The Walden Effect: Farming, simple living, permaculture, and invention.

Battery powered deer deterrent

Battery powered deer deterrent motor testing stage one


One of the biggest negative comments I got on Youtube concerning our mechanical deer deterrents was how having an extension cord cluttering up the yard was just unacceptable.

The above handsome, battery powered motor is a new discovery. (Thanks Mom!).

It runs on a single D cell battery and comes with a nice plastic support arm that attaches to the shaft of the motor with a stainless steel screw. Stay tuned to see how long the battery holds up under these conditions. There hasn't been any deer damage yet, but it was this time last year when the nibbles started, which is what motivated me to put this together on a Sunday.



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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.



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We have one battery on test running since 4/30 - just now getting pretty slow. We had one set up in yard with the deer deterrent and it lasted a good 3 weeks strong
Comment by Jayne Sun May 27 20:18:44 2012
Jayne -- That's good news! Mark thinks our application might be a bit harder on the motor than yours, but we'll have to wait and see. (As you can see, he has it hooked up to a heavy chain and golf ball.) Still working well the next morning!
Comment by anna Mon May 28 07:18:21 2012

Are you using a rechargeable battery? If not, you should consider it.

If the motor lasts long enough, this is one of those applications were a small solar panel and a rechargeable Li-ion battery would work well, I think.

OTOH, a weight-driven clock mechanism might work as well. If you don't mint winding it regularly.

The gears in the motor housing look kinda flimsy. Are you sure this motor is rated for continuous operation?

Comment by Roland_Smith Mon May 28 15:50:14 2012

Roland --- Mark and I were just talking about the option of making it solar-powered using a rechargeable battery last night at dinner. :-) Right now, it runs on a D battery, I believe (or is it C?) and that's hard to find in rechargeable. But Mark has a little solar panel with battery built in that's supposed to charge ipods, and he might give that a try.

I would love having it be windable, though! How long do you think a wound mechanism would last between windings? Just a day? Longer? How long would it take to wind it each time?

I can't speak for whether the motor's flimsy or not. I guess we'll see how soon/if it tears up...

Comment by anna Mon May 28 16:22:23 2012
How long such a clock mechanism would last is hard to say, but I think at least 24 hours, maybe 48.
Comment by Roland_Smith Tue May 29 02:39:09 2012

What I would suggest is to use a weight on a chain running over a cog as a power source, and ideally a pendulum escapement to regulate the speed. You could conceivably use the pendulum as the striker to make noise.

I think some Meccano (a.k.a Erector-Set in the US?) or Lego Technic would be useful to construct a working model.

Comment by Roland_Smith Tue May 29 15:57:40 2012





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