Hi all,
I recently had yet another visit from a friendly Heron who helped himself to a few fish. I deployed the motion activated sprinkler which has worked well in the past, but it appears this heron merely appreciates the shower it provides.
So I've been spending the afternoon brainstorming up a solution, aside from netting, and wanted to see if other people thought of the best idea my brain had.
To begin with I'm looking at getting an outdoor security light with multiple wireless motion sensors that can cover the the pond. The lights themselves are 100 watt floodlights that run off of a wired power source. When the wireless sensor trips, it turns the lights on.
The lights will be plugged into an auto-off power strip (example). The way this works is that when what is plugged into the controller plug draws power, for me the lights, it automatically powers on the other plugs on the strip. So when the lights are off, no other plug on the strip gets power. When the lights are on, the other plugs draw power.
Into the other plugs will go klaxon loudspeaker and power for solenoid valves. The solenoid valves, when supplied with a current, will move to the open state so water can flow through them. When lacking a current, they'll revert to closed the state, so no water.
Each valve will control a whirling sprinkler (example). When supplied with water they spin and spray water. My plan here is to take those sprinklers and cut off the part of the arm that bends up, then cap the arms so they shoot out a small jet of water parallel to the ground. Ideally an inch or two above the surface of my pond.
So the heron lands, the motion sensors pick up the heron, and off goes the noise, the lights, and some ideally fairly high pressure water cannons that provide an unpleasant kick in the feathers as to a nice pleasant shower.
The big issue I see is making sure I don't get into an infinite loop, that is the whirling sprinklers jet of water is aimed such that the motion sensors don't pick it up and keep triggering the lights which in turn keeps the water going. So ideally motion sensors trigger, lights, water, and noise for 30 seconds, then the lights shut off which in turn shuts off the water and noise.
Has anyone played around with this before or gone down this road.
Also as a long shot, as opposed to the whirling sprinklers, I'd love something that you could say set a brass hose nozzle on and just have it sweep back and forth across say a 60 degree arc, but I can't find anything of that nature. I could just control its power off the smart strip. I'd imagine I could fab something up but that would introduce many more moving parts into this and I'm thinking I'll try the whirling sprinklers first. Although the brass nozzle does intrigue me since I've yet to meet the creature who wants to stick around and be sprayed by that.
Thanks!
I recently had yet another visit from a friendly Heron who helped himself to a few fish. I deployed the motion activated sprinkler which has worked well in the past, but it appears this heron merely appreciates the shower it provides.
So I've been spending the afternoon brainstorming up a solution, aside from netting, and wanted to see if other people thought of the best idea my brain had.
To begin with I'm looking at getting an outdoor security light with multiple wireless motion sensors that can cover the the pond. The lights themselves are 100 watt floodlights that run off of a wired power source. When the wireless sensor trips, it turns the lights on.
The lights will be plugged into an auto-off power strip (example). The way this works is that when what is plugged into the controller plug draws power, for me the lights, it automatically powers on the other plugs on the strip. So when the lights are off, no other plug on the strip gets power. When the lights are on, the other plugs draw power.
Into the other plugs will go klaxon loudspeaker and power for solenoid valves. The solenoid valves, when supplied with a current, will move to the open state so water can flow through them. When lacking a current, they'll revert to closed the state, so no water.
Each valve will control a whirling sprinkler (example). When supplied with water they spin and spray water. My plan here is to take those sprinklers and cut off the part of the arm that bends up, then cap the arms so they shoot out a small jet of water parallel to the ground. Ideally an inch or two above the surface of my pond.
So the heron lands, the motion sensors pick up the heron, and off goes the noise, the lights, and some ideally fairly high pressure water cannons that provide an unpleasant kick in the feathers as to a nice pleasant shower.
The big issue I see is making sure I don't get into an infinite loop, that is the whirling sprinklers jet of water is aimed such that the motion sensors don't pick it up and keep triggering the lights which in turn keeps the water going. So ideally motion sensors trigger, lights, water, and noise for 30 seconds, then the lights shut off which in turn shuts off the water and noise.
Has anyone played around with this before or gone down this road.
Also as a long shot, as opposed to the whirling sprinklers, I'd love something that you could say set a brass hose nozzle on and just have it sweep back and forth across say a 60 degree arc, but I can't find anything of that nature. I could just control its power off the smart strip. I'd imagine I could fab something up but that would introduce many more moving parts into this and I'm thinking I'll try the whirling sprinklers first. Although the brass nozzle does intrigue me since I've yet to meet the creature who wants to stick around and be sprayed by that.
Thanks!
just a thought.
