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Sound Deadening On Door Panel, Not Door


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I bought some RAAMmat sound deadener to quiet down my Tii's doors after having installed power locks, but I really, really don't like the though of having to peel that gooey stuff off the doors down the road. SO, I had the brilliant idea of applying the RAAMmat to the door panel inside-out, i.e.:

-I'll spray adhesive onto the Al foil and the inside of the door panel and stick the two together

-then apply Ensolite to the now exposed gooey side of the Raamat so that when I mount the door panel to the door the ensolite will form itself to the door

-then mount the now heavy door panel to the door (which will still have it's plastic moisture barrier on it).

 

Has anyone tried this before?  Am I pushing the limits on weight for the door panel?  Will I dramatically reduce the effectiveness of the sound deadener?

~ looking, learning, yearning ~

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the point of sound deadener is to dampen the metal body panel vibrations which transmit sound.  this means it has to be applied to the metal door skin. putting it on the cardboard panel will do nothing to reduce the resonance of the door.

Edited by mlytle

2xM3

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Yeah, I agree Marshall, well, at least I tried!  Here's what I did today:

-  I used the Ensolite peel and stick foam to line the entire door.  Fortunately the adhesive tape on it seems very sticky and was stretchy enough to conform to the door's shape quite well

-  I then placed the RAAMmat BXT on the Ensolite with the goey stuff facing the foam.  I didn't perfectly do the whole door but had about 80% of it covered and made sure it was well over all door panel openings.

 

I'm not sure how long the adhesive on the foam will be able to carry the weight of the heavy deadener, but I'm sure I'll be able to peel it all off clean when the time comes!

 

I really don't think this will be much worse than "doing it right" since I'm well coupled to the door in all places.  PLUS I have the added benefit that the Ensolite somes in a much wider format so I could cover the entire door with one single piece, making sure I have a good moisture barrier in place.  Well, that is asuming the adhesive will block moisture enough so that having the foam caught between that and the RAAMmat isn't going to cause a disaster.

 

I only got the passenger door done today before it got dark so I didn't give myself enough time take pictures but I'll make sure to post pics of the driver's side when I do it this week.

 

By the way, I didn't exactly remember what the order of the springs and washers was for the window crank and the little quarter window where.  Are the springs there to try to keep the door vinyl away from the knob and window crank, or should the springs be pushing the door panel towards the knobs?  I assumed the first, but I really don't remember.

~ looking, learning, yearning ~

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diathermic,

 

might be too late w/ my reply here, but like others have said, there's different theories on sound deadening.  theres mass deadening (weighting to prevent vibration) and vibration/sound insulation (preventing sound).  I have done both on all my vehicles.  In the case of our BMWs, we have that nice cardboard door card as as sound deadener, but it can be improved upon.  So here's what I did:

 

  1. removed the door card and plastic (if still on there)
  2. I used a product called "Peel n Seal" found at Lowes and Home Depot.  Its a roll of aluminumized, adhesive backed material that looks and feels just like all the available sound deading material out there.  Trust me when I say this:  your ears are not that accutely tuned or sensitive enough to appreciate or detect any minimal (perceived or real) differences in so-called superior sound deadening material in the same class as Peel n Seal---unless you are a g#ddamn bat! 
  3. I cleaned the inside of the door (inner face of the outer door panel) throughly
  4. I cut strips of Peel N Seal and applied it to the inner door surface to mass weight the door
  5. I cut strips of PNS on the door's inner panel (the one that the cardboard door panel is affixed to).  Be careful not to apply any material on the surface that the door card and the door metal mate to.  The reason being is that it will be too thick for the green holder things (those plug things...i don't know what they're called) to hold onto the door card and plug properly into the door itself.  Ask me how I know.

The key thing is to plug any holes in the door panel.  The outside road noise will project out of those holes in the door panel.  I can tell you it's made a huge diffference in all my vehicles by doing it this way. 

