Hi everyone, my museum is considering sensors for monitoring shock and vibration in art shipping crates, and we'd love some recommendations of desirable features and reliable products. (I understand C2CC doesn't endorse any particular products; we're mainly looking for a starting place in our shopping.)
I attended the excellent Crating 101 workshop at AIC last year and checked my notes, but the resources did not include a list of commercially available sensors.
We may have up to about 10 art crates out and about for loans at any time, and we are interested in monitoring shock and vibration, and secondarily, tracking location. We think our crate makers do great work, but we've encountered issues with shipping and handling in the past, so this would improve our visibility into the way our crates are treated and help us document future issues.
Our main criteria are that whatever we choose needs to be affordable and give us information that is actually useful to us.
- Are there any great monitoring/logging devices out there that you love and from which you have gained valuable insights?
- I know there are pros and cons to doing continuous monitoring vs. ShockWatch-type impact detection. What do you think is useful for our purposes?
- If there's an impact event detected by a ShockWatch sensor, is knowing that it happened after the fact useful for most objects, or are they actually most effective as a visual deterrent for bad handling? Does anyone sell ShockWatch labels in quantities smaller than 50, or in variety packs?
- Are combination GPS tracking and shock sensors worthwhile, or should we plan to get two separate devices for that?
- What have you found to be the best budget options?
Thanks in advance for your guidance!
Best wishes,
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Katherine Langdon
Conservator
The Walt Disney Family Museum
San Francisco
United States
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