Some people converting diesels to run on waste vegetable oil have run into a peculiar problem: mice have been chewing through fuel lines! So I had an idea. Produce some nasty high-frequency sounds. Something in the 50 kHz ballpark is supposed to be effective on rodents. What's the best way, driving a piezoelectric transducer with a squarewave? Would you run it at 50 kHz or at some lower frequency and trust in the odd harmonics to do your work for you?
Wouldn't it be simpler just to use hose with a stainless steel braid?
-- Service to my country? Been there, Done that, and I\'ve got my DD214 to prove it. Member of DAV #85. Michael A. Terrell Central Florida
You would optimally want to use tritones. Though, I'm curious if they'd eventually 'accept' such a constant noise as a buzzer as part of the environment and begin to disregard it.
However, while repelling rodents in such a fashion has a high number of benefits and applications, I'm afraid to say that I don't buy the bit about them chewing on diesel fuel lines, because:
1) fuel injection lines are typically steel, due to the high pressures involved 2) diesel engines that have ever been used are typically caked with petroleum products 3) mice can't smell vegetable oil through the steel 4) biodiesel often contains a small percentage of diesel fuel (varies by location, typically 3%-10%, but up to 50%) 5) for an object to start getting nibbled by mice it usually (but not always) has to be silent and never go anywhere. They often won't be comfortable with something that disappears regularly (with lots of noise and fanfare), then returns just as noisily (with lots of heat and unnatural smells) and is in a different spot every time.-phaeton
Let me explain one or two things to you, big shot. There is a difference (a pretty significant one) between waste vegetable oil and biodiesel. Familiarize yourself with it. The mice don't gnaw on the steel high pressure lines that run from the IP to the injectors. D'oh. What is your problem? Let me paint a picture for you. A guy has a diesel vehicle and decides to do a conversion so he can run it on vegetable oil. Mostly people acquire the waste oil from restaurant fryers. So he buys fuel lines and a bunch of other stuff like an extra tank and a couple of fuel selector solenoids. A few days or weeks later he has a vehicle that smells like french fries. And if you think a mouse can't smell grease, you're nuts.
Big shot? Odd.
Ok, my bad. You wrote vegetable oil, i read 'biodiesel'. I understand the difference but misread it. My mistake.
Perhaps the part where you said "mice have been chewing through fuel lines!". Or did I misread that too?
No need. Sorry to have gotten you all worked up. Have a nice day, good luck with your buzzer project, and may you live happily ever after.
-phaeton
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