The Portable Dog Killer / Quiet Canine Competition

[MJLorton]

If you have not followed Steve Gibson (Shields UP!, SpinRite, etc) and Leo Laporte and their Security Now! podcasts  you might be missing something...

This competition is based on the Security Now podcast where Steve talks about the Portable Dog Killer he made in his teens...it's hysterical:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Glft9CQ-5s

Steve is now developing a new version which can be based on several hardware prototyping platforms.
He has several forums where he is developing ideas: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/portable-sound-blaster/VTNUYEPpy1U/7blr4TWRugEJ
Here is a link to some pics and info on the new prototype: https://docs.google.com/document/pub?id=1mfc5ZcuqU03ll2qyHl8URd1MvAYzr5swq2_SoCYmpIc

To pre-enter this competition you need to post a picture here of your multimeter placed somewhere interesting in your neighborhood, town or city.

Next...get cracking on researching and building the "Quiet Canine" device...and post a few updates along the way. At the end...even if it does not work for any reason...post a video and you will be in the final selection for the prize.

The prize will be a Uni-T UT61E and goods to the value of $150 from my Amazon Store: http://astore.amazon.com/m0711-20

For this competition to take place I need at least three entries by the 21st of January 2013...and at least two completed projects by the end of February 2013.

All the best and have fun.

Martin.

[dr_p]

I'm in. I had problems sleeping in summer, so I was considering a fixed version of the "hush puppy", but I can go portable as well. Interesting challenge.

[MJLorton]

I'm in. I had problems sleeping in summer, so I was considering a fixed version of the "hush puppy", but I can go portable as well. Interesting challenge.

]
Brilliant...fixed or portable...it does not matter!

Please post the picture when you have time...

Cheers,
Martin.

[SeanB]

I will have to dig out the bodgy one I made years ago............ Wonder if it still works? The ones sold as pest repellents do not work on insects, though hopefully they do work on rodents, the cats certainly stay away from the garage door though. I do know that the gecko's are supremely indifferent to them, from the droppings that they leave in front of it.

[dr_p]

Yes, sorry about the missing picture, I was building up my strength to go outside

[Kindanyume]

Hi all,   Just hopping in to post up my pic.   I decided that since this is all about a PDK it would be best to first determine the resistance of a Whippet

Of course since he hates the cold he is so resistant my meter failed to get any accurate reading 



(Don't mind my old cheapie mm.. my good fluke was sadly squashed years ago by a very heavy box.)

[MJLorton]

Yes, sorry about the missing picture, I was building up my strength to go outside

Brilliant! Thanks for the post and entering!
(It looks a little cold from where I'm standing!)

[MJLorton]

Hi all,   Just hopping in to post up my pic.   I decided that since this is all about a PDK it would be best to first determine the resistance of a Whippet

Of course since he hates the cold he is so resistant my meter failed to get any accurate reading 



(Don't mind my old cheapie mm.. my good fluke was sadly squashed years ago by a very heavy box.)

LOL...great post and thanks for entering!

[dr_p]

This summer I bought one of those handheld cheap chineese dog chasers. It kind of works, so I decided to improve it, , upping it's power and making it into a fixed installation. Continuously outputting high frequencies is not a good idea, so I plan on building a band-pass "bark detector".

I mechanically broke it's piezo coupling transformer and threw it away, so I can't measure the original output voltage and waveform.

It's a classic 555 circuit, so I started there. In May I bought a 2$ tweeter so I used that. First I tried to lower the frequency for audio feedback, but I soon realized oscillator circuits behave differently at different frequencies, so I just stayed with 29 kHz.

While trying to connect an output transformer, I found that just paralleling an inductor to the piezo tweeter made it louder. Tried every inductor I had, and I found one that works pretty good.

I played around with different voltages, coils, capacitors etc.

losses suffered:
one 500mA HRC fuse (obvious cause),
one IRF540 (sustained overheat, now I added a heatsink),
one IRF1010E(sustained overvoltage) that also took out the 555 (lack of resistor+zenner on the output),
2-3 BJTs until I realized they pop at 65V, so back to MOSFETs.
a LED
one 63V (sure, Mr. Ling) electrolytic that scorched at 30V
one resistor that never saw it coming - red, red, black was not 22K

This is how it looks so far on the scope. Powered from 28V, and the 555 is 317'd down to 12V (for the FET). It draws some 30mA.

