like that might help a bit on its own. Maybe. We'll see. If not, a box for it will be a lot smaller and cheaper (especially if I can find a prefab container of the right dimensions). Not looking for totally silent, just something I can run without it being distracting to me or disruptive to others.
 
Same principle m8, just a smaller box LOL, was mainly mentioning that it pays to be wary also of the subsonic vibration, any compressor in any unit will generally create, harmonics can be a biatch and you may inadvertently create other issues, consider those soft mounts....but I thought ya were mounting it in a computer case and done right wouldn't be much different to many bigger name brands and yes 40 db is still loud..the best silent compressor I ever have come across runs at about 35 db (Remember though its like the richter scale 70 db I think is about 10x louder than 60 and so on.. most silent compressors don't even tell punters the db rating LOL..But for every reduction in db the price seems to double and to me that's just wrong when a simple solution, as you are doing will bring the db down to much lower levels and is much cheaper in the long haul than overpriced "silent" compressors....
 
So last night I crammed this together out of stuff I had lying about while watching old episodes of Lexx on youtube:

Muffy1.jpg Muffy2.jpg

Large HDPE pill bottle for the outer chamber, 2oz HDPE paint bottle for the inner chamber, stainless steel scrubbing pads (the sort that's like steel wool only little ribbons instead of fibers) in between, PVC elbow to offset it so it wouldn't get in the way of the moisture trap, assembled with electrical tape, and secured in place with silicon sealer.

It kills the high frequencies completely, softens the mids a bit, and has no discernible effect on the lows. Doesn't really feel all that much quieter overall (I don't have a DB meter, so can't be scientific), but it does make the noise "smoother" and less obnoxious.

Of course, I'm no engineer, so the design may well be wrong/inoptimal in any number of ways. I welcome pointers, if that's the case. It's a start, though.

Oh, and the plastic bin it's perched on is just for the photos: I at least know better than to put it on such a drum-like chamber while it's in use, LOL.
 
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hey that looks really good so far.
So i see that´s the intake muffler, with that you really silence most of the high/hissing sound of the air rushing through the small openings (its like opening a bottle with sparkling water).
The low frequencies mostly are most likely come from the mechanic itself, for this is a membrane compressor if i see right, so the membrane movements
and the motor.
As far as i know the best solution is like RebelAir just said, a outer box for this little boy a big bucket should be enough i think. Just put some sound dampening foam into it and just put it over the little noisemaker.
Just keep an eye on the needed ventilation so your motor won´t die the heat death.
I just used some foam mat that was intended to insulate the hot water pipes from the heaters at home.
Also good for such things i presume is that foam material sometimes used to protect valued goods during shipping.
And last but not least the motor feet´s, the ones on your motor seem to be quite hard from the beginning and time won´t have soften them.
Try to find some more softer or as you already have this silicone sealer maybe you can make some out of it because that should be soft enough.
Its like sound boxes for HiFi equipment the bass is a sound that can be conducted via bodies. And the floor is really big body :D
Or some stick on rubber feet or felt pads may also do fine but i fear then your motor will start wandering around with felt feet.
 
Also consider egg cartons, same stuff they use in a sound booth, but the ones you buy each week for your eggs are awesome, fill them with foam and their even better..I have built a large silencing box for my 5 kva generator at home which my house runs off..That thing sits next to our house (bout 4 meters away) and is over 100 db..i built a shed around it, lined it with egg cartons (I have heaps of the larger flat ones from the local fish and chip shop) then covered them with foam..My 9 year old sleeps happily next to it as her room is the closest bout the same distance..and you can only just hear it..Turn the tv on and you don't know its even running except the vibration, only have rubber matting below it and one day will add some better rubber mounts but silencing any compressor is so easy its not funny..also consider making the box again out of wood, unlike steel it doesnt bounce as much of the sound around and will also absorb some..best of luck..
 
Yeah, the gist of what I've been reading around the net is: wood is better than metal, regular "whole grain" wood is better than plywood, MDF is better than regular wood, drywall is better than MDF.

I was at the store yesterday and noticed that office file boxes are the perfect size and shape for a compressor like this. Pity they're all made of plastic or cardboard.
 
Before I bought my oil-filled compressor which is quiet like a fridge :D I had built a very basic quietner box for my AS186 compressor with scraps of carpet. So you could maybe get one of the above mentioned plastic or cardboard office file boxes and line it with carpet. I left a gap through the top section so I could place a table fan to blow air through from back to front and it was reasonably effective to keep it cool. I placed the whole box/container on another piece of carpet and then on top of a stool and put washing machine anti-vibration rubber pads under each foot of the stool. It cut down the sound level and the vibration which was actually the biggest problem. I had all this stuff lying around my house and attic so it cost nothing to throw together and did a reasonable job untill I upgraded.

I tried to keep the carpet as much as possible in one piece around the inside of the box and then used Duck Tape (on the back) to attach to two ends. Also leave at least a good few centimeters around the compressor so it is not touching the carpet. I cut a slot out of the front of the cardboard box so the water trap and air regulator stuck out of the front of the box. Perhaps someone will say my contraption is not a good idea but it might be ok so long as you make it with care. It's cheap, cheerful and just an idea :glasses::D
 
Well, after some more experimenting, I think this whole project is gonna have to wait a few months. I've tried everything I can think of that I've got on hand already, and nothing's working to isolate this thing from the floorboards. No matter what I put between it and the floor, I'm still sending a strong bass vibration throughout the house frame whenever I turn it on. I'm going to have to throw money at it, and I can't do that ATM, as the holidays are starting to loom like an oncoming freight train.

So for now it's back to schlepping the tank around and only having an hour's worth of air per day.
 
Actually I just "fixed" the floor transmission issue just now. Seems I spoke too hastily in my moment of frustration.

This is gonna sound funny:

A stack of big hardback books on top of an upturned milk crate did the trick. When I say "big" I mean like old school dictionary types. Got three books under the compressor: a giant 4" thick hardbound "Complete works of Shakespeare" and two 2" thick hardback photo reference books. Basically a big, dense block of woody mass to soak up low vibrations, with the milk crate acting as a crude decoupling stage. Still pumping the immediate room full of bass vibrations via air transmission, but at least I'm no longer transmitting it to the rest of the house via the house frame.

This could make things simpler down the road as well. I was a bit worried about the floor of the box I was building in my head (walls are easy, but it was harder to picture a good base without resorting to expensive materials), but now I'm thinking I can basically just do the base like an old-school butchers block.
 
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