I live in a flat in a Victorian house in the UK (top flat), and every time a bus or truck passes over a speed bump my flat vibrates. I can hear the furniture and walls, everything vibrates and it’s been hard to sleep. I tried to complain to the council and they won’t do anything without evidence. I tried to get help from a surveyor but he couldn’t do anything because he didn’t have any seismograph equipment for this job, and didn’t know anyone or company who had it.
I work with electronics and have done a few projects with the RPI, so I was wondering if it’d be worth it to buy a Raspberry Shake and collect the data myself. Which Shake do you recommend for this kind of application? Could I use a RS1D (vertical motion)? How easy is it for exporting the data or graphs so I can gather the evidence I need?
I think the RS1D is more than suited to acquire such data. I live close to a busy road (at least during the day), and my 1D (before moving to my current 3D) captured every car or truck that passed there.
The seismic sensor in our Shake models would definitely detect cars, trucks, or other general urban traffic. Some of our users already do it, and you can see an example of a busy road in Manchester, UK, from this tweet: https://twitter.com/listen2mcr/status/1626532616236154880/photo/1 (They also use an RS1D).
An RS3D could be an upgrade, but I would recommend it only if you feel movement in horizontal directions (which this model is equipped to record) together with vertical vibrations. It is probable, however, that vertical motion would be enough proof for the council, but maybe you should ask the surveyor first, so that you go with exactly what’s needed.