Vibration isolation for ceiling-mounted projector

Greetings!

It's coming time to hang my Sony VPL-VW1000ES in my theater, and I'm wondering about vibration isolation. As described in my build thread, I have a total of seven subwoofers in the room, of which three are actually mounted in the ceiling. It seems possible that all this bass energy could vibrate the ceiling enough to make the projected image move visibly.

As well, while I don't expect foot traffic in the room above during movies, it is a high-traffic room generally. So, it seems prudent to protect the projector from day-to-day vibration caused by foot traffic, even when it's off.

We will be doing a vibration test in the room this coming month, but I figured that it was probably a good idea to just go ahead and plan on a mount that has some isolation, so we don't end up having to drop the projector and replace pieces if it turns out that we get visible shake.

Looking around online, I see that Da-Lite, Chief and Peerless all offer various types of vibration isolation. Da-Lite's is a simple arrangement with rubber isolators built into the bracket that mounts to their UPM-1 universal mount. Chief's is an elaborate system of masses on long arms, but its weight limits are insufficient for the 1000ES. Peerless seems to have the vibration isolation in the piece that actually installs to the ceiling joists.

Anyhow, I'm wondering if anybody has any experience with one or more of these products, or with other solutions, and can comment on their effectiveness.

Thanks!

Thanks. I did search for that before posting the thread, but not using the advanced settings you suggest.

Thanks! Unfortunately, three of my subwoofers are actually *in* the ceiling, so no decoupling is possible there. I think any isolation is going to have to come between the attachment at the ceiling, and the projector.

This gizmo looks promising:

http://www.nigelbdesign.com/Product%20Leaflets/Isolation%20Mount%20leaflet%202.pdf

The trick with vibration absorption seems to be that the absorbers are tuned to the mass of the object from which you're trying to isolate vibration, and probably to the frequency of the problematic vibration as well. For instance, the Da-Lite mount I mentioned has eight little absorbers, each of which should be loaded to 6 pounds to work at their best. If you have less weight, then you're supposed to remove absorbers, and you can add a little weight on the projector side to dial it right to 6 pounds per pad. Unfortunately, the mount itself weighs 5 pounds excluding pipe, and the Sony is 44 pounds. So, it's a pound over the maximum without even getting to the pipe.

That "Nigel B." product lists weights up to nearly 72 pounds. You get the one closest to the weight you need, and then pad the suspended weight up to the ideal.

So, it sounds like the correct approach is to use a mount that will use the same pipe size that the "Nigel B." thing uses, mount it without any isolation, and test. If there's vibration visible, then add the isolator and tune as needed.

Hi Mike,

Yes, that's the one. The web site where I found it listed a maximum weight of 35 pounds, I think, but this page says the capacity is 500 pounds, which is rather a lot better! :-)

Ah! I was confused, sorry. The 345 is similar to the Peerless, which had the lower weight capacity. I saw that 3-arm 347 mount as well, but it has a maximum projector weight that is too low for the 1000ES.

Thanks for the suggestions! I thought about the spring isolators, although I like the added twist of using uni-strut.

That Nigel B. thing that I linked above looks like it accomplishes the same sort of thing, and it has the added benefit of being designed to be compact and tuned for specific weights. If we do find any vibration when we test with the subs, then I think I'll try it first, and move on to other more elaborate countermeasures if it doesn't work.