It won't take long to find a motor you can salvage from some random piece of discarded technology once you start looking for a cheap way to provide motion to your home made deer deterrent. DC motors are common enough and much safer to work with than their bigger AC cousins which can sometimes turn way too fast to manage.

Once you've got a good motor you'll want to match it with a good adapter that will bring down the heavy AC voltage to a smaller trickle of power. These adapters are pretty common as well, and if you look closely they usually have their output voltage printed on the back with a number afterwards. That number is the level of amperage, which varies depending on the product it powers.

The best way is to just expriment by cutting off the connector end and shaving back the insulation enough so you can plug it into your new motor. I try to find motors with gear boxes on them, which works to slow things down while at the same time increasing the torque.

I've discovered that an adapter with 300 mA or less of DC amps will be barely enough to power your contraption and might only last a few months before it burns out and sometimes takes the motor with it. Try to find one with at least 600mA or more.

I've been reading African-American Gardens and Yards in the Rural South --- more on the gardening aspects of the book next week on our homestead blog --- and was intrigued to find a section on deer deterring.  The author, Richard Westmacott, interviewed 47 gardeners in Alabama, Georgia, and South Carolina, and discovered that deer were a big problem in most of their gardens.  The usual scare tactics were tried, most of which didn't work.  But the gardener who invented this unique method said that it did work:

We've tried peeing around the garden with little luck, but I can see how Sadie's method makes the smell go much further.  If you live out in the country and are desperate, this method might be worth a shot!

I know it doesn't look tidy, but a large plastic bag can work as a good way to protect your power transformer from getting wet if it's positioned properly.

This temporary fix provides flexibility during the experimental stage when abrupt changes are not unheard of.

I'm waiting till I get all the bugs worked out of this system before I build a more permanent enclosure. When that time comes I think I might try to adapt a small Tupperware container to provide a nice dry home for the deer deterrent power supply.

I've discovered that a golf ball banging into a piece of metal 24 hours a day 7 days a week tends to take a toll on the material in question.

You don't want to use anything too heavy because it needs to vibrate somewhat when banged on. I'm having some good luck with this lumber bracket shown in the video above.

It's a good thickness and size that allows for easy mounting. A crescent moon shape helps catch the golf ball while at the same time pushing it over the wall for another revolution.

I've been on a quest to find a low budget timer that will give the deer deterrents a short break from time to time to extend the life of the motor and keep the deer guessing that much more. I'm thinking somewhere around 1 minute on and then 1 minute off would be close enough to the ideal interval.

The above timer will run you about 20 bucks when you factor in postage fees. It's what the industry calls a "delay" timer. I thought the off period was adjustable and it had a built in 4 minute on interval.

Once I wired this unit up it was obvious I had made a mistake. The delay happens right after you turn it on. Once the time has elapsed the unit comes on and stays on.

I'm open to any and all suggestions. There is a heavy duty solution, but expect to pay anywhere from 70 to 90 bucks for the CAP recycle timer which allows for both on and off times to be adjusted.

I started using these shower curtain connectors because I found a jar of them in the barn.

You could use any type of string, rope, or chain, but each material will give you a different swing.

The best way to find out is just to experiment with what you've got. I like the shower curtain connectors because it makes it easy to adjust the length and the part that rubs on the clanger gives you an additional metal on metal noise that helps vary the noise signature.

If you've got an old computer laying around it might be possible to use it as a dedicated multi timer control center.

Timer 5.0.0 provides the ultimate control of up to 24 channels via 3 printer ports. The program enables your home computer to control relays, solenoids, pumps, or whatever you can imagine.

It's too complex of a solution for my tastes, but some of you out there might start with a timer for your deer deterrent and find out how much fun it might be to control your sprinklers and security lights once you've got the system in place.

I could see this also controlling an automatic chicken coop door by customizing each day's close time to account for the changing bed times through the year.

It's easy to become complacent in the fight to keep deer out of the garden area.

I highly recommend you never drop your guard no matter how well the mechanical deer deterrents work.

Last week I noticed how our most important deterrent had stopped swinging due to a rather larger weed blocking its path. It gave me unhappy flash backs of when I had a technical problem with one last year and before I knew what hit me a pair of deer were nibbling on part of the garden in broad day light!


In my opinion the key is constant vigilance. Make a point to check on each one and note any changes in operation. Trim down the surrounding weeds to prevent any obstructing blockage.
 


It's a good idea to have a back up deterrent on hand for any problems you might encounter. This way you can minimize your possible down time which can be  a dangerous window of opportunity for the enemy. Once they break through and take their snack prize it's much harder to keep them out.