Most of us who have gotten a bit more serious about sound and acoustics in their home studio rooms might well want to do something about the problems we encounter. Soundproofing Your Fridge Made Easy
Soundproofing is the best solution of all the problems related noise in your home/apartment.
Some of these problems include noise from the outside finding its way into our rooms, through various windows and another opening (doors).
Another common problem is resonance – such as bass frequencies in rooms with concrete walls and floors.
I’m sure we all want the best possible room for recording and mixing.
Most of us would also like to treat it acoustically, without having to spend a lot of money on expensive construction materials such as rockwool.
There are many ways to treat your room acoustically, but what I will present here is a relatively cheap and very effective solution for treating high frequency “treatments”.
I think this method has some really unique properties, which makes it stand out from other methods. Here are some highlights:
You can move things around easily.
For example, if you want to record vocals and you don’t have a proper mic stand available, this will be no problem.
The foam panels can easily be mounted on suitable mic stands for recording vocalists.
One size fits all
This means that it can be adapted to fit all kinds of rooms, regardless of the size.
Low cost
It’s very cheap to make these panels (about $4 per panel).
Allows for multiple layers
If you want more absorption on some frequencies, simply add another layer or more foam panels on top so you can tailor the absorption of your room.
It doesn’t take up much space, and it does not disturb too badly with other things in the room.
Mini Fridge Making Annoying noise
I have a Sunbeam mini-fridge (1.6 cubic feet) that has always made a light buzzing sound (like the noise when you plug in an appliance with the power off, but stop before it starts to spin).
It’s not loud enough to be bothersome all of the time, but I’d say it bothered me 50% of the time -and seemed to get worse over time.
Lately it had been driving me crazy so I decided I would try to fix it.
After reading some posts about opening up appliances and replacing capacitors, etc., both here on Instruct-able and other places on the web, I was convinced this wasn’t going to be too tough.
And if successful, I’d have a nice Ice Box instead of a Magnetic Resonator Amplifier that entertains me every time I open the door!
So on to my first Instruct-able, How to quiet down an annoying mini-fridge.
A word of warning, this is my first Instruct-able so please be kind! If you see something or have suggestions for improvement definitely let me know.
Hope you all find it useful. Chime in on the comments section if you like! Now go forth and conquer your next DIY challenge with style and panache!
Procedures To Follow
- Unplug fridge
- Remove all screws from back panel (should be 7 or 9, not 100% sure since this is my first Instruct-able!)
- Disconnect wire harnesses / slide out back panel
- Loosen nut holding compressor in place
- Remove evaporator cover
- Using pliers remove capacitor leads (CAREFULLY!!!)
- Using flat head screwdriver carefully pry up capacitors
- Reverse order to re-assemble!
The instructions weren’t exactly clear on reconnecting wire harnesses. I did the best I could and they seem to work fine…
How Well Did It Turn Out?
I successfully removed all of the capacitors without any issues; no signs of melting or other problems.
After re-assembling and reconnecting everything (and making sure I put things back in the correct place like some books say to do), the fridge still worked perfectly.
I used a multimeter on capacitance setting to measure some of the old capacitors and it looks like two are at about 25% of their stated value (~16-20uf) and one was defective (2 or 3 uf). I figure that’s probably why they were making noise.
Conclusion:
The conclusion of the above would be to let you know that this method is a great solution for high frequency treatments.
It has some really unique properties which makes it stand out from other methods with its ability to move things around easily without any consequence when recording vocals or if you’re using a microphone stand in place of a proper mic stand.
It also allows for multiple layers which will give you more absorption on certain frequencies as well as not disturbing too badly in your room since they don’t take up much space at all.