 

I'm part of an off roading club and one of the gents says that spraying another layer of rubber undercoating in the front wheel well area makes a gigantic difference too.  I have not tried that yet.

 

HTH, Bob

Edited by sizzlerscheesetoast
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I thought the RAAMmat went on first, with the Ensolite added to the top of it.  Will need to confirm before I get started on this job, hopefully after The Vintage.

John in VA

'74 tii "Juanita"  '85 535i "Goldie"  '86 535i "M-POSSTR"  

'03 530i "Titan"  '06 330ci "ZHPY"

bmw_spin.gif

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I thought the RAAMmat went on first, with the Ensolite added to the top of it.  Will need to confirm before I get started on this job, hopefully after The Vintage.

you are correct john.  the raamat goes against the metal to dampen it.  the ensollite goes on top of the raamat for sound insulation.  reversing the order nullifies any dampening effect by the raamat. it then becomes just extra weight in the car.  and the panels do not need to be covered with raamat.  just use enough to get the panel to "thud" when you tap on it.   

2xM3

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     Marhsall is right, the RAAMmat should go on the door first, THEN the ensolite.  However, I disagree that reversing the order nullifies the dampening effect.  If you don't mind me getting a little nerdy, I'm pretty sure that in theory it doesn't matter what order you put these in with regards to each other.  Any difference would be minor not major.

     Why?  Well I can't wrap my head around the mechanical problem as easily as I can do it with a simple R,L,C circuit.  You can model any spring/mass system with and RLC circuit including a dampened system with a driving force such as the door.  Take a look at the wikipedia page for the equivalent circuits:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harmonic_oscillator#Equivalent_systems

     In these equivalent circuits, the driving force is the vibration on the door metal (obviously caused by a number of things), the position x, and velocity dx/dt relate to the output, in this case the final vibrating surface which will, in turn be creating the sound we hear in the cabin, usually the inside of the cardboard/vinyl door panel.

     To keep it simple, let's look at the series equivalent circuit.  In that circuit the driving force (vibrating door metal) is Voltage and the output position is charge, and more usefully the velocity is current (I).  The RAAMmat, if by itself would be one series connection of R (dampening), L (mass), and 1/C (springyness).  So this would be a system where you just have RAAMmat by itself, and the sheet metal from the door is vibrating it.  In order to add the ensolite, and the cardboard door panel, you need to add another R,L,andC in series for each one of these.  Still following?  I'll draw both circuits in crappy text drawings with their equivalents below:

 

Ground-----Voltage source----R----L----C-------R-----L----C--------R----L----C-------------------------Ground

                      Door metal            RAAMmat            Ensolite           Carboard Door panel

 

Ground-----Voltage source----R----L----C-------R-----L----C--------R----L----C-------------------------Ground

                      Door metal            Ensolite             RAAMmat           Carboard Door panel

 

     Remember that the output, i.e. the sound vibration is actually the current running through the circuit, SO as you can see, the current would be the SAME in either one of these circuits.  i.e. the noise coming out of the door will be the same, regardless of the order you place your dampeners.

 

     Sure, there are non-idealities to the real-world senario, but I bet they aren't going to make more than a 10% difference in this case.  After all, the door metal, the ensolite, and the RAAMmat are all in good physical contact.  The cardboard door panel has a crappy mechanical contact, so I'm sure it would have sucked to put the RAAmat on the cardboard.  I'm just pretty sure that the way I did it with the ensolite first, is actually working great as far as sound deadening. 

     Will it last as long ?   I doubt it, the ensolite will peel off way before that RAAMmat goo ever looses it's tack.  But I'm hoping it will last long enough to get me to the next time I need to tear that door panel apart to get to something.

