Battery powered deer deterrent
One of the biggest negative
comments I got on Youtube concerning our mechanical
deer deterrents was how having an extension cord cluttering up the
yard was just unacceptable.
The above handsome, battery
powered motor is a new discovery. (Thanks Mom!).
It runs on a single D cell
battery and comes with a nice plastic support arm that attaches to the
shaft of the motor with a stainless steel screw. Stay tuned to see how
long the battery holds up under these conditions. There hasn't been any
deer damage yet, but it was this time last year when the nibbles
started, which is what motivated me to put this together on a Sunday.
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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.
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Are you using a rechargeable battery? If not, you should consider it.
If the motor lasts long enough, this is one of those applications were a small solar panel and a rechargeable Li-ion battery would work well, I think.
OTOH, a weight-driven clock mechanism might work as well. If you don't mint winding it regularly.
The gears in the motor housing look kinda flimsy. Are you sure this motor is rated for continuous operation?
Roland --- Mark and I were just talking about the option of making it solar-powered using a rechargeable battery last night at dinner.
Right now, it runs on a D battery, I believe (or is it C?) and that's hard to find in rechargeable. But Mark has a little solar panel with battery built in that's supposed to charge ipods, and he might give that a try.
I would love having it be windable, though! How long do you think a wound mechanism would last between windings? Just a day? Longer? How long would it take to wind it each time?
I can't speak for whether the motor's flimsy or not. I guess we'll see how soon/if it tears up...
What I would suggest is to use a weight on a chain running over a cog as a power source, and ideally a pendulum escapement to regulate the speed. You could conceivably use the pendulum as the striker to make noise.
I think some Meccano (a.k.a Erector-Set in the US?) or Lego Technic would be useful to construct a working model.