Cheap vibration suppresion pads

[Juan from Madrid]

It happens that today my wife bought some ultra-cheap Chinese gel heel cushions for 1.75 € per pair for my children's sports shoes, and just as an experiment I've tried putting one under each tripod leg.

The result is spectacular. If I tap the telescope, the time to stabilize has been reduced several times, and adjusting the focus causes very little vibration.

What I can no longer say is how close or far away is the result from what you get with ad-hoc solutions since I don't have any previous experience.

Now I will buy some for the telescope and test them in pairs to see if there are any improvements, cut them out to give them a circular shape and estimate if it would be advisable to put something in between to avoid a possible risk of perforation.

Here it is the cushion I've used:

[Louis D]

I cut up a pair of new old stock Sorbothane insoles from the 80s/90s that I bought off ebay for $6 shipped to make my antivibration pads, and I still have plenty left over to make more.  As you say, vibration dampening plummeted from 3 seconds to 1/2 second when moving the scope, and focusing barely registers at all.