 

~ looking, learning, yearning ~

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So here is a picture of how I did the deadening on the driver's side door (the same as passengers, really)
First, placed some RAAMmat on the outside skin (although I forgot the second piece on the drivers side door), then started applying Ensolite:

 

8733231409_20d6d3e799_c.jpg

8733174563_46b5b42771_c.jpg
 

Then finally added the RAAMmat making sure it covers the door's holes

8734291478_9298ddda73_c.jpg
 

 

Overall, finishing the second door made the inside noticeably quieter though I was hoping for a larger dB change.  It went down from 90dB at 70mph (measured using an iPhone app) when only the passenger door was done and the drivers door was just metal to 87dB after finishing it.  Most of the noise seems to come from the passenger foot wells where the headers are rattling and wind noise.

 

Now I just need to see how long this holds up...

Edited by diathermic

~ looking, learning, yearning ~

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     Marhsall is right, the RAAMmat should go on the door first, THEN the ensolite.  However, I disagree that reversing the order nullifies the dampening effect.  If you don't mind me getting a little nerdy, I'm pretty sure that in theory it doesn't matter what order you put these in with regards to each other.  Any difference would be minor not major.

     Why?  Well I can't wrap my head around the mechanical problem as easily as I can do it with a simple R,L,C circuit.  You can model any spring/mass system with and RLC circuit including a dampened system with a driving force such as the door.  Take a look at the wikipedia page for the equivalent circuits:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harmonic_oscillator#Equivalent_systems

     In these equivalent circuits, the driving force is the vibration on the door metal (obviously caused by a number of things), the position x, and velocity dx/dt relate to the output, in this case the final vibrating surface which will, in turn be creating the sound we hear in the cabin, usually the inside of the cardboard/vinyl door panel.

     To keep it simple, let's look at the series equivalent circuit.  In that circuit the driving force (vibrating door metal) is Voltage and the output position is charge, and more usefully the velocity is current (I).  The RAAMmat, if by itself would be one series connection of R (dampening), L (mass), and 1/C (springyness).  So this would be a system where you just have RAAMmat by itself, and the sheet metal from the door is vibrating it.  In order to add the ensolite, and the cardboard door panel, you need to add another R,L,andC in series for each one of these.  Still following?  I'll draw both circuits in crappy text drawings with their equivalents below:

 

Ground-----Voltage source----R----L----C-------R-----L----C--------R----L----C-------------------------Ground

                      Door metal            RAAMmat            Ensolite           Carboard Door panel

 

Ground-----Voltage source----R----L----C-------R-----L----C--------R----L----C-------------------------Ground

                      Door metal            Ensolite             RAAMmat           Carboard Door panel

 

     Remember that the output, i.e. the sound vibration is actually the current running through the circuit, SO as you can see, the current would be the SAME in either one of these circuits.  i.e. the noise coming out of the door will be the same, regardless of the order you place your dampeners.

 

     Sure, there are non-idealities to the real-world senario, but I bet they aren't going to make more than a 10% difference in this case.  After all, the door metal, the ensolite, and the RAAMmat are all in good physical contact.  The cardboard door panel has a crappy mechanical contact, so I'm sure it would have sucked to put the RAAmat on the cardboard.  I'm just pretty sure that the way I did it with the ensolite first, is actually working great as far as sound deadening. 

     Will it last as long ?   I doubt it, the ensolite will peel off way before that RAAMmat goo ever looses it's tack.  But I'm hoping it will last long enough to get me to the next time I need to tear that door panel apart to get to something.

 

 

as an EE guy, the analogy is interesting!  but....it treats the layers as descrete elements placed in series.  what it does not account for is that the layers are not descrete...they interact with each other to affect the final vibration pass through.  the order does matter as it changes the nature of the interaction between the layers.  the point of the deadner (raammat) is to kill the vibrations in the door. sort of prevent the door panel from becoming an amplfying speaker, not absorb the sound.  with a layer of foam (ensolite) between the metal and the raamat, the foam allows the door to vibrate.  that is why the deadner should to be directly attached to the metal.  if it is not stuck to the metal, it may have some effect, but not the way it was designed to work.

 

re: your covering the inside of the door....good luck next time you have to adjust the door lock or the window....gonna have to hack chunks of it off. ;)

Edited by mlytle

2xM3

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