Now in its 12th year of trading, Accudata has risen to become a top supplier of ground vibration monitors (seismographs). The Accudata GVM-1 has been designed for extreme ease of use so that an instruction manual is unnecessary, helpful for users unfamiliar with seismographs, often on site working against the clock in adverse conditions. The Accudata GVM-1 uses the latest technology to ensure a very high degree of accuracy and has a very high specification allowing measurements of Peak Particle Velocity down to 0.03mm/s and with a resolution of 0.01mm/s.
Unlike many other seismographs, the Accudata GVM-1 is designed for measuring ground-borne vibration arising from civil engineering work and not for monitoring quarry blasts, so it does not have an air over-pressure transducer -another level of complication found on almost all other seismographs that are designed for quarry blasting, but never needed when monitoring during civil engineering works.
The Accudata GVM-1 has a single ON button. At switch on and during the 5 second initialisation, a check is made to ensure that the monitor has its tri-axial geophone sensors attached, that the SD memory card is plugged. The internal Li-Polymer batteries are also checked and the level of charge is shown on the display.
The high resolution colour touch screen displays five options:
1. Start recording, selecting this option on the touch screen begins recording.
2. Configuration, this option enables the date and time to be checked or set.
3. Status, shows the serial number, hardware and firmware versions, calibration date, battery level and number of records stored.
4. Show values, displays the levels of each event stored on the SD card.
5. Turn off.
The internal clock of the GVM-1 is extremely accurate, so the date and time are not prone to drifting as is the case with some seismographs.
When monitoring is complete, the SD card is unplugged from the GVM-1 and plugged into a computer where the records (up to 500) are automatically displayed in a dialogue box. The analysis software is supplied on a memory stick together with a single page user guide and full instructions. It is not necessary to install the software as it that can be run directly from the memory stick – useful when companies IT departments do not allow installation of third party software without testing it. The software may also be installed.
Because the Accudata GVM-1 is never directly connected to a computer, the user is spared all the connectivity issues that may be experienced with other seismographs. Also, because the analysis software runs without the need of any operating system drivers, the many and varied installation problems and the resulting frustrations so often encountered by users of software, are totally eliminated.
