My wife and I enjoy feeding birds and have several birdfeeders in our yard. We also put food out for the squirrels hoping to distract them from the bird feeders. Unfortunately, the squirrels eat their food and empty the bird feeders as well. I am trying to design a device that can be attached to our existing feeders and will deliver a mild shock to any squirrel that gets on the feeder and completes the circuit. While I'm a novice at electronics, it seems to me that the device must use a capacitor in order to deliver enough power, yet be small and light weight. My plan is too use the circuit board from a disposable camera, but I have a few questions.
1. Is the capacitor design the most practical?
2. Is there a way to avoid the constant drain on the battery caused by the propensity of the capacitor to lose charge between activated discharges, since the battery would need an open circuit to recharge the the capacitor?
3. Is the capacitor in a disposable camera too large for this use?
Thanks for your help. Any other suggestions would be welcome.