I have been looking for ways to quiet down a stock Ender Pro 3 and the simplest first step would be to add some sort of cushioned feet. I perused Thiniverse, MyMiniFactory and Google, looking for a design that both looked cool and were functional. The ones I liked most were designed based around some sort of squishy ball or squash ball. I saw some with mini tennis ball and 42mm squash balls. Although those designs were neat, they all seamed to raise the machine more than I wanted. Not to mentioned, I don’ have mini tennis ball or 42mm squash balls on hand. My thoughts on the tennis balls were that they would be to firm to actually “dampen” the sound and 42mm squash balls were big and pricey, anywhere between $20-35 for four.
I figured, why not try and design my own using something I already have around the house. I went on a hunt for something “squishy” or “soft” that I could incorporate into a printed design that might dampen vibration and reduce noise coming from the Ender 3 Pro. I settled on Rival Nerf Balls as my son has hundreds of them kicking around the house and even throughout our yard. I could probably find enough for two printers just outside alone!
So, I started working on a design and quickly decided that I wanted 4 balls per foot, for stability. I also wanted them to be a short as possible so that I did not raise the machine to much. Here is a couple pictures of what I finally settled on. Four balls per feet, about 1″ in hight and slide into the extrusion frame with two 5mm T-Nuts to hold each foot. Nice and stable with a soft footing. The .STL files is available on my Free 3D Print Files page or on Thingiverse. These things work crazy good! The noise from vibrations is completely gone, I can no longer hear or feel the vibration through the table top like I could before.
