[pure-silver] Re: floor vibration?

From: "Shannon Stoney" <shannonstoney@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>


I have a question about the new darkroom that I'm building in a garage
in my back yard.

My old darkroom was a box inside a garage.  The floor was a concrete
slab.

 In the new darkroom, we had a wooden floor built on top of the slab,
because the slab was so uneven.  The walls are now tied in with the
floor, and there is a vent hood mounted on one wall, with a fan on a
shelf next to the hood to pull air through the vent hood.  In the old
darkroom, the vibration from the fan vibrated the wall, but not the
enlarger, because the enlarger sat on a table on the concrete slab.

Today I suddenly got worried that the vibration from the vent fan on
the vent hood over the sink would vibrate the floor, because now the
floor is tied in with the wall.  Then if the floor vibrates, the table
that the enlarger sits on might vibrate also.

So, what should I do to prevent this from happening?

--shannon
Easy step: get some sort of rubber 'feet' for the table-- possibly the devices that are sold to put under furniture legs to make the furniture easy to move. Or just a couple thicknesses of chunks of an old auto tire. Maybe even some chunks of thick rubber-back carpet-- a carpet installer would surely have some scrap pieces.
More difficult step: Isolate the fan. It sounds like the fan is an ordinary box fan-- if so, instead of setting it on a shelf, hang it by some rubber bungee cords. If it's a permanently mounted fan, mount it with rubber straps. Cut some strips from the sidewall of an old tire. Fasten the strips to the wall and mount the fan to the loose end of the strips.
Really oddball step: Cut holes throu the floor where the table legs are and have the table setting directly on the concrete floor slab. This would lower the table by the thickness of the 'sleepers' used for the floor, but depending on your enlarger, it might even by more convenient!
High tech solution: mount auto air shocks on each leg of the table. Using a valve system and air compressor, you could raise and lower the table to a comfortable working height-- add more air to raise the table for small prints, release air pressure to lower the table for big prints. Of course, now you have to deal with vibration and electical surge from the air compressor. 
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