Any ideas on how to accomplish this?

[sayzer]

Cartel driveway sensors react only to moving metal.

They are nice and quite effective but cost over US$150 and the range is 50ft to 70ft.

Look at my "design under five minutes" !
It costs below $10 and the range is over a mile!


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[Luciano]

Sayzer,

What is the correct distance between the two laser beams?

(Click to enlarge)

(Click to enlarge)


Best regards,

Luciano

[bartman]

All good ideas. I like the lasers and appreciate that you drew it just for me. I'd need to work on that one to account for more than one deer coming in at a time (we've had up to 20 standing in the yard in a pack so they would cover both beams quite easily. Maybe some speed or timing routines).

The magnetic field detector also sounds cool if it has some range.

I probably could just buy the one for $150.00, but that would take all the fun and stress of building it myself away! I need to finish my current project, but I think this is a good one for next. If I can do it cheap enough I could cover a couple areas of the farm that could use some coverage.

I'd be introducing myself to all sorts of PIC commands and routines to delight and confuse me!

Thanks.

Bart

[Melanie]

There's also Pressure Sensitive Cable... but Luciano's Gay Deer might exert the same point-weight as a vehicle. Then there's a variation such as Piezo Cable... that would give you a different signal profile from a point-weight such as a hoof than from a tyre.

However for a real cheap option, this is my favourite...

[Ron Marcus]

I did some work for a client interested in perimeter detection/identification. He had a magnetic vibration sensor, which was simply a magnet suspended on a spring, inside a coil of wire. It was amazingly sensitive, and could pick up a person walking 50 feet away. There is all kinds of algorythm software to identify vibrational footprints and distinguish between vehicles, wildlife, Al Queda, etc.

Ron

PS...Those deer are probably from Vermont! Civil Union...It's not just a law, it's a Man-date!