This is a prime example of how these videos should be make! No clickbait, first thing you see is the result and the answer to the title. Then a demonstration of why it's needed and thorough research! Absolutely love this channel, keep it up!

I did this a year ago and everyone on the forums laughed at me 😅

To be honest? I thought you were pulling my leg. However, in order to refute it scientifically, I had to test it first. The result? Jaw-dropping sound reduction!

For those unfamiliar with how industrial machining equipment is installed, this is standard practice. The structural rigidity and accuracy of 95% of large turning and milling machines lies in the manner in which they're installed. Typically they're anchored to an isolation pad. This pad is reinforced concrete anywhere from 2 feet to 8 feet deep possibly more depending on the application that is isolated from the earth below and surrounding edges to the existing shop floor by several inches of high density foam.

4:30 The paver is not to distribute the load evenly, it's to add mass which reduces acoustic coupling to air by impedance mismatch.

Dont forget, that the concret slab on itself acts similar to a flywheel by absorbing the acceleration because of its huge weight. You can compare this concept to a capacitor on alternating voltage, which smoothes the output voltage. F = m * a a = F / m If there is a constant force F you can reduce the acceleration a by increasing the mass m.

I'm late to the party on this but in case it helps anyone: I just got a 16x16 paver from Home Depot and four 1 inch circle felt stick on's, one for each corner that the paver sits on. This fits inside my self built lack table enclosure for my Prusa MK3S with about an inch to spare in height inside the enclosure. This has made the printer practically silent, in comparison to how loud it was before. Those hollow lack tables really amplify the sound vibrations, and this solution made a HUGE, and I mean HUGE difference.

This video is amazing and saved my sleep. My printer is in my bedroom on an IKEA bookshelf and it's been keeping me awake during longer prints with noise from the steppers. I bought a $1.75 concrete paver and some non-slip drawer lining foam I had lying around and now I can finally sleep again! Thank you so much!

Well, I was so inspired I went to the store. To get a paving slab for each of my two printers... I ended up paving my drive. I am holding you responsible!!! (Also, thanks for great content as ever) :)

A thing to consider is leaving the filament spool out of the printer's frame. It's sprung mass that will add inertia to the system. Having it separated will make it easier to damp the movement.

I have had this for my printer for about six months and the improvement in noise is awesome. Thanks Stefan!

Yes. I wish more 3D makers and small cnc makers would take time to understand the principles that cnc machine tool manufacturers spent decades researching and refining. A stable platform is step 1 for anything precise

This is a great representation of isolation and dampening when it come to not only 3D printing, but just about anything that moves. A grinder on a table or a generator would be a good example. Thank you Stefan. You have, once again, presented an incredible example and explanation of engineering principles for the non-initiated.

