I thought I had more pictures during the build but I guess I didn’t take as much as I thought. I just took a few but they aren’t the best - sorry.
There are some elaborate ideas out there and my box was a little overkill. Making sure your opening and pathways were sized right after the carpet pad was on so you didn’t restrict air flow was a bit tricky. I made the box out of mdf and glued all cracks so it was “air tight.” I painted it inside and out to seal it even more.
Then I lined every surface with carpet padding. This silences the vacuum. There is a hole in the main box where the hose exhaust air travels through a labyrinth in a separate chamber. This silences the hole for the exhaust air.
Then my vacuum was overheating in the hot 100° summer so I made another labyrinth on top where I force fed fresh air with a fan through a labyrinth to the motor and had a separate labyrinth for the motor exhaust air (again all lined with carpet padding). I wished I had a better picture of the inside of the upper box but basically its cut in two halfs. One half draws air in from the two openings on its side, turns a corner and in the center is a large fan pushing air into the main chamber. The other half has a large hole in the middle of its side and vents around two corners to the openings on its side. (confusing - sorry).
This is a shot of the inside of the box looking up through the top box for the motor ventilation/fan. Because the hose exhaust vents straight to the side labyrinth through a tube, the main inside cavity where the vacuum is is only heated by the vacuum motor. The white around the holes is just paint to help hold the carpet pad together.
All cracks for tubing were filled with putty and the front door had a complete rubber gasket around it. I got lazy and just used some straps to hold the door closed. I have a thermometer so I can monitor the temperature inside the box.
All you can hear is the air traveling through the hoses. But to be honest, with the vacuum on and the front door completely off it cuts 60% of the high pitched wine. I’m not sure all the extra work was worth the last 40%. If you want a quieter vacuum, just put it in a box with the front side off and line it with something to dampen the sound (carpet padding). Then you won’t have cooling issues.
Oh, and PS, did I mention how crappy it is to work with vacuum hose diameters?? They don’t match up with anything standard. I used an old bike tube as seals for my sloppy joints with pipe clamps.
