I've been thinking of making my own pneumatic isolators, since I don't have the money of a professional lab to buy some. I'm wondering what material is usually used for the rolling diaphragms. Polyurethane has low air permeability, but what would be better?
An interesting idea is the gimbal piston isolator, which converts horizontal motion by pivoting on a ball bearing:
http://www.spie.org/web/oer/october/oct98/opid.html
I'm also curious about low volume air pumps that would be good for this, instead of using compressed gas. An aquarium pump is too powerful and the airflow is so uneven that it would induce vibrations even with filtering.
An interesting idea is the gimbal piston isolator, which converts horizontal motion by pivoting on a ball bearing:
http://www.spie.org/web/oer/october/oct98/opid.html
I'm also curious about low volume air pumps that would be good for this, instead of using compressed gas. An aquarium pump is too powerful and the airflow is so uneven that it would induce vibrations even with filtering.
The problem with one chamber systems is that they are like undampened springs. Pro isolators, when pressed, have the air/gas go through a secondary chamber, which has some resistance to the gas movement, thus dampening the motion very quickly. With tennis balls you have the rubber doing the dampening instead, so it's not fully pneumatic 
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