Make your Snapmaker Mk1 more quiet

Since I have to share my small flat with 2 Snapmaker Mk1 and an Ultimaker 3 my dearest friend, my SM1 Limited Edition 150/200, was chosen to share my bedroom with me.
But my little machine kept me awake at night because of its horrible noises.
This admired me to make my friend as quiet as possible with less money possible.
I achieved a really very quiet setup t the cost of about 5-10 € (1 fan, some screws and some filament). Sorry for the pictures. I will add some more later.

At first, I took care about the part cooling fan that can’t be turned off.
This was the cheapest and most effective improvement!
The investment was scaled down to one machine € 0,30 for 10 pcs. O-rings (round sealing) with an inner diameter of 3 mm and a width of 1,5 mm.
Put them as washers on both sides of the down facing fan. The original screws can be used but they are very short so be very careful not to ruin the tread.
The remaining 2 rings you should insert between the bent sheet metal the fan rests on, and the case of the printing module.
So the fan doesn’t make the whole machine vibrate and so the noise is reduced very much.

The second project were the machine feet.
The rubber is so hard and the small area the feet covers the machine will shake the table it is resting on producing loud noises again.
In fact I just put some rubber matt below the original feet but fitted in some own designed and printed parts. These new feet were designed to fit inside the original case and have space vor 2 layers of 4 mm thick shock absorbing rubber for working tables.
So now the vibrations of the machine are not as much transferred to the surface below.

In the last step I designed a new controller case. The fan on the original controller is unnecessary small and therefore much too loud.
The new case can hold 2 different sizes of fans and I started with the smaller one (same size as the one inside the hot end). This size is quiet enough.
This new case can’t be printed on the SM1 that’s the only downside.
You can download the STL files here: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4042685

You want to know how quiet the little SM1 is now? The problem is that I can’t tell you if my computer or my printer is louder…
But I’ve measured 38 dB in 1 m distance. I think this IS quiet

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This is great work and thanks for sharing with us. Side note: we’ve realized some users are not a fan of the noises, obviously. The noises are something we will look into and try to improve in the future though, one of the solutions so far is using our enclosure. But 38 dB is really impressive.

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@rojaljelly thank you for all the Informations - printing your Controller Case currently and the 40x40 Fan is ordered :wink:

The Picture for the Cooling Fan Improvements is unfortunately not visible anymore, can you please reupload?

I have the enclosure for the V1. It is not enough of an improvement for how much it cost. I even added dynamat all the way around. I’ll go ahead and add the isolating o-rings and the feet to help cut it back even further. 38dB would be nice. The V1 (and I hear, no pun intended, that the V2 is really noisy too.) The next size up fan wise come in much quieter varieties. These tiny fans generally output too much noise because of the incredibly RPM they must reach in order to move air. Larger fans move more air with lower RPMs because the fan blades are so much bigger (by comparison).

I would really like to see better (quieter for the same air flow) fans used in the first place.

I am very thankful to the OP for his contributions to the reducing the noise that this printer generates. I have a Creality CR-10S Pro that I upgraded all the fans on and the stepper motors are louder than the fans are at this point. A better stepper motor controller would cut that noise even further, if necessary…)

I have the original enclosure too and with doors shut in idle, I don’t hear the printer besides my PC with very quiet equipment since it is placed in my bedroom.

Of course the screw driven axes always produce more noise than a tension belt driven system.
But you’ll get payed back with excelent precision! No wobbly straight walls like with my very too high priced Ultimaker 3. As soon as I receive my A250 I will sell this ugly cube that can’t deliver as good results as I am used to from my 2 Snapmaker Original (upgraded beta 150/200 and stock unit - only the old enclosures and I’m happy with them since I don’t want the door switch).

I Second the absorbtion dampening pads. Just buying some off Amazon for like 15 or 20 bucks. Sorbothane is a good dampening material.

I’ll have to try your washers though, make it even quieter.

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Where did you get the O-Rings?
Anywhere I find it I only get like 100 or 1000 bulk pieces - since I only would need 6 this makes no sense :slight_smile:

I bought this Mat from Amazon (https://www.amazon.de/gp/product/B07XQK5QT4/)
and installed it in my custom Enclosure. Looking good and really reduces the Vibrations.

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I had some left over from another project.
Bougt them online for about 4-5 € for 50 pcs (can’t remember).
My local shop sells them for about 0,15 € a piece so I stayed with the online deal.
Maybe buy a set with various sizes.

So I installed the Controller Case with a 40x40 and the Printer is much more quiet now!
I also managed to find some 3mm O-Rings, which I installed for the Nozzle Fan - brings a little bit, the other Fan inside the Module is louder, in Fact it’s the loudest remaining Fan.

I’m currently thinking about replacing the 30x30 Fan inside the Module with a 40x40 Fan - but therefor I would need to find some spacers so that the Cables for the Hotend can be managed. A small drawback from this would be that the Modules cannot be closed anymore - but since the printer sits inside an enclosure, this shouldn’t be an issue.

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Did anyone try to replace the fans inside of the 3D printing Modul? I would guess that this would reduce noise emissions by quite a bit.

Of course! You can have a look at my design on Thingiverse.

@TimsLaser
Please use the new design. It works very well! Didn’t took a new picture…
It reduces the noise very well. Just the part cooling fan is still very loud.
If I didn’t own a SM2.0 I would have found a solution for that.

I also made a new case for the controller (this fan was also incredibly loud):

Also just a beta design but works well.