A small solar panel, U1 Lawn mower battery, start capacitor, and a little wiring you could zap a finger off a full grown coon grabbing at your feed if needed for under $50. For another $10, you could add a remote arming/disarming system if you care to be more selective on what goes poof...Definitely lethal, and definitely indiscriminant in what gets fried, so you'd want a way to control what gets hit.
Rex, let's talk soon. I like the idea of a battery...sounds a lot simpler than the death ray on which JKB is working.
(Not a death ray, that was just a video I found while searching for an existing product to satisfy your wishes)
My first thought was to discharge a capacitor into your feathery pests, but that seemed a tad messy from a control point. Then bounced around the path to ground method, still not to my liking. Next version was completing an open circuit between 2 phases, electric chair style, turn them into a little motor. No ground, no neutral, just 240V. I'm liking that a whole lot better.
Then, I'm calculating potential kill based on various perch designs. During the interim, I'm looking at frequency (Hz). While 60Hz is more than adequate, the lower you go, the more effective. What's the easiest way to lower frequency?, obviously, a VFD. Well, this has 3 phase output, all the better. Now I have 5 potentials rather than 1 with 2 potentials being really imbalanced (I should do a KFC patent search for their extra crispy)
Needless to say, a light switch won't quite do the trick for a control here. Enter a small PLC, you can do amazing things with these.
The theory here is to fire a "One Shot" charge of sufficient duration while the pest is between 2 phases. Have to add some redundancy on the output so a pair of force guided relays fired from isolated daisy chained outputs from the PLC. 2 outputs per relay, that should be sufficient.
Inquiring minds want to know, so we put current transducers on each leg (output wire) to measure the current consumed with the shot. Another task for the CT's is if after firing the shot and I'm still seeing current flow, I can just blow the circuit breakers. (that sounded more manly than saying I'll just trip the STO)
Well, if you are measuring something, ya might as well data log it. Just goes hand in hand. Nice thing, is a lot of this stuff has web servers. You would want to get the right one tho.
Let's say, TJ has a decent wireless network at his place. He's out mulling about his property doing chores, or whatever. He sees one of these pests where he want's them, by design. Damn button to fire this is in the house tho, and it's a long run. Could be some really good exorcize, but by the time you get there, the pest has moved on. You're a tad out of breath and disappointed at the same time. May as well sit down for a minute and catch your breath, re-plan strategy.
Enter, the smart phone. It's on your wireless network, right? Open a browser, preferably Safari or Chrome. Enter the IP address of the web server and bookmark the remote view page, by design. A button will show up, along with other stuff, if you wish. Touch the button
People always freak out, in their own way, when I put the control of machinery on their cell phone. I never leave it there and always disable the feature after the dog and pony show. A couple weeks ago I put the control of a robotic welding cell that I just built on this dudes phone. Gave him some instructions and within a minute or so, he was running it from his phone. He said, no way!, this is freaky! Yep, and it's getting disabled. Just wanted to show you this.
Although, having a pest between 2 phases, by design, and firing a shot, would be more fun than TJ can handle. I'm just wondering what the possibilities of picking up a signal thru the conductors are. Determine pest location and which conductors it's presently in contact with. Getting to "AUTO MODE" could be a challenge.
Ya see, I'm kinda thinking in the direction of rodents here as well. Everyone want's to build a better mouse trap. What better way than to Zap them?
OK, hope no one get's a Darwin moment from this.
