Quadcopter Vibration Damping for flight controllers

Guides
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Properly managing vibration on your quadcopter can make a big difference in performance, particularly for position hold so this is a quick guide showing a comparison between different methods of vibration damping. If you have any suggestions of your own feel free to add them! This guide is mainly for flight controller vibration damping, I might do another guide on damping for camera gimbals in the future.

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Materials

You can see a spreadsheet of all the vibration damping tests here. Overall the Moongel/Zeal are the best, along with the dubro foam.

  • Sponge
    This just some kitchen sponge, it would only be a good idea if you dont have any other material around as it does an ok job, but not great.
  • Dubro Foam
    Does a very good job at vibration damping, but requires glue to mount it. Another great option is to use two pieces of thing double sided tape on either side. You an buy some here
  • Earplugs (32dB)
    Again this is a cheap option, does a very good job as a vibration damper, but they can be abit more tricky to mount compared to some of the other materials like moongel
  • Sorbothane
    Not particularly bad or good either.
  • Kyosho Zeal Tape
    Nice because its sticky so acts like double sided tape, but in the tests did not perform as well as moongel, but these tests are not extensive by any means… Since this is supposed to be a vibration damping material it should still be a good option. You can buy it on amazon/ebay
  • Moongel
    This is a very popular option that has great results, its very easy to mount and has great anti-vibration properties. Caution: Moon Gel has been shown to fail in heat above 100 degrees Fahrenheit so it should be used cautiously.
    You can buy some moongel/ silicon gel tape here(UK) or here(US)
  • The easiest solution is to use a vibration dampening mount as it provides an easy, affordable solution.

Balance your Propellers

Another important thing to do is to balance your propellers. This is done by simply using a propeller balancer, and sanding down the sides of the propeller to make sure its balanced. This is quite important particularly if you have a camera on board.

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Another method is to use some vibration damper balls to reduce vibrations on your gimbal or flight controller. We also sell a vibration damper mount for APM flight controllers here