Auto Squirt Gun help

General project help for Adafruit customers

Moderators: adafruit_support_bill, adafruit

Please be positive and constructive with your questions and comments.
Locked
daniamyx
 
Posts: 3
Joined: Sun Sep 01, 2013 5:09 pm

Auto Squirt Gun help

Post by daniamyx »

I am totally new to all of this, and believe I can figure most things out pretty well. I want to build this squirt gun to keep the cats of a food prep space, but there is not enough info for me to buy and build this thing. Can anyone fill in the details so I can get what I need? Does it need programming? Thank you so much for you help, in advance.
Link: https://makezine.com/projects/motion-ac ... gun-turret

User avatar
adafruit_support_mike
 
Posts: 67446
Joined: Thu Feb 11, 2010 2:51 pm

Re: Auto Squirt Gun help

Post by adafruit_support_mike »

The project you linked triggers the squirt gun any time the motion sensor detects something.. dog, cat, human, or otherwise. It also has no aiming mechanism, so I'm not sure how well it will work as an animal stopper.

You could build something similar using an Arduino-compatible board like our Metro 328:

https://www.adafruit.com/product/2488

a passive IR sensor:

https://www.adafruit.com/?q=pir+sensor&sort=BestMatch

and one of our relay breakouts:

https://www.adafruit.com/product/4409

The project can get more complex from there, going all the way up to a computer vision and a pan-tilt armature:

https://www.adafruit.com/product/1906
https://www.adafruit.com/product/1967

User avatar
DJDevon3
 
Posts: 210
Joined: Wed Mar 06, 2019 11:02 am

Re: Auto Squirt Gun help

Post by DJDevon3 »

My thoughts too. The guide made that project 10x more complicated than it had to be. Solder in a PIR sensor directly before or after the trigger switch. That's literally all that needs to be done. You don't need a microcontroller for a PIR sensor only the correct voltage. https://www.adafruit.com/product/189 This project can be completed with 1 PIR sensor and a soldering iron.

User avatar
adafruit_support_bill
 
Posts: 88092
Joined: Sat Feb 07, 2009 10:11 am

Re: Auto Squirt Gun help

Post by adafruit_support_bill »

Solder in a PIR sensor directly before or after the trigger switch. That's literally all that needs to be done.
Not sure about that. It depends on the circuitry inside the squirt gun. I suspect that it is pretty basic and that the motors are powered directly via the control switch.

The output of a PIR is just a logic-level signal and not at all suitable for directly switching current to a motor. You don't need a microcontroller, but you would need a transistor to switch the motor current and a diode to protect against the inductive kickback. See Dave's tutorial here: https://learn.adafruit.com/transistors- ... -2998941-9
You can substitute the PIR output for the Arduino digital pin in the schematic.

daniamyx
 
Posts: 3
Joined: Sun Sep 01, 2013 5:09 pm

Re: Auto Squirt Gun help

Post by daniamyx »

WOW, thank you so much. There just wasn't enough information in the original link, and I don't (yet) have the skill to intuit the details toward the end result.
Cheers

daniamyx
 
Posts: 3
Joined: Sun Sep 01, 2013 5:09 pm

Re: Auto Squirt Gun help

Post by daniamyx »

AdaFruit_Support_Mike
The Metro 328 is out of stock. Is it expected soon? Would it need to be programmed for my application? As I mentioned I am new to all of this Arduino stuff, so I need some detailed infor to assemble. Thank you in advance for all your help.

User avatar
adafruit_support_mike
 
Posts: 67446
Joined: Thu Feb 11, 2010 2:51 pm

Re: Auto Squirt Gun help

Post by adafruit_support_mike »

daniamyx wrote:The Metro 328 is out of stock. Is it expected soon?
You can sign up for in-stock notiication on the product page. Beyond that, we don't do ETAs. There are too many parts of the supply chain we can't control.. especially now with the global chip shortage and shipping mess.. and *way* to many people on the internet who think 'estimated' means 'guaranteed'.

The Metro Mini is still in stock if you want to use that:

https://www.adafruit.com/product/2590

It's a smaller version of the same circuit as the Metro.
daniamyx wrote:Would it need to be programmed for my application?
Yes. We have a series of tutorials to help you get started:

https://learn.adafruit.com/category/learn-arduino

There are also more than a thousand projects for people to use as reference or inspiration. Even if you don't copy a project completely, you can use parts of it, like this one for a Halloween pumpkin that uses a sensor to detect people nearby:

https://learn.adafruit.com/halloween-pumpkin/overview

Locked
Please be positive and constructive with your questions and comments.

Return to “General Project help”