[Bosk]

Hi guys,

On a whim I recently dampened the innards of a cheap Aiwa DVD player I own with a bunch of Blu Tack and modeling clay, and was pleasantly surprised with the results - a slightly blacker background, better imaging and focus among other things.

I'd like to get serious with this and dampen some of my more expensive components but I'm not sure that Blu Tack is really the best solution. What I'm after is a (relatively) inexpensive kind of dampening cloth or sheet material, either with an adhesive backing or something that I can glue on myself.
Non conductive ideally.

I'm also planning on experimenting with ERS paper down the line, so I'm not sure how that fits in with this. Would it be best to line a case with ERS first, then dampening material over the top, or the other way round do you think?
I have no experience with this kind of thing (closest I've come is using accoustic padding inside computers to muffle fan noise) so I'd really appreciate any insights you can offer me.

Oh, and one last question - when you dampen a case, say a CD player for example, do you usually remove all the circuit boards and place material under them and them bolt the boards back into place, or just ignore the areas under circuit boards altogether?

Cheers.

 

[jarthel]

check out percy's catalog. there are several options.

 

[Garbz]

I would be inclined to base this on what matters. Sources of potential differences here are vibrations in the transport coupling to the case coupling back to the circuit board and onto the ceramic resonator which clocks all the digital signals.

Try to isolate the transport from the case as much as possible. If you're really DIY handy try removing the clock and putting it onto a separated circuit board that's very close to but not directly touching the main board.

Esentially isolate the things that matter.