Homebuilt Seismograph -- Feasible?

[gmax137]

Anyone here built a seismograph? I think maybe @davenn has done this?

We have had quite a few small quakes (like 2.2 to 3.2) near my house recently and it got me wondering about a new project. Feasible? I found a couple sites online but the ones I looked at are pretty old. Looking for any advice. Thanks!

 

[DaveE]

Lots of people have done this, and there are many designs. Personally, mine would include lasers and photodetectors. That seems much easier than the inductive pickup designs that are most common.

One big issue is that measuring earthquakes isn't always the same as measuring movement of your seismometer. Be prepared to dig and pour concrete too. The Ligo prototypes at Caltech were really good at detecting people walking in the hallways and traffic passing on California Ave.

Also collecting and dealing with the data stream would be a big issue for me, it's also a SW project.

Here is some stuff from @davenn.

 

[davenn]

Anyone here built a seismograph? I think maybe @davenn has done this?

We have had quite a few small quakes (like 2.2 to 3.2) near my house recently and it got me wondering about a new project. Feasible? I found a couple sites online but the ones I looked at are pretty old. Looking for any advice. Thanks!

Yes, there a few ways to do this ... but got local/regional events, geophones are the easiest way to go
on my site that @DaveE linked to ... thanks for the link to my site you will see both a 3 axis and a single geophone style. My geophyones will easily record a M2.0 out to around 120 km ... 70 miles.
They will also record the P waves of the big events out to 4 - 6000 km

For doing decent recordings of the moderate to big events at a long distance, then a more specific long period sensor is required. The common type if the "Lehman" seismometer as seen in the lower half of that linked page under the My First Lehman Construction

Any other Q's, feel free to ask

cheers
Dave

 

[gmax137]

Thanks, @davenn ! I will spend some time looking at your site. I'm more interested in the events very local to my place.

 

[Vanadium 50]

As usual. Tom Waller's fabulous and, sadly, out of print, book Science Made Stupid, has the answer:

I remember people building these (well, real ones, not like Weller's) in junior high - the trick was getting a strip chart recorder. The suggestion of using a laser and some kind of photosensor is a good one. To minimize the effect of "swell party upstairs", I might build two and look for coincidences.

Oh, and gravity wave detectors can detect spider footsteps. (!)

 

[Tom.G]

You might also take a look at:
raspberryshake.org

A somewhat active group that uses siesometers based on geophones and the Raspberry PI development board.

Chers,
Tom

 

[Nik_2213]

Been a while, but I think 'Scientific American' --Back when it was serious-- did a nice seismometer in 'Amateur Scientist' department. I got a compilation of their projects on CD--
Ah, you still can !! Google/Bing may find it $_10 cheaper than eg A*z*n...

 

[Tom.G]

Spectrum magazine (October issue?), published by IEEE (Institute of Electric and Electronic Engineers) published an article.

It is available on-line at: https://spectrum.ieee.org/diy-seismometer

Cheers,
Tom