Mechanically, all sound is wasted energy (other than in audio speakers, that is). The key to minimizing it is to ensure all motion (momentum, technically) in one direction is balanced by an equal and opposite momentum AS CLOSE TO THE SOURCE OF MOTION AS POSSIBLE. When one side of an axis is held rigid, any imbalance is transmitted through that rigid structure to whatever is supporting it, and so on to the building itself. Motion in one axis can be coupled to other axes when the imbalance is forced through anything that can act as a lever. The spring supports were horrible at this, converting most X-Y motion into Z motion, with oscillatory bouncing! A better mount would be stiffer and/or more damped in Z, since there relatively little direct imbalance due to the slow Z axis movements. I remember well when I started applying my embedded real-time programming skills to actuator controls. I designed my software to drive the system well within specs, but when I tested it rigidly mounted to a large concrete test-bed, the mechanism tore itself apart. I next tested it attached to a mass more closely representing its operational load, only to have it shake that apart as well, severing it's mount to the test-bed. Only when I properly isolated the system did I get correct performance, in this case adding mounts that closely matched the mechanical aspects of the fluid dynamics of its intended operational environment. Quite a valuable applied physics lesson for a software engineer! The same applies to 3D printers, though the goal is to isolate it from the environment without that isolation reflecting unwanted problems back into the 3D printer. Printers with a bed moving laterally will generate the most forceful motion on that axis, with other axes contribution less until you get to the axis carrying the carriage. Carriage motion has the longest path to be conducted to the base, and so can use the other axes to absorb the imbalance, leading to ringing when any mechanical part in that path provides any reasonance. This gets worse as print speed grows. Fortunately, the same techniques that permit faster printing can also result in less noise! The reverse is also true: techniques that reduce noise can permit faster printing! So let's instead attack this as a single full-system problem. The best way to reduce momentum imbalance is to reduce either acceleration (and its derivative, jerk) or the mass being accelerated. Which is the one huge reason to switch to a Bowden feed: The extruder drive stepper is no longer part of the moving mass of the carriage, with the added complexity of more difficult filament feed/retract behavior. But there is a middle solution that is nearly as good, if more expensive: Keep the filament feeder on the carriage, but move the stepper away using a flexible drive. The industry standard RepRap design also moves the stepper driving the carriage axis. The general technique of "move no steppers" can be applied further away from the carriage. The CoreXY and Delta are printer architectures having no moving steppers. That nice for a new printer, but we still must deal with whatever imbalance is left, no matter what printer we have. How? At this point, we need to work with the printer as a whole. The solutions Stefan showed all act at the base, the primary goal being to reduce conducted noise. Can we do better? We ideally would absorb each imbalance as close to its source as possible. But how to do so while maintaining the mechanical integrity, alignment and performance of the printer as a whole? If you are a printer designer you can add flexibility to the structure that is compensated by a drive system that models, and accounts for, that flexible structure and the applied forces. A great example of such modeling is "melt zone pressure" that is controlled to ensure actual filament flow accounts for variables such as filament composition, filament diameter, melt-zone size, heater capacity, nozzle diameter, and so on, and do so without actually having a pressure sensor at the melt zone. A model is designed then tuned for the print environment, which is what "linear advance" does in Marlin, and is why the Klipper project exists. We can do similar software modeling for momentum imbalance. Since printers don't change like filament, we don't need a dynamic model: We can solve a static model one time, by separately tuning acceleration and jerk for each axis. I'm presently in the design phase of a project to automate this calibration, by attaching 6-axis IMUs (accelerometers + gyros) to each axis then using a very simple optimization/learning network on a PC or RasPi to null out as much imbalance as possible while still meeting performance/speed goals. (I already did a similar project to isolate my aging body from road vibration when riding my triathlon race bicycle while still providing, and even enhancing, my maximum performance: The feet, butt and hands/elbows were separate paths needing separate solutions, some of which included changing my riding style and bike fit.) Modeling and software can get us only so far: Whatever imbalance still remains will need to be absorbed external to the printer. But we certainly can crudely model it, and in some cases directly measure it. The imbalances can get complex due to axis coupling as imbalances make their way to the base. There won't be just the linear components due to the motion of each axis, but additional components due to axis coupling. Wow. This comment got long, and I have other things to get done. I'll end it here. Please comment if you'd like more, and I'll expand this into a blog post that I'll link here.

I'd done similar with some scrap around the house. Used Pelican case foam (harder foam) and scrap granite that I got when a friend re-did their kitchen. It was a night and day difference. Very cool to see the actual test data. I might try and find some softer foam to use with it! Keep the great content coming.

I've just started up my Ender 3 again and really appreciate you bringing this issue to light. Great work!

was googling this last night and then you posted a video today, brilliant!

Your ball drop tests brought me back to one of my introductory engineering courses where we investigated coefficient of restitution. Very interesting and thorough investigation!

I just purchased a 18x18 in concrete slab and installed on my printer with some foam in the bottom and it definitely helps with the noise, I wish I knew this years ago! Awesome videos!

This video was incredibly helpful! I never thought of reducing the noice before, but it is definitely much more pleasant this way! Thanks a lot!

