detecting steps on the floor

Hello folks

Is it possible to detect steps on the floor? I mean the tremor from the feet.
Hard grounds should transmit steps, of course for a very small area.
Is there a sensor avaliable which could detect it an gives a "wake up" signal to a microcontroller?

Any suggestions

Greetings Charon102

you could use an Accelerometer with an op-amp to triger the microchip

you could use an Accelerometer with an op-amp to triger the microchip

Click to expand...

Sounds interesting.
The only acc. sensor that I could I is the MMA 1201.
Here is the link:
https://www.distrelec.com/ishopWebFront/catalog/product.do?id=01&node=adaaabaaadat&series=1

I have doubts that the sensor sensitivity can detect steps on the floor. Even humans cannot sense steps on floor if there are some meters away. The tremors are too weak.

What do you think?

Charon102 said:

you could use an Accelerometer with an op-amp to triger the microchip

Click to expand...

Sounds interesting.
The only acc. sensor that I could I is the MMA 1201.
Here is the link:
https://www.distrelec.com/ishopWebFront/catalog/product.do?id=01&node=adaaabaaadat&series=1

I have doubts that the sensor sensitivity can detect steps on the floor. Even humans cannot sense steps on floor if there are some meters away. The tremors are too weak.

What do you think?

Click to expand...

you're probably right
i put this together with 2 op-amps
it flashes a led when you walk, but not if you walk slow

and it is hard to tune.

Search for seismic sensor, or vibration sensor on the net.

december 2004 issue of EPE online magazine, "super vibration switch".

https://epemag.com/projects.html

they claim it will detect a pin dropping on a wooden floor 2 meters away, and detect footsteps from virtually any distance. sounds good enough to me.

I have the issue, let me know if you're interested in seeing it.

Evan,

Do you subscribe to EPE? I'm in PA and would like to subscribe, but they don't say anything about a paper subscription or shipping to the U.S.

Mike

I am subscribed to the online version of EPE. It works better for me, because I would never be able to keep track of all the issues if they were paper copies, instead I have them all as PDF's. If I need an article on paper, there's always printers :lol:

not to mention, the online subscription is cheap. (like $15 a year if i recall correctly)

and quite frankly, the issues are rather hit-or-miss, so I don't think I'd be subscribing if it cost significantly more than it does. Some issues have "must-have" projects that are really cool and make it worth subscribing, but some issues don't have a single interesting project in them (to me at least).