AutoBlender Cat Repeller
My project is moving along nicely. Got a picture of the finished board and a video showing a test run.
There’s a terminal strip on the bottom to wire in the power supply and the wires that head off to the blender. The relay is directly across from it on the top. That’s what simulates a button press. The chip on the right is the PICAXE-08M micro-controller. Plus a few other parts to make it all happen. The part you see there hanging out is a serial port that I use to program the chip with. Whats not pictured is the motion sensor. Just to the right of the relay you can see a 3 pins on a small strip. That’s where I plug it into the board.
Tonight I plugged it all in and gave it a test run. Worked like a charm! I enticed the cat in the video below with a light so I could catch it in action. While typing up this post both my cats decided to try their luck on the counter only to promptly evacuate the area the instant the blender came on. Works just as I’d hoped. All that’s left now is to slightly modify the program (blender is on a tad too long) and to get it installed into a plastic project box.
Please be sure to turn up your speakers to hear it.
UPDATE: This works just as well to keep the cats from getting under or in the christmas tree!
how about a voice chip with the sound of the blender recorded or a simple digital recorder
I’ve thought about that and will probably try it and see what happens. I fear that I may not be able to make the sound loud enough to work, but it will be worth a try.
I guess I should have just said can you post everything necessary for the project. It would help to have the make of the PIM sensor and a source for it as well as the source code for the pic and the diagram for the serial port connection or a link to a place that describes how to use a serial port on it. I do have an Arduino and thought of using it, but I want to make 2 or 3 of these, so your idea of the $3 pic-axe is great.
Thanks for interested in my little project. Here is the link for the picaxe. They have manuals in pdf form available on their site that are great. http://www.rev-ed.co.uk/picaxe/
I learned lots through those and their online forum. These chips are definitely easier to use than an Arduino and the small 08M is real cheap. Not as powerful, but for simple projects like this it does the job.
I have revised my project and schematic a little (no more blender, using a siren instead). It’s rigged right now and it works great but I’m still using the relay to power the siren now which isn’t necessary like it was for the blender. My revision will take out the relay and run the siren right off a transistor. Once the revision is done I’ll post it all up in a new post.
Also, lots of my stuff I picked up at radio shack. The board, siren, project box. The smaller components I have lying around already. The picaxe and PIR sensor I got from sparkfun.com. The picaxe was$3 and the PIR sensor was $10. I’ve seen PIR sensors at radio shack for $10 as well, but I haven’t used one and it’s a little different than mine. I’m sure it would work though. I plan on picking one up for testing and experimenting with.
Can you post the pic code? Thanks!
This is awesome.. My 9 year old son has a 7 year old cousin who we always vacation with.. The young one always sneaks into my son’s room and steals or breaks his toys. I’m going to make a cousin-repellant version.. 🙂
Ha! Make one that can shoot water at him. That should work great!