"viscoelasticity" is the keyword here :) one of the proper material out there with a great viscoelasticity and perfect to put under your concrete block is "memory foam". Give it a try! Thanks for your work Stefan

Fantastic research as always! For my Prusa i3 Mk3 I chose the "premium" variant of the squashballs: Sorbothane domes. Ordered 8 of them for ~20$ (sadly only available from the USA) and used 6 of them in combination with wide side-mounted feet that I designed myself to give the printer a wider stance and therefore reduce the wobbling. It reduced the noise from my printer A LOT and didn't use up much more space than the stock feet. That was an important point for me, because the Printer sits inside an enclosure... which itself - for good measure - sits on top of one of those washing machine rubber mats.

AMAZING video. Love how much data and tests you performed. Also love the extra tests in the second half.

What a great video! Your demonstrations are informative and well placed. I will be adding a sub-structure to my two printers because of this video. Good work!

Several years ago I noticed that there were imperfections in my layer height each time I leaned on my workbench to look at the printer (an old i3) . I solved this with a large tile placed under it - not as much mass as a concrete paver block, but much more aesthetic and cleanable.

I'm also using such a slab for like 3 years now. But underneath, I put some acoustic pyramid shaped foam. This helps even more with decoupling sound.

Just got my first printer & have no idea what I’m doing but am greatful for your input this will b my first move setting up thank you for great vid

You are so well spoken and knowledgeable! It's a pleasure to watch your video's. I'm headed down to the hardware store today to buy a paver for my printer today! Thanks for your tips... Subscribed!

I got excited and rushed out to do this without considering the necessity first. I find my ender 3 isn't super loud to begin with and the shelves it sits on top of are narrow and quite solid. Testing before and after mounting on the slab + packing foam, the reduction might be 1-2db, but both were around ~56db. Great video, the fault was mine :)

Terrific content as always! Your technical level is perfect.

This is by far the best mod for my E3. Thank you very much for this video und Alles Gute für die Zukunft.

Picked one up for mine last year. Difference was like night and day. I put thick felt pads under the slab to try and isolate any extra vibration from reaching the table it's on. Works great :)

I did this about 2 years ago, and I cannot recommend this enough. Seriously, the amount of noise cancelling a concrete slab does is astounding

This is a wonderful exposition! I just wish you had measured the audio from the printer with a spectral analyzer to identify which frequency is contributing most to the resonance, and test whether this frequency is attenuated with via the concrete block.

I've just done that on Friday under CR10S I have in our spare office that's used by our homeoffice guys two days a week. Huge improvement in surrounding offices separated only by glass walls. It can't be heard there anymore. Only needed part was to buy that concrete piece and shift the printer feet slightly to fit that 40x40cm I bought. Great and thanks.

Great video and I like the depth in which you go to explain the reason why they are different and what works best. Keep up the great work and Videos

Very well explained! I will try using this heavy block under my ender 3 as it's definitely not the most quiet printer, especially with the stock board. Thank you!

Thank you very much for an interesting video. I have seen it featured on most of the major electronics-blogs - good job :) A good rule of thumb is: kill the noise at the source. This goes for both mechanical an electronics engineering. There's a lot of stepper motor damping mounting brackets for sale. How about doing a video on the various types, how much they reduce noise and how they affect the printing quality?

This is full of fantastic information and is helpful for advanced and beginners alike... thank you. Great to see the comparisons and understanding some of the physics involved

I already had my printer sitting on a 15mm slab of plywood. I added 4 mm of foam under the printer and 4 mm of foam under the plywood. Blown away by how quiet the printer got (even with Trinamic stepper drivers). Stefan, sehr schön!

This video definitely added depth to my understanding on this topic. Thank you!

I liked the bit with "I sometime wear only one" and my left speaker went silent for a second :D

I'm more for a hybrid solution.. paver with felt pads as shown, but using multiple thicknesses to tune an additional softer foam to approximately 1/3rd total compression. Excellent video!

After watching this video, I used dense foam + furniture felt pads for my SnapMaker. Got great result, thanks.

Instinctively this made sense to me & was something I planned to do because as an audio engineer, our industry has been doing the same on studio monitors for ages! Heavy blocks, then springy material ☺️ Concrete and foam pads is pretty common! Funnily enough, that‘s also how washing machines deal with vibration - If you‘ve ever opened one up, you‘ll see that the majority of its weight actually comes from a heavy concrete weight on the inside! And then we often put foam pads underneath. Same principle 😁 Thank you for the confirmation!

