Electronic Garden Pest Deterent

I'm not sure I understand. If it is only a few m^2, why not simply enclose it using chicken-wire, bird netting, or even wire cloth? Also, running a bare copper wire around the perimeter without any electronics or power will keep out slugs if they are forced to touch it to get in.

Jon

Talk to your insurance agent.

Why not get some fishing net and drape that over the precious area? Worked for as long as I remember.

I thought this was an electronics list :-)

I would prefer not to suspend anything over the garden as it impedes access.

Here is one product, which appears to be a flat, mini-electric fence.

But I wanted to use a single conductor, and possibly HF for safety.

Dan

For maximum discomfort from a given amount of power, I recommend from experience:

Waveform - short pulses

Frequency - a few Hz to 60 Hz

Voltage - nearly a kilovolt to a few kilovolts

Output impedance - low, under 1,000 ohms. Possibly, parallel the output with a capacitor of value in the 100's of picofarads maybe a nanofarad or a few, depending on pulse frequency. See if the device causes incandescent lamps suitable for testing this to glow.

Output power - here, .1 watt is a lot, maybe excessive because that much with above conditions could possibly electrocute critters as big as rats, possibly rabbits.

(I *disclaim warranty* of safety to even bigger animals - do this at your own risk.)

Insulate it from the ground. Make it out of material that water beads up on so that it largely continues to insulate when rained on.

Get creative with deploying the shock-delivering electrode(s), so as to touch critters and not ground. You probably have to put some work into that though...

Make the high voltage source able to withstand being shorted when the slop hits the fan.

Probably easy enough to do with an ignition coil for older cars, single coil used with "points" and "condenser" and a distributor. I wonder if I can still get one of those?

Otherwise, maybe a little work to use a coil that replaces 1 of the 3 in early maybe mid 1990's GM cars with 2.8L V6 "Series II" engine, such as Oldsmobile Delta 88 and Pontiac Bonneville. Note - the primary contacts in those coils are recessed and must be poked into with some sort of "spade plugs".

--
 - Don Klipstein (don@misty.com)

Sadly, it appears to me that shock discomfort and shock danger go somewhat hand-in-hand with each other.

Higher frequency can deliver uncomfortable localized burning with less to negligible sensation of electric shock and reduced (I do not warranty eliminated) danger of electrocution.

--
 - Don Klipstein (don@misty.com)

Well, if you prefer a fancy solution over a working one..... PS. dont electrocute innocent bystanders.

The electric shocker for pidgeons could easily be replaced by a very spikey metal ric-rac in about the same strategic spot this zapper was mounted.

Getting some wildlife experts to colonize the roofs of several of the tallest buildings with nesting boxes for hawks would help a lot also.

I love to see the faces of the effite, out of touch with reality office geeks when they come upon the pidgeon heads and feet that the hawks discard onto the sidewalk.

For the garden, black poly netting works, but make sure the holes are small enough to keep out finches. If you feel the netting gets in the way, then arrange much MORE netting with wire framing so that it forms almost a gazebo type shelter you can walk inside.

Do any of the high frequency audio squeekers actually work to keep birds away?

I know two different places where they use audio recordings of pidgeon death cries put out on loudspeakers.

They WERE effective, but in one of the two cases I've noticed that now that it's been up for a few years there are a lot of pidgeons that have learned to ignore the noise.

In a shorter term and more recent case authorities placed a bunch of dead crows around a park thousands congregated in. The intelligence of crows and their alarmist behavior apparently drove off the fall swarms.

Like an LM555, low duty cycle 60Hz to a 10W kit audio amp (12Vpp) driving a series of 4 or 5, 120V to 6V transformers wired in reverse? But see below ...

Yes, all that is a problem, which is why I was leaning toward a single HF HV electrode. That was my original question. How about a mini-Tesla coil, or flyback transformer driver?

Well there are simple circuits like this, that operate over a wider range of frequencies ... but pehaps too much wattage for my purpose, and not high enough frequency for single electrode (?)

Dan

Hate to say it, but the best offense is a good defense. (...maybe I got that backwards?)

Put some food out for the critters to distract them from your victory garden. (hopefully, this won't attract bears or other problematic creatures, vagrants, etc!)

Then, maybe take up a hobby like photography, and embrace the fact that animals need to eat too!

I had a squirell vs. birdhouse problem, and after much consideration, decided to get peanuts for the squirell. He (she?, how can you tell?) now leaves the birdhouse alone.

And if that doesn't work - hey, you gave them every opportunity... Link:

-mpm

Or attract more birds and animals into the yard, who would then become addicted to my handouts, and eat the plants to boot.

If that really worked everyone would already be doing it. I am not trying to open a petting zoo.

Maybe you should give up photography, try gardening and become a more practical shade of green.

Dan

My experience here is low shocking ability especially when power consumption is nice-and-low, though direct impact by the sparks causes a bit of a startling burning sensation. Also in my experience, large electrodes loads down the output voltage, sometimes also stalls the oscillation if the coil is part of an oscillator circuit.

I would modify for lower power. Also, my experience is that single-electrode at lower power has low ability to shock.

Now, I remember someone posting several years ago an idea for a very humane cat repeller - motion sensor, solenoid valve, lawn sprinkler.

--
 - Don Klipstein (don@misty.com)

If you put out habanero seeds for the birds,

squirrels will never again be a problem. Mammals have capsaicin receptors; birds don't.

Look at the nuts, obviously. 8-)

JeffM wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@y30g2000prf.googlegroups.co m:

My elderly neighbor has a nice garden. What he uses to keep squirrels and other undesirable criiters away is a sprinkler on a timer. It just comes on and shoots a few burst every couple of minutes. Scares all the pigeons away.

You could use a PIR motion sensor maybe hooked up to a speaker and genarate an anoying noise or just get a scarecrow. If you really want to go the electronics way a audible deterent would be the safest.

Don't waste your time; there isn't any. I guess some aluminum foil on the ground can deter slugs, also a dish of beer; for other bugs, go to the garden store and buy some ladybug and praying mantis egg sacs. For aphids, spray the undersides of the leaves with nicotine. For other pests, there are a wide range of "eco-friendly" sprays and powders; check with your garden store person.

For rodents and other herbivores, piss on it (or empty the chamber pot around the perimeter). It sends a chemical signal: "Large Carnivore Here!"

But trying to do it electronically is guaranteed to be a waste of time and money and is a lost cause from the get-go. It's been tried, and has never worked.

Hope This Helps! Rich

I hear you. Sadly, nothing grows here. Except weeds. :)

Yup.

There was some speculation that was killing bees.

I think the latest guess is the combination of 2 microbes.

I've never heard that human urine is effective. Cougar piss is the usual prescription.

...and what's so difficult about making a swinging-door portal on a chicken wire enclosure?

And crooked politicians. :(

--
You can't fix stupid. You can't even put a band-aid on it, because it's
Teflon coated.

It shouldn't, if you spray it upward at the bottoms of the leaves, and don't get it all over the blossoms.

You'd have to be smarter than the chicken wire. ;-D

Thanks! Rich