Was catching up on my YouTube feeds and caught this, then thought to myself how it might help with the Glowforge.
I won’t ruin it for you by naming the test results. (It was somewhat surprising, but not totally)
22 Likes
Amazing.
The company I used to work for has its own anechoic EMC test chamber. That has big black foam pyramids around all the walls and the ceiling and a foam rubber floor, inside a metal lined room. The cones must be made from conductive foam or they wouldn’t affect radio waves. Although it only needed to be anechoic for RF radiation it was amazing acoustically dead and also very dark as light would not reflect either. It was a weird experience being inside it.
10 Likes
thanks for sharing; he seems like a nice enough chap.
but i’m not really convinced by these. i’m not sure how applicable his test is, done outside like that, using sound samples that are completely unrealistic to the kinds of sounds one might actually interested in blocking (unless, i suppose, you lived in a tone generator).
the towels are probably pretty good at stopping some reflections in the room, though, which is all he needs to do voice work.
i think there are probably better choices to go with even as you stick to diy materials - i wonder what effect shredded foam might have. the internet suggests that some acoustic tiles are made of extruded melamine foam (e.g., magic erasers), which i’ve found pretty cheap at home hardware stores, and i bet can be sourced quite reasonably in bulk.
it’s too bad building an anechoic chamber at home is probably not feasible (definitely isn’t for me anyway); i’ve been inside a couple of those (one extremely large and one extremely quiet) and it’s striking how alien that feels. it’s almost disturbing.
5 Likes
Might be considered a bit of a fire hazard as things like foam cushions have to have fire ratings these days. Hanging a load of random foam on your walls, or even towels, might not be the best idea.
truth, and i wondered about that. i bet you could treat the towels with something but at that point you’re getting into enough trouble…and yeah you’d definitely want to try and check out flammability ratings on any foam you use.
i wonder what effect you’d get by using that recycled denim insulation. it works quite well thermally, and it’s naturally rather fire resistant.
He forgot to include tapestries
8 Likes
Great stuff. Yay science! Now I want to see if I can find some towel-like material that is also fireproof, because have anxiety issues.
well, i think you could probably find better solutions that are also fire resistant (nothing is really fireproof given enough heat and oxygen - you can burn up steel wool if you expose it to oxygen). i mean sure sound dampening panels are expensive, but a lot of the materials they’re made from aren’t, not really.
2 Likes
I believe there is spray on/soaking solutions that give cloth/fabric fire resistance.
If kids clothes makers (specifically sleep ware) can release fire resistant clothing, there should be an available equivalent for consumers to buy after market.
1 Like
I need to make noise dampening for my coffee grinder. It is a LOT louder than the vacuum. Right now, I run it in a box stuffed with blankets.
I think y’all are taking the idea of swaddling your Glowforge in towels a bit too far. I know it’s your baby and all, but i have a hard time rationalizing fireproofing towels that are in the immediate area because of fear of a fire in the hopper.
Chances are that if you’re scrambling to smother larger flames in the hopper (you’ve got a wet rag for smaller ones, right?), you should already have a fire extinguisher in your hand in the first place.
lol we have two superautomatics, i figure the noise helps wake me up 
i’m pretty sure @dan isn’t trying to add fire to the hopper
I have a roll of acoustic isolation material in the basement from back when we put the flow in my previous apartment. Like brillo pad on steroids. I wonder if I should do a sandwich with that for the GF.
2 Likes
forget you guys im just going to build A WHOLE ROOM for the glowforge out of fireproof acoustic drywall
8 Likes
Yeah, well, I have to do some dampening, because mine is loud enough to wake the neighbors…from the cemetery, 1/2 mile away.
2 Likes
I’m really not kidding that much. First time I fired it up, I thought the folks upstairs were going to come down and pound on my door.
Concrete is good for sound damping. Back when I competed in car audio, we used to pour concrete into the cavities in body panels to stop vibrations and make the cars “dead”. Worked excellently. Hard on suspensions though.
4 Likes
There we go, I’ll make a concrete box for my coffee grinder.
I was actually thinking to make a decorative box with 
and line it with some form of padding or dampening material.
Build a box inside a box with an insulator between the two, like an internally baffled muffler.
2 Likes