This was a really great, informative video! I rarely watch 3D Printing videos the whole way through but I feel like I learned so much from this!

I just did this and the hardest part was getting the concrete slab home without a car. I'm very pleased with the result. Best quality of life upgrade ever! 👍

A friend turned me on to this. and so happy I did!

I have a small CNC router. I built an MDF enclosure for it and filled the base with fine play sand. When it comes to tools like this, the heavier, the better, not just for noise, but for quality of cut. The sand works a bit like the lead balls in a dead blow hammer. Compliant (rubber, etc.) is to prevent transmission of vibration. But weight (paver, sand, etc.) is to actually dampen the vibrations. (Edit: you point this out later in the video) For additional dampening, I recommend fixing the CNC router or 3d printer to the weight. Clamps or screws can help. This couples the weight to the machine, making the whole machine weigh more, and resonate less, assuming it's tightly built. This is usually less necessary for a 3d printer, though.

Great content man! reminder: mass is an important factor on vibrations as well, the stifness, elasticity and the mass of the system. The concrete adds mass, possibly reducing the overall amplitude of vibration.

I feel like I got a small course in physics. Liked, commented and subscribed Today my neighbor below came and knocked on my door and asked what that humming sound was. Turns out it's my Anycubic Photon M3 Max standing in an otherwise empty wardrobe, and probably resonated like a speaker when the Z axis moves. I had previously put thick corrugated card board under it to dampen a bit. Now I will take my oversized wooden cutting board instead of the concrete slab and put whatever suitable soft material I can find around the house as feet below the cutting board, until I can get the optimal solution. Really informative.

Just found this excellent video. I was going to do this 3 months ago. Now I will as soon as I get to LOWES and pick up a paver and some foam!

Actually this was much more interesting than I thought it would be! Great job!

I used a bouncy ball to test many materials I was able to find like felt, rubber, foam, sponges, cardboard, and piles of paper and I found that stacking towels until it's at least 15mm thick is an excellent dampener. Used towels can be found in any home and can also be bought at thrift stores for next to nothing, so I would personally recommend that.

i use the brick with felt really works makes it so quiet thanks alot man!!👍

I have a table with 4 screwed legs so the table is a bit wobbly. For my Ender 3 Pro it worked fine to put a large mousepad under the whole printer. In combination with the silent mainboard upgrade vibrations are 90% gone and not disturbing anymore. The most sound emitting parts are now the PSU fan and the hotend fan which i plan to replace with bigger fans so the airflow remains the same at reduced rpm. Thanks for your nice videos and please keep on, CNC Kitchen :-)

One of my "favorite cheap and effective printer upgrades" is a silicone sock. When printing with high temperature materials, a silicone sock can prevent spurious "MINTEMP" and "THERMAL RUNAWAY" error messages. It can also save your heater block and delicate thermistor wires from being ruined by the dreaded blob caused by an unattended long print becoming unstuck.

When I got my firt printer, i placed it on a very old (~1950), classy and wobbly table. When i was having it renovated i had to place my printer directly on the floor. At first i thought i damaged my printer by moving it. It was much louder and ghosting appeared. When i was printing on the table it was shaking a lot. I guess it absorbed lots of vibrations.

This is a game changer! So much better. Even just foam and wood block improves things. Family unit is 100% on board with this!

Great relevant video (2024). I always learn something from CNC Kitchen... Just to add what I did -I glued acoustical panels to the bottom side of my top in hopes of decreasing the sound even more. Not sure if it works but I feel better. 😊😊

Good job man! always a pleasure. Been using a pizza stone and memory foam myself, but if i had the space I'd try sand like subwoofer isolation. A couple thoughts to drive engagement here in the comments (pardon the messiness, i am typing with a broken hand): an addition for any viewers unfamiliar with decibel scale, know that it is log, not linear, and one Bel (ie. 10 dB) different = 2x perceived loudness change as far as psychoacoustic perception goes, so the ~68dB loudest result is literally more than 2x 'louder' than the ~56dB quietest result (assuming fairly similar spectrum). Another benefit of decoupling that doesn't show up in weighted SPL comparison is that down beyond the low range of the dBa weighting, low frequency/high amplitude "thump, thump' directional change impacts are also decoupled, which are what used to wake me up during nighttime printing since those are more omnidirectional freq and more easily transmitted by conduction... they are not as "loud" in the human hearing range, but i sleep on a japanese bed, so i could feel it through the floor.

