What’s in the bucket?
I started out with the seismograph sitting on my desk over night and yeah, it was a mess. Every footstep, every movement of the mouse, it picked it all up. I (thankfully) don’t have any screenshots of that trace. Trust me, it was totally and completely unusable.
Next I tried the concret floor of the garage.
It would pick up every time the garage door opened and closed and you could see Martty drive in and out.
And yeah, since you didn’t ask, it would pick up the bass of every Trance rave we had……
I put it on the back patio for a bit. Eh. It was okish.
Honestly it was too close to the house wall. If I chased Malcolm down the stairs, it would pick it up, so it was not ideal, but it was better than in the house or in the garage.
So, that said, it sat there for a good month or three.
Next up, we read that really you need to build a seismic vault for the things….. Sure, perfect would be sweet, but I ain’t got the time, money or space for perfect, so what’s the next best thing?
Stick it in a bucket.
Here it is out in the front garden.
Not much to look at really.
It’s a plastic bucket with a screw on lid buried to the level of the top of the bucket.
Trouble is, out the front garden, it picked up the next door neighbours washer / dryer…..
Less than desirable.
Here it is in the backyard.
And this is where it is as we type.
So whats in the bucket?
A Pi and the power over ethernet adaptor.
The Pi needs 5 volts DC at about 2 amps to run, I don’t want to have to run two cables out there, network and power, so you can buy these adaptors that put about 24v on the network cable at the head end and then step what ever is left down to 5v at the Pi end.
Thus, one cable doing both jobs.
Very handy.
Here is the whole show close up.
And yes, it’s not perfectly level here. That is part of the problem with the bucket, the Pi moves around a bit and it is not dead nuts level, so I have been popping the bucket lid every 2 weeks or so and making sure it is level…. The bucket was never a long term solution, so I did not bother with making it more stable in the level department…..
Ok, so that is what is in the bucket.
Bottom line. I am still not happy with the amount of urban noise I am getting, so Dad and I are brainstorming a smaller / cheaper seismic vault.
Watch this trace.
