RST Engineering wrote:
Necessity, as they say, is a mother.
[snip]
As an extra bonus question, my sensor is going to be an old phonograph
cartridge.

And you *need* to use that phonograph needle?

Analog Devices sells cheap MEMS-based accelerometers (e.g. ADXL202). You
could even use two or 3 axes. The output a 5V square wave whose duty
cycle is proportional to acceleration.

Frank