Also worth noting that if you use a soft material like a big sheet of foam, when the printer eventually sinks into it a bit any cooling underneath is severely limited. Some of my printers have a cooling fan that exhausts under the unit, and it's all too easy to block that path. 👍

I got pavers with the felt feet for all three of my printers (E3pro, CR10s, Ultimaker 2+. Had to move the feet on the CR10s to fit. It makes a noticeable difference in sound and print quality, plus it just looks cool.

I found it interesting that it make less noise now. I'm gonna have to try this out. Great video!

If people are looking for both high density and very firm (a high Indent Load Deflection - I.L.D. number) foam, what you want is "rebonded" foam, which is the type of multicolored foam that Stefan is using in the video. A number of online retailers can offer you this type of foam in custom sizes.

i use 2 mouse pads stacked on top of each other it works extremely well.

This is BY FAR the best 3D printing channel. Keep being the best dude, we love you!!!

i enjoy how technical this is

Oh man, this was such a missed opportunity! I actually use a similar concrete tile, but not to isolate the printer but to provide the best possible base for any CNC (or printer). I have a heavily modified Anet A8 that outperforms most commercial 3D printer kits, and much is thanks to that solid base. I drilled holes and mounted the printer directly to the tile. Apart from improving performance, it absorbs sound/vibrations that travels through the printers frame. However drilling might not be for everyone, because you need patience, good drills and a bit experience. But i can highly recommend anyone looking for the ultimate performance to try it. I'll do a video this month on the setup.

i had my 3d printer hanging from the ceiling with ropes. including a spring on top. most silent setup but a hassle to work on the printer :) so i am back to soft foam with a plate.

It is a good system. On the Toronto subway system, we use a similar mass damper system to reduce transmission of low frequency vibration through the concrete subway tunnels into building structures above. They are called "double concrete ties (sleepers)" and are just like this... a large concrete block supported at four places by large natural rubber donuts. The floating slab is very effective.

Great Video and very cool idea with the concrete. On my first Anet A8, I had some serious ringing issues. Some day, I went to IKEA and got the cheapest couchtable, one of those rubber mats for washing maschines, some heavy duty angles und Spax screws. Cut the rubber mat to the exact size of the table and fixed to it. The rest of the mat was cut and placed under every leg (also fixed with screws) then reinforced the legs with the angles to the tabletop. It’s really sturdy and dampens everything by a lot. The prints got no ringing issues whatsoever since then. I currently operate a Ender 5 on this table, still very good results. But I will add the concrete tile soon ;)

11:24 is that a wedding ring??

I tried felt pads under my printer, but it was actually a really bad idea. I have a wood frame printer and it's not at all stiff, so it was capable of twisting more and worsened wall print quality, so i removed them. I made a replacement top frame piece which adds two swept back pieces with mount points for two rods. One of the rods just ties things together, and one is basically my filament rack, i put several spools on it. It stiffens the printer somewhat and weighs it down. Now i have some kind of foam rubber feet under the legs of the IKEA LACK table that the printer sits on. Sure it's not ideal because there is a cavity in the LACK table that can amplify the noise, the top surface is basically a thin piece of hard paper that is supported by a hex cell hard paper lattice on the inside, but it's satisfactory enough, the printer isn't heard outside the room. I remember in the early days of PC watercooling, people used those Eheim garden pumps, and they're BEASTS, they vibrate quite a bit; so a number of mounting methods were tested, including suspending the pump from bungee cords etc. The best material that has been found, according to several tests, was the orange open-cell foam rubber. OK you know at a home improvement store, where you get those plastic trowel handles? and then you get a variety of pads to go with them, like the black dense foam rubber, and the bright orange fluffy foam? Well the orange stuff. Silent PC enthusiasts also found them to be among the best way to quieten some particularly egregious hard disks from that era. So yeah it's not difficult to obtain, nor expensive, i think it would be good to add to this test.

