**I was wandering around the supermarket the other day and spied an interesting product - an automatic air freshener. I didn't purchase one, but a cursory examination reveals a PIR + associated mechanics (motor? solenoid?) to operate the air freshener thingy. I've always considered such things as a complete waste of valuable resources, but I reckon for 7 Bucks, the guts should be able to be put to good use.
Any thoughts for projects?
Dave? I'd have thunk this was right up your alley.
Maybe no project idea, and here's me wandering off-topic. I was thinking how consumers get slugged for 'closed-source' products, and I think these things are a prime example.
About the same time these aerosol units (without PIR) became available there was another (maybe Glade) product that had a small piezo-pump. Unfortunately the chemical 'source' was made so that it was hard to top up the container. Usually the wick broke when trying to open the top, so I gave up on the idea of re-using them.
With the aerosol units we are also pretty much locked in to buy replacements at something now approaching $7 and although it's convenient, I think it's also a major ripoff.
Had an idea of a product that would use a piezo-pump and use whatever nice smelling stuff that was available and sourced a supplier in China. I didn't buy a demo pump because the supplier needed a UPS destination so gave up again on that after trying multiple times to set up an account.
Anyway, sorry to digress from your subject, but thought I'd mention this as a possible DIY/Product idea.
Also I like the idea of spraying annoying cats with ammonia from another poster. Although from here after my car has been 'defiled' many times by the neighbors cat an automated shotgun charge would be preferred :-)
Ammonia is not a good idea for repelling cats. Yes, when "fresh" the strong smell drives them off, but later the dilute amonia smell reminds them of someone else's urine and they have to remark their territory. Try citronella or a specific repellent available from pet shops and sometimes from vets
Ammonia seems to smell like cat piss to a cat. We found that out after cleaning cat piss with ammonia, the cat went crazy over it and pissed much more where you used the ammonia to clean. Using other types of cleaning products solved the problem.
Out of interest the problem with him pissing everywhere ultimately turned out to be build up of crystals (probably like kidney stones in humans) in the urinary tract which is apparently common in male cats. One symptom I found is this illogical desire to piss almost anywhere for no reason we could find.
After eventually seeing blood in the urine, we consulted the vet, turned out he needed a "urinary tract" formula food. We gave him that for a couple of weeks, and all problems went away. We now give him his normal Aldi dry food, but urinary tract food once a week and so far the condition has stopped as well as the pissing around the house.
We couldn't give it to him all the time as it caused rapid weight gain (and its very expensive). Hope this is useful for any cat owners out there who are going through similar problems with their pet.
Same with liquid chlorine. We used this for cleaning mould,
and the residue of it on your hands and feet would make the cat very excited to the point he would constantly try to rub his head against your hands and shoes as though it was a strong attractant.
I have seen these units in public toilets for some years, and have seen them open before. The spray nozzle is on a standard aerosol can but there is an extension that sticks forward about 15mm. By the look of these units, most have an LCD display showing the time, so I can assume that these give a spray after a certain number of minutes have passed ? They may also be able to be programmed to shut off during hours when the business is closed or not many people are there ?
The mechanism that activates the nozzle is a cam operated by a small motor.
If the ones you talk about work on the same principle, one usage would be to manually trigger the button of a digital camera to take pics for security purposes. I couldn't think of a cheaper way to do this and easy enough for beginners to assemble.
A good use for this would be to put it at your front door so you can tell if anyone has come to see you while you are out and who it is, or in areas prone to vandalism, animal damage etc to catch the culprit.
Another application it could be used for is to automatically flush urinals as commercial units start from about $700 trade (+ installation) according to a real estate property manager that I know. By council regulations they they had to have a urinal installed in a block of 6 small shops, pay large water rates for the privilege and no one would flush it, resulting in complaints.
One problem though might be that these units may only allow one activation per hour, 15 min or so. If this cannot be manually set, then it might be a problem for some projects, though one way around it might be to connect a switch that momentarily cuts power to the module somewhere during the motor's turning cycle (and instead diverts it to the motor to keep it running) then connects back to the module again
This may "reset" the module's internal timer.
I agree on the waste. I also dont like the idea of breathing in the stuff that comes out of these air fresheners
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