[Skorch]

Hey Martin,
First time and I'm not sure if I should address you or the chatroom gang but anyways;
I haven't gotten a photo of my multimeter in my neighbourhood vista yet but I didn't actually intend on getting so involved in this project to begin with.
I just started this whole electronics lark and was busy trying to understand capacitors and how they hold charge, when I came across the portable dog killer on my daily rounds of your videos. In general you have been an incredible help and I have follow your advice as often as I can.
As is usual when I tune in your enthusiasm (for the PDK) was infectious and I got to thnking over and over about things I havent a hope of understanding and then I remebered a kit I bought recently, based around the 555, it was an audio kit capable of generating a wave between 2kHz and 20kHz based on the altering of a potentiometer.
It took me six hours and I had to teach myself about soldering in practice but I completed the circuit design to spec.
My plan was to add a speaker and try to increase/modify the circuits already existing capabilities with larger resistors but there was a short, I overheated and half melted the IC's and now its toast but you were so encouraging about submissions from newcomers, that even though I cheated using the pre designed kit, did a half assed job and then roasted the poor kit beyond all recognition, I still want to submit my work.
I understand very liitle about the kit but in case theres any questions here's the spec and details; http://www.maplin.co.uk/media/pdfs/N41FL.pdf ,
Im sure all those on this site will know far more about it.
Anyway, this was my first attempt and will most likely be my last as I'd say Ive burned my poor fingers enough for one project, as well as neglecting my loved ones far too much and of course the added problem of not having the slightest notion of what I'm doing but I might give this another try, only time will tell , thanks.

[MJLorton]

Skorch...hats off to you for jumping in and giving it a try.

Have a a break and come back to it once you have given time to your loved ones.

I really appreciate your post and hope to see more!

[MJLorton]

Folks,

Just a note to say that you can use your own design...a kit...modify another design you come across (always credit / reference the original designer)....whatever...just give it a bash!

I also know that the Google groups what Steve Gibson used to open this project up for discussion can be rather confusing to follow. Steve has noted this himself. He will be moving all the relevant information to his own website (GRC.com) in the near future. I will post a link to it here when that happens.

Cheers,
Martin.

[blankfield]

Hi all,
in this topic I'll describe design & construction progress of my version Portable Bark Killer. In my neighbourhood I have a noisy dog that long makes me wake up early. Therefore, this is the perfect project for me. I love dogs so I decided to make intelligent version of this unit to reduce emission of unnecessary ultrasound. Really portable unit needs good power management so design will be optimized for low power use in standby mode. I'm a fan of Texas Instruments MCU's so my first design assumption is to use msp430 device with cc430 to make wireless link. I would like to use remote control from my TI EZ430-Chronos watch and some digital signal processing for self-trigger mode.

Here is my ultrasonic consultant  :






Probably final functional diagram:


More updates as soon as possible, in this separate forum topic.

Cheers
blankfield

[circuitous]

Sign me up!
I have a few small outdoor automatic ultrasonic bark control units that have been dying.  This is a good opportunity to come up with something better, and to add a manual wireless remote to trigger them.
Not much of an outdoor photo, it was about -10 C this morning.

[MJLorton]

Hi all,
in this topic I'll describe design & construction progress of my version Portable Bark Killer. In my neighbourhood I have a noisy dog that long makes me wake up early. Therefore, this is the perfect project for me. I love dogs so I decided to make intelligent version of this unit to reduce emission of unnecessary ultrasound. Really portable unit needs good power management so design will be optimized for low power use in standby mode. I'm a fan of Texas Instruments MCU's so my first design assumption is to use msp430 device with cc430 to make wireless link. I would like to use remote control from my TI EZ430-Chronos watch and some digital signal processing for self-trigger mode.

More updates as soon as possible, in this separate forum topic.

Cheers
blankfield

Brilliant post and pictures! Thanks very much for entering; I look forward to your progress.