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dispense motor and sensor mounting, PIR sensitivity, and why I'm doing this

A project log for Vending Machine for Birds

Simple, inexpensive bird feeder that dispenses peanuts in exchange for dropping stuff in a hole. A vending machine for clever birds.

stephen-chaseyStephen Chasey 05/20/2022 at 13:340 Comments

With the new enclosure I started using some hard drive magnets to mount the vibration motor to the jar lid. This works ok, but not as good as the way I had it before (with 3mm bolts and a small piece of jar lid). It has a little bit of give to it and does not vibrate as strongly as before. So am in the process of painting the parts black before putting them in.

Also, the drop sensor does not really fit on the lid since the opening in the new enclosure is a cm or so smaller than the lid diameter (previous design has more room here). I was never a fan of mounting the sensor on a vibrating platform anyways, so I'm moving it to one of the interior walls of the enclosure. Those bits are also black and drying now.

I probably need to adjust the PIR sensor sensitivity to take it down a bit. There is a trimpot on it I can use for this. I believe it's at about 2-3 meters range now and I think it gets triggered too often, which wastes power.

I really feel like I'm closing in on a solid alpha.

A lot of people have made devices like this in hopes of getting birds to bring them something specific or getting municipalities to make use of it.

I am doing this to see if I can get them to bring me anything at all, but I'd rather they being me litter than valuables. If they do, it's cheap and simple enough that someone else can easily reproduce it.

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