I worked in a lab using a ultra-centrifuge (separating proteins). The amazing thing about is was, that while the Tach read 100,000rpms, all you could hear was the 12V cooling fans running. I took a stethoscope to the lid and only a heard slight vibration, sounding like bearings. The service tech came one day and I learned that the spinning chamber and motor ran in a vacuum. I was a frustrating piece, usually you can hear that something is doing its thing, this thing sounded like it was turned on, but was spinning a motor 100Krpm. The head was a single piece of machined titanium and the spin chamber was 1/2in armor plate stainless steel, in case the head ever failed. The rep said he had seen video of head fail tests and the whole device danced around a room for quite a while.
The power supply was also very interesting. The motor had to be fed multi channels out of phase of each other in order to get to 100K rpm. This device is a desk top sized instrument, its amazing all this technology was in there.
