I start my two weeks of vacation in a few days, and I'm ready to build this project. Hopefully, I'll have the mechanical portion completed in a few days. I've got a few electronics/software issues to still work out, but shouldn't be too bad.
This should be very quick and simple build, been thinking about it for a while. I'm going to use a section of PVC as the housing. Going to cut down the airsoft gun to just what is needed. Figure to cut the top off a 2-liter bottle, and glue it into the PVC for a hopper for the BBs. A standard R/C servo should be stong enough to rotate left or right. Haven't really worked out how to manual adjust the elevation angle of the barrel and keep it water tight. Might just tilt the whole platform, angle adjustment will likely only be a few degrees (kind of why adding a tilt to this platform would be unnessary expense and complexity).
I just recieved the PIR modules from Futurlect. They are really tiny, not much documentation, basic pinout/specs. Have to experiment a little. The idea is to mount the PIR sensor below the pan-platform, angled so their view overlaps a few degrees. Only going to to set three positions for the servo, left-center-right. Should make the software super simple to write. Not sure about how fast the servo will move, or how to slow it down if needed. Not real important just yet (final tweaking). Figure to start the gun firing when one or both sensors detect for about 5 seconds, or how ever long it takes the servo to travel to the required position, spraying BBs along the way, then return to the center position, maybe a 5 second delay, the go back to waiting for input from the sensors. Haven't decided how I want it to repond to both sensor detecting at the same time. Figure just fire it from the center position, but could make it sweep back and forth a little.
Anyway, the airsoft gun isn't very accurate, or much range, so figured I' be wasting time and money trying to do something more precise or interactive. This should be more effective, as its a cat deterent, and needs to be consistant and persistant. The BBs are recoverable and reusable. I swapped the white LEDs in a wind-up flashlight (bought 10 at work for $2.00 each), with ultraviolet LEDs. The BBs glow under 'blacklight', and very easy to find at night. Hoping a simple transistor driver will be good enough to fire the gun from a microcontroller pin. It's just a small 6 volt motor, runs off 4 AA batteries.
This should be very quick and simple build, been thinking about it for a while. I'm going to use a section of PVC as the housing. Going to cut down the airsoft gun to just what is needed. Figure to cut the top off a 2-liter bottle, and glue it into the PVC for a hopper for the BBs. A standard R/C servo should be stong enough to rotate left or right. Haven't really worked out how to manual adjust the elevation angle of the barrel and keep it water tight. Might just tilt the whole platform, angle adjustment will likely only be a few degrees (kind of why adding a tilt to this platform would be unnessary expense and complexity).
I just recieved the PIR modules from Futurlect. They are really tiny, not much documentation, basic pinout/specs. Have to experiment a little. The idea is to mount the PIR sensor below the pan-platform, angled so their view overlaps a few degrees. Only going to to set three positions for the servo, left-center-right. Should make the software super simple to write. Not sure about how fast the servo will move, or how to slow it down if needed. Not real important just yet (final tweaking). Figure to start the gun firing when one or both sensors detect for about 5 seconds, or how ever long it takes the servo to travel to the required position, spraying BBs along the way, then return to the center position, maybe a 5 second delay, the go back to waiting for input from the sensors. Haven't decided how I want it to repond to both sensor detecting at the same time. Figure just fire it from the center position, but could make it sweep back and forth a little.
Anyway, the airsoft gun isn't very accurate, or much range, so figured I' be wasting time and money trying to do something more precise or interactive. This should be more effective, as its a cat deterent, and needs to be consistant and persistant. The BBs are recoverable and reusable. I swapped the white LEDs in a wind-up flashlight (bought 10 at work for $2.00 each), with ultraviolet LEDs. The BBs glow under 'blacklight', and very easy to find at night. Hoping a simple transistor driver will be good enough to fire the gun from a microcontroller pin. It's just a small 6 volt motor, runs off 4 AA batteries.