Pi trap

Has anyone looked into the possibility of building a mousetrap which would detect the presence of mice and humanely (?) electrocute them?

Some kind of proximity or motion detector plus a set of alternately pulsed live and earthed strips on a large PCB maybe.

The little devils nibbled through thick plastic and ate much of the last Kg. of my 10Kg. bag of Basmati.

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Windmill, TiltNot@NoneHome.com       Use  t m i l l 
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Windmill
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...and the world will beat a path to your door. And if you build a better bactericide, life will select and promote a resistant bacteria. So an electronic digital media device may not be as effective as an self replicating analogue. For example. Mice. Mouse trap. Smart mice. Smart trap. Mice who nibble through power cords.

The path could have been avoided by storing your Basmati on restaurant grade shelving designed to deny mice access to begin with. Or let's say someone built a better mouse trap, then Walt Disney then built a better mouse. So I conjured this trap for the better mouse... now I iz cheezbrger.

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Although mostly dormant during the day, it is quite an active and stealthy killer at night with excellent night vision and superior audio direction finding.

m
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Reply to
DisneyWizard the Fantasmic!

It's much cheaper to use a spring loaded bar to humanely smash in the top of their spine when they are detected by a lump of bait stuck on a release trigger :)

Build a better mousetrap and people will beat a path to your door, discover that yours is more expensive yet no more effective than a regular one, then go and buy a regular one ;)

Reply to
Guesser

Keep food in tins and get a cat.

Reply to
Rob Morley

All you need is a single razor blade set on edge and held in that position by a bit of BluTack; much simpler and cheaper than a computerised solution.

The mouse will come along, rest its neck on the blade, and, irritatingly move its head left to right and back again, saying, "Where's the cheese? Where's the cheese?"

Reply to
Ubi Quitous

Here is my mousetrap, as you can see it works, and catches the mouse live.

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As it stands, the trap is triggered manually by switching off the radio controlled socket. the operator can either be in the room or watching via CCTV.

Clearly there is scope for automation, but much as I would like to, even I cannot really justify a whole Pi to detect the proximity of a mouse.

A sound trigger comprising a condenser mic, op-amp, rectifier, dc amp & relay should be simple enough to cobble together, better still, the whole thing is probably available laminated into a greeting card I should imagine.

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Graham. 

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Reply to
Graham.

What a pity it needs a yahoo! account to view...

Reply to
Tony van der Hoff

My thoughts exactly - I couldn't close the browser quick enough.

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W J G
Reply to
Folderol

My apologies, These links should be OK

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Graham. 

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Reply to
Graham.

On Sat, 7 Dec 2013 01:12:13 GMT, Windmill wrote in :

You don't need a Pi -- tho' it's a bit more expensive:

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The single-shot is a bit cheaper, about the price of a Pi:

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Ivan Reid, School of Engineering & Design, _____________  CMS Collaboration, 
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Reply to
Ivan D. Reid

I've got one of these - had it for years. They work very well.

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W J G
Reply to
Folderol

I saw such in an electronics mag in the 80s. So the answer is yes, someone has.

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Reply to
Jasen Betts

Why not just drop that transformer on it.

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nev 
getting the wrong stick end since 1953
Reply to
nev young

On Sat, 7 Dec 2013 18:19:27 +0000, Folderol wrote in :

I might need to get one if the mice come back this winter. Problem last winter was field-mice coming in, first from the rain and then from the cold. They're a bit too small and light to reliably trigger conventional traps (they could lick the activation-plate clean of Tesco Value peanut butter without tripping a break-back trap, and didn't always activate the see-saw mechanism in a "humane" trap). Too, also, as well, I've found out since that it's illegal to release them back into the wild, which is the ostensible raison d'etre of the humane traps! (I'd let them go a couple of hundred yards down the farm track opposite my house.)

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Ivan Reid, School of Engineering & Design, _____________  CMS Collaboration, 
Brunel University.    Ivan.Reid@[brunel.ac.uk|cern.ch]    Room 40-1-B12, CERN 
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Reply to
Ivan D. Reid

If you've had 'em in the past you'll almost certainly have them again, unless you have gone around the entire house righ up to the eves blocking every hole larger than 1/4". At a tight squeeze mice can get through that but they have to dislocate their skulls to do it, so they don't unless they have to. 3/8" is an open barn door toa mouse ...

Odd the field mice we get (brown not grey) don't have any problems tripping the Rentokil see-saw traps:

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We also have these:

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But the little plastic catch isn't up to the job and the mouse can fairly quickly escape. With the Rentokil ones the mouses weight holds the trap door shut. The mice can still escape though, by gnawing through the plastic sides starting from one of the ventilation holes ...

That might not be far enough... We used to take 'em down to the bottom of the paddock a similar sort of distance. The first year we caught 42 of the little blighters, similar number the next. Then one had a damaged ear, when we caught it on two consecuative nights we twigged what was going on. I bet they were back in the house before we were... Deportation is now up onto the fell top near a pine plantation several miles away and also a good couple of miles from any human habitation. We now only catch two or three a year...

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Cheers 
Dave.
Reply to
Dave Liquorice

The cat would die while I was away. Of thirst if not of starvation.

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Windmill, TiltNot@NoneHome.com       Use  t m i l l 
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Reply to
Windmill

I enjoyed the humour. Wish it was that easy.

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Windmill

You would feel differently if all the mice in all the empty flats round about were moving to the few inhabited ones in search of food. (I can thank the bankers and politicians for that).

I worried that the high voltage necessary to electrocute them would zap most sensitive electronics. And if you trap them alive, other mice are bound to hear those in the trap, who presumably will make repeated distress sounds, after which mice may learn to avoid the area.

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Windmill, TiltNot@NoneHome.com       Use  t m i l l 
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Windmill

In a small flat, the only place to easily store that 10Kg. bag was on top of an old Belling tabletop cooker I had cleaned up and put on the floor in a cupboard. It is now covered in filthy black muck. After they found it, and in my absence, every mouse in the 200 yard long tenement block must have visited for an early Christmas dinner.

Kill!!

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Windmill, TiltNot@NoneHome.com       Use  t m i l l 
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Reply to
Windmill

What in particular is wrong with Yahoo (apart from the backdoors we're now told of, etc. etc.)?

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Windmill

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