Great video! Thank you. Love the product placement too

This was very informative, I currently have my printer on a wire shelf which has wheels, it is causing the whole shelf to wabble around, but that is absorbing the vibration a bit. I plan to put foam below and a piece of coroplast ontop of the foam, and reinforce the wire shelf a little at the top to keep it from wabbling, while putting some felt below the wheels so it can more around a little, because most of the noise is in the wheels grinding onto the wooden floor. really enjoying the video, thanks

My fav upgrade is a magnetic print bed for my Ender 3 that made everything so much easier

I have filled my Ender 3 frame extrusions with rice for damping in the structure itself, I think this is a good addition to any base damping that is implemented as it will increase the mass as well raising the frames natural frequency. I am thinking about attaching a tuned mass damper to the frame as well as a future improvement but have yet to get to testing.

Works surprisingly well. Thanks!

Thank You for making this video. It is very helpful.

Can I get a link to the dense foam on amazon? need an example.

Also, if there are spaces between the supports under the block this can serve as cable runs and (if the spaces are at the front) handy tool storage if you have a cramped setup.

Just an excellent video. Very well done. Sets a standard. Thank you.

If you want to know how quiet your printer could be with good sound insulation, just pick it up (from somewhere on the frame that won't snag your fingers!) whilst it's printing. It's a great way to know what kind of noise level you're aiming for. I ended up buying some (not cheap) special foam domes meant to isolate speakers from furniture -- they are calibrated for the speaker's weight (OK, the printer's weight in my case). The difference with my MK2s Prusa (now a MK2.5s) is night-and-day. In normal use it's almost as quiet as my MK3s Prusas. Take those rubber domes away and it's much, much noisier.

0:00 I hear that noise coming out of my parents room at night

Great tip, well presented, definitional going to try, Thanks

I have mine on the top shelf of those tall cheap plastic shelving units. The whole tower shakes back and forth with direction changes. I think its less stressful on the machine and is a good spring/damper. I have a plywood Flashforge from 2012 and It still prints perfectly.

the foam from the packaging from a 3d printer is a good dampener

Okay I just made a new 3D printing table with layers of concrete->foam->plywood->concrete and my printer became amazingly silent. No idea where you can get those materials for $2. 16x16 concrete block alone costs $8 + transportation costs.

I saw this video a few months ago and coincidentally dug up a bunch of old slate and bricks buried in my back yard by a previous owner. Tried it using the packing material from my CR10S and it works beautifully!

This is very valuable info. I'm going to apply this for my LP turntable as well!

for my ender 3 i just used the foam that came with the printer.

Tennis ball feet on my Kossel style.

Thankyou for video because I would like to buy a printer but I'm not sure best way to get started. Now I at least understand what to put it on. Thanks again. Its the same concept used when i built a commercial sound studio in downtown Manhattan NY (USA). We used different materials on the floor and walls and ceilings

Let me be the umpteenth person to say that this is STUNNINGLY EFFECTIVE 😍 . Thank you so much! I was getting noise transmitted through the floor to the room below, and now that's completely silenced. Brilliant! I happened to have a big chunk of that super-foam left over from when I used to build and fly remote control aeroplanes, we used that stuff to pack around components and it's great. Sadly I couldn't find any pavers for 2 notes, but I did find one for £8 GBP which was within budget for this mod and turned out to be very well worth the expense.

I like the sound of my printer it helps me sleep especially with cricles, so does the whole family

Hello, what exactly is this foam part (partical foam) ? cant find anything in germany (or how its called) only those rubber mat for a washing machine

Same here - used such a plate from our garden. Works so silently!

Nice presentation, I have been using a large paver with a square carper tile glued to both sides, one to protect my table and the second as a baffle to absorb sound from the printer, I cut holes so the printer is touching the paver directly. I am contemplating building another 3D Printer and building it directly to a piece of granite kitchen bench top.

8:57 hi, I would like to know the poster in the background "cheat sheet"