DIY Earthquake Detector and Alert System Using Arduino

Hello creative people, This instructable is about building a simple earthquake detection system along with an alert system and this is built using arduino uno.

Let me explain you how this project works, Some places in this planet is prone to frequent earthquakes and they have the most advanced detection systems I'm trying to build an inexpensive yet functional solution.

This device uses the vibration sensor, when the vibration sensor receives any shakes/vibrations it will trigger an alarm along with a message on the LCD board and also red LED glows.

Project is made to show the working of an actual detection anyways the real detector uses the same principle but more complex and advanced sensor for this purpose.

Now you may think how in this world you are going to test this device! Where is the earthquake for your device to show its working!

The answer is simple, i have made a house and attached motor along with a pulley, This creates vibrations that should be able to detect by the vibration sensor.

This is how i made a setup to test this device! Well in the actual earthquake scenarios i didn't get any chance to test this!

With these things being said, Let me take you through the building of this project, Also don't miss to check the working video which is given at the end of this project.

Give a try to build such stuffs anyways you can learn a lot of things by building such projects.

List of components that you will need to build this project

Arduino Uno

Vibration Sensor Module

LCD Module with I2c

Piezoelectric Buzzer

Mini Breadboard

DVD motor

18650 Battery

Red and Green LED

Jumper Cables

Sheet of Cardboard

Hot Glue

Programming Cable

Arduino IDE

Small on and off switch

The circuit that i used for this project is shown here, let me save your time if you are new to reading circuits by giving a explanation of this diagram.

Vibration sensor has 3 pins

Vcc, Gnd and out

Vcc and gnd are connected to 5v and Gnd pins on the uno whereas the Out pin is connected to D2 pin

Note that in the circuit diagram the vibration sensor is missing, Kindly follow this connection for that module

The LCD panel with I2c has 4 pins in total, Out of which the power pins Vcc and Gnd are connected to 5v and Gnd on the Uno board.

Scl is connected to A4 and the Sda is connected to A5 respectively, Now we can connect the LED

The choice of color is left to you, in my case i will use red and green led, the green led shows the standby light and the red will be activated only when the vibration is detected.

I will connect the green to D3 and Red to D4, the other legs of these LED are connect to Gnd pins of the uno.

Buzzer Gnd is connect to Gnd of Uno while the positive pin is connected to D5 on the Uno

After you build these connections, Connect the uno board to computer, Open IDE and paste the below program, select proper port and board type and click on upload.

Now we are almost half way in this project, let us now setup the project so that it looks like the earthquake detection model

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I will use a plain sheet of white board to place all the electronics, Start by placing the components and find most relevant space and later use double side adhesive or hot glue to keep the components intact to the base.

To keep the visibility of LCD panel i will use a small piece of cardboard which is in the shape of triangle, Use hot glue to stick the cardboard to base and now use double side adhesive to stick LCD here.

You can use cables to connect directly to the components, But I will use mini breadboard for this purpose.

I will connect the LED onto the breadboard, I will connect the buzzer to breadboard at this point connect the USB cable to uno board and shake the vibration sesoor.

If everything is fine, The red led should glow and buzzer should make noise, When you stop shaking the green led should glow.

Now we can move into making the vibrations/shakes required for the buzzer to work manually.

I made a small house from carboard, The type of building design is left to you!

To make the shaker i will use a simple electronic circuit, Use DVD motor with its shaft attached to a pully and for the power supply use 18650 battery connected via toggle switch.

Now you can glue this base of the house and to the roof add a drop of hot glue and place the vibration sensor.

Glue the base of battery holder to the board, now finally attach the motor to the front part of house like i did, this will ensure maximum shakes while the motor is in working condition.

Note that if you add a small weight to the pulley while in working the shakes will be so high that the entire system may start to shake so avoid using any additional weights.

After all these steps we are finally done with the project and now i cant wait to test this and in the next step we will see some tips and tricks while working on this project.

Let us consider the real case scenario when i say how to use this project, imagine that the house(model) is a real house which we live in.

Connect the Uno board to USB power source, Now you should see green LED glowing and the status indicator on the sensor is ON and the LCD panel shows no quakes detected message.

Now press the toggle button to on, The sensor sensitivity can be adjusted based on the requirement you have, in my case when i gently touch the senior it is activated.

Now when the motor is turned to on due to the shakes detected by the sensor the red LED glows, Followed by a beep sound by the buzzer and the LCD will display quakes detected.

You can also customise the messages on this LCD panel on the program, Untill the shake are no more detected the circuit comes to normal state where the green led glows.

This is all about this project, There are many creative ways to add features on this project, if you come across any outstanding ideas let me know.

Thanks for showing interest, Have a great day.

Dont miss to check the working of this project, also it has a complete making tutorial.

You can see in this video how this small and inexpensive vibration sensor can achieve great results, If you made this project don't forget to post it on i made it section.

I strongly recommend to build such useful projects and share it with the community because your ideas when its viewed from other pointof view may lead to some amazing creations.

Thats all for now have a happy build and if you liked this project don't forget to leave a heart.