Vibiemme drip tray rattle solution

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Randy G.
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Joined: 17 years ago

#1: Post by Randy G. »

Taking the risk that I am giving the dead horse yet another kick, I offer the following:

You may remember my "solution" to the warming tray rattle on the Vibiemme Domobar Super. That worked fine and has done so for a number of months now.

But my quest continued for a "solution" to the drip tray noise. The machine's vibrations actually caused the tray to move out of the machine a bit when the tray was empty. The rattling noises caused by the tray's movements were quite annoying. It got better as the level of the waste-water in the tray increased, but it was still a disturbance. To my embarrassment, it took too long to come up with this elegant and simple solution:



I used the same "loop" portion of Industrial Strength Velcro, cut a narrow strip, and applied one on each side of the tray as shown here. The tray slides in easily and then at the last inch it wedges in easily and stays put. The best part is that the tray is now silent!

The last step was to manipulate the two reservoir hoses so that they would be less inclined to rattle against the outer case. The machine now operates in delightful near-silence- or at least about as close as a vibratory machine is likely to do.
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JmanEspresso
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#2: Post by JmanEspresso »

Creative.. I like that.

Not only does it solve the noise problem.. But, it will keep the tray from sliding out slightly for whatever reason... I was always sliding the tray back in a bit on my Anita, so I came up with a much less elegant solution then this.

I put the timer in front of the tray :)

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cafeIKE
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#3: Post by cafeIKE »

Might I suggest putting the damper in the machine, rather than on the tray.
Repeat washing of the tray might be adverse to the adhesive.

On my Vibiemme, I put two thin strips of sticky back rubber on the metal slides. Been dead quiet going on 4 years.


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cannonfodder
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#4: Post by cannonfodder »

Odd. Most of the vibration on my machine came from the cup warmer and gauges. I never had a problem with the drip tray rattling to the point it works its way out.
Dave Stephens

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cafeIKE
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#5: Post by cafeIKE »

The gauges have never made a sound on either machine.

The differences are probably due to assembly variances and different resonances due to slight variations in pipe and sheet metal sizes and bends.

RickB
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Joined: 15 years ago

#6: Post by RickB »

Maybe too radical a solution but why not remove the pump from the machine, plumb it in under the sink and connect it back to the machine with some flexible waterpipe. Much quieter, I reckon...

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cafeIKE
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#7: Post by cafeIKE »

Come and drill my granite and convince the missus :twisted:

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Randy G. (original poster)
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#8: Post by Randy G. (original poster) »

My warming tray was noisy, and its vibrations made anything on it (cups and saucers) even noisier. Additionally, if you have the painted version VBM DS (as opposed to the all-stainless), removing and replacing the warming tray scratches the powder coating. My final warming tray solution worked quite well:


Note how the Velcro wraps around the edge which has eliminated peeling of the Velcro when inserting and removing the tray. I used a corner rounder to cut all the corners with a radius so they would be far less likely to peel. Three strips front and rear and two on each side did the trick

I also put lengths of electrical tape onto the frame along where the body panel meets them in order to isolate those items from each other.

Fuzzy Velcro was placed on the inside of the body panel where the reservoir may touch it, and on the inner divider panel for the same reason. Carefully locating the reservoir platform also helped a bit.

I put rubber bands between the gauge and front panel to isolate them, and "adjusting" the face panel to hold the gauges tighter helped as well. I will eventually replace the rubber bands with O-rings if I ever remember to get the proper sizes.

One last little noise-creator was the plastic plug that covers the pressurestat adjusting hole. Mine fits so loosely that it fell into the machine during shipping.

The steps as outlined in my OP above, combined with the rest of the solutions here really makes a big difference. My Vibiemme Domobar Super is now nearly as quiet as I would expect a rotary pump machine to be. Stacked saucers on the warming tray rattle an make more perceived noise than the machine does.
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