Making a "no-cat-zone" device with ultrasonics?..

I'm totally baffled by this one!

You're having trouble keeping your cat away from your computer monitor? Is it spending too much time surfing the web? Does it find the mouse irresistable?

In any case, simply chaining a pit-bull to the keyboard has worked for me!

Brad PC Logic

Schematic entry and PCB design software

Cats and dogs can hear very well in to the 30 to 40 kHz area. The only thing is that as they age, their hearing goes down, something like ours. But, it is more sensitive than humans, through most of their life. If you were to emit a constant tone, it would have to be fairly loud to annoy an animal. The only thing is that you don't want to drive the animal crazy when being out of the room.

The equipment and cost to do this would not be cheap. There may be some safety issues with this type of thing. Even though you cannot hear the ultrasonic sound from this type of device, it may be causing some harm to your hearing, and you would never know it!

I would leave the door of the room closed when you do not want the cat near to the computer. Or, have a big dog in the room that hates cats.

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Greetings,

Jerry Greenberg GLG Technologies GLG ========================================= WebPage

Electronics =========================================

Here's an idea I've come up with in the past few weeks: make a device that would create a focused, low-intensity ultrasonic field that could create (hopefully) a "no-cat" zone in front of a computer-monitor for instance (this is our problem) Two problems I see are:

1) making the signal low-level enough that it would just annoy the cat a little and nothing more, and

2) figuring out how to focus it. I'm thinking pizoelectric speakers might be able to do that.

What is the an *upper* limit on what cats can hear? The "focusable speakers" that I've heard of work by using two ultrasonic signals to create interferance patterns low enough that people can here them (cats could be a problem here). Theoretically, the same could be done for cats, except that the source frequency would have to be higher than the upper range of the cat's hearing.

Even if an ultrasocnic signal could be made high enough that a cat wouldn't hear it, could a small enough interference range be created without also making all sorts of undesirably other interference zones?

Jim

X-No-Archive: yes "Jim Witte" wrote : Hi, : Here's an idea I've come up with in the past few weeks: make a device : that would create a focused, low-intensity ultrasonic field that could : create (hopefully) a "no-cat" zone in front of a computer-monitor for : instance (this is our problem)

In Ancient Egypt Cats were revered as Gods, Cats remember!

I can confirm it doesn't work for moles. I planted one of those ultrasonic devices in my garden right through the mole run. The following day there were mole hills either side of the device! At least if made an interesting photo.

For moles, old fashioned block-type bubble gum... chew it a little bit first, then drop into one of their holes... they love it... blocks their intestinal tract and they die.

...Jim Thompson

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|  James E.Thompson, P.E.                           |    mens     |
|  Analog Innovations, Inc.                         |     et      |
|  Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems  |    manus    |
|  Phoenix, Arizona            Voice:(480)460-2350  |             |
|  E-mail Address at Website     Fax:(480)460-2142  |  Brass Rat  |
|       http://www.analog-innovations.com           |    1962     |
             
I love to cook with wine.      Sometimes I even put it in the food.

Squirt gun. Plain water works great.

For a slightly more techie solution, some "canned air." Aim at their flanks (where there's fur) and not towards the face, to reduce the chances of blowing something into the eyes. It's the hissing sound more than the air itself that does the trick.

If the critters want to nap in front of the monitor while you're *not* using the keyboard, well, sharing is a Good Thing.

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Rich Webb   Norfolk, VA

Hey I've not heard that one. I heard they are hard to poison because they only eat live worms. I'll have to give it a go.

It reminds me of an incident I heard about some years ago...

An Air Cadet unit was broken into and the vandals smashed up some equipment. One of the things they took away was an emergency ration pack from an old RAF ejector seat. I heard they were arrested at the local hospital the following day after they ate the special oatmeal biscuit... the one that swells up to make 16 pints of porridge when mixed with water.

I had gophers on my acre in North Scottsdale, AZ. I tried everything, including the infamous flood-em-out and gasoline routines ;-) With NO success. Then someone told me about the bubble gum. In about a week, no gophers.

ROTFLMAO!

...Jim Thompson

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|  James E.Thompson, P.E.                           |    mens     |
|  Analog Innovations, Inc.                         |     et      |
|  Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems  |    manus    |
|  Phoenix, Arizona            Voice:(480)460-2350  |             |
|  E-mail Address at Website     Fax:(480)460-2142  |  Brass Rat  |
|       http://www.analog-innovations.com           |    1962     |
             
I love to cook with wine.      Sometimes I even put it in the food.

This is very interesting. I know of a few cases where ultrasonic animal repeling equipment was installed, and there were more animals coming in to the area. It was like they were actracted to the noise to see what it was, rather than be annoyed at it.

I read something somewhere, that sometimes these can have just the opposite effect than it was designed for.

Jerry G.

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Why not just tell your cat(s) that that's not allowed and put them on
the floor every time they go there (worked for mine, they eventually
got tired of the game) or build a little bed-O-nails and put it in
front of the monitor?^)

Jus us this a s a screen saver

Regards,

Boris Mohar

Got Knock? - see: Viatrack Printed Circuit Designs

christ thats some somes.