Re: Of Mice and HV (fwd)

["High Voltage list" <hvlist@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Original poster: Steven Roys <sroys@xxxxxxxxxx>



---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Thu, 13 Apr 2006 22:38:49 -0700 (PDT)
From: J. Aaron Holmes <jaholmes@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: High Voltage list <hvlist@xxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: Of Mice and HV (fwd)

Hmmm...don't know about one shot from a photoflash
cap.  But you can get 100kV "stun guns" for about $10
on eBay.  And they're battery powered.  I've gotta
believe one of those would be the end of a mouse.  If
not, you could at least outfit each trap with a
holding cell for stunned mice and a "no vacancy"
indicator to let you know when it's time to take it
over to your neighbor's yard and unload ;-)  You'd
still probably want a microcontroller or timer IC to
govern the firing of the stun gun so that it didn't
get stuck on ("overkill").

I've often thought of creating a pole pig-powered
"crow zapper" mounted to a garbage can.  I'd toss a
few banana peels in on the way to work, and come home
to find a few more sooty black star-shaped marks on
the rim of the can ;-)  Too dangerous to implement,
but fun to think about.  They're nasty critters, too.

Regards,
Aaron, N7OE

--- High Voltage list <hvlist@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> Original poster: Steven Roys <sroys@xxxxxxxxxx>
> 
> 
> 
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> Date: Tue, 11 Apr 2006 07:20:03 +0930
> From: Matthew Smith <matt@xxxxxxxxxx>
> To: High Voltage list <hvlist@xxxxxxxxxx>
> Subject: Of Mice and HV
> 
> Greetings All
> 
> CONTENT WARNING: If you are distressed by nasty
> things happening to
> vermin (small furry creatures to those not infested
> with them), please
> do not read any further.
> 
> They don't make 'em like they used to!  Our house,
> completed just over
> two years ago (actually not completed, but that's
> another story!)
> appears to have been built to accommodate rodents
> just as comfortably as
> humans.
> 
> Snap traps have proved anything but reliable (bait
> gone, trap still set)
> and when they do operate, frequently kill in an
> unclean manner.
> 
> So, I have decided to build an electric mousetrap. 
> Idea is simple:
> mouse enters trap and has to pass through a narrow
> gap between two
> aluminium plates arranged in a V.  (Mouse enters the
> larger part of the
> V.)  One plate is fixed, the other against light
> spring tension so that
> the subject has to push between the two plates to
> get to the bait.
> 
> Plates are connected to a charged capacitor. 
> Charging will be from a
> PWM supply driven by a microcontroller which stops
> when capacitor
> voltage reaches an upper threshold and starts again
> once it has
> discharged (mostly through the feedback voltage
> divider) down to a
> minimum voltage.  The idea being that this device is
> battery-operated
> and tries to save power.
> 
> Does anyone have any idea what minimum voltage I
> would need to apply to
> guarantee fatal fibrillation?
> 
> I had considered powering from a disposable camera
> supply (no
> microcontroller - simply pulse the start button when
> the neon goes out)
> but, whilst photoflash capacitors can give us a
> ghastly bite, is the
> 300V or so enough to take out a mouse in its
> insulating fur coat?  I've
> serviced equipment before where mice have gone in a
> mains (240V) PSU and
> have blown the fuses but am still unsure about the
> certainty of a clean
> kill.
> 
> Once I've got this idea working, I want to motorise
> it so that the
> defunct rodent can be cleared from the plates and
> the trap be readied
> for another "client".
> 
> Cheers
> 
> M
> 
> -- 
> Matthew Smith
> IT Consultancy & Web Application Development
> http://www.kbc.net.au
> 
> 
> 
>