New Equipment Needed

I need to develop new equipment. I want to create a contraption that is capable of catching an entire colony at once, after the colony is fed inside it a few days. I want to make it collapsible and cheap and easy. And I want to be able to trigger it remotely.

I briefly researched different methods of remote triggering. I don't know how one uses a computer to trigger an action remotely and wirelessly. I suppose that uses RF also. But I don't know how to make it happen.

That leaves me with the usual suspects--solenoids, triggered by Rf, and servos triggered by RF. Infrared senders are too weather affected and required line of sight between sender and receiver.

I looked at a garage door sender/receiver at Radio shack, but I believe the receiver requires household voltage. I would then need to hook the receiver, besides to a power supply, to a servo arm or solenoid to trigger the mechanical action of tripping the trap. I don't know a lot about electricity or any of these things.

I bet if I could figure it out, I could use those child toy walkie talkie units to send, receive and trigger. Or baby monitors.

What I need to figure out, is how to configure receivers with a realistic portable power supply, then a servo or solenoid to trigger action.

What I also want, is a sender on the trap, so that when a trap springs, a signal is sent back to the receiver, triggering an action that would let me a know a trap is sprung, like a light going on, and I'd like to be able to put these on multiple traps, and know, when one springs, which trap is sprung.

I know with garage door openers you can set the signal frequency using those little switches inside. So with the same sender/receiver units, I could set different codes in for each sender, to trigger the receiver, and probably number the responses. If garage door receives require household voltage, it would not be hard to wire it to a switch and light, if one was waiting inside where that was available. If not, I suppose I could get a converter that plugged into the cigarette lighter in the car, to convert 12 volt to household to use the receiver in my car.

But I don't know how to convert a receiver on a trap, that might require household voltage, to manageable mobile power, like a battery.

I can just go back to the old RC car sender receivers, I suppose, that use AA batteries and servos, packed nicely together in a unit readily available at hobby stores. I'm still using my old one, rigger to trip a trap from a mile away, if need be. Works just fine so I don't know why I would try to improve on something that works just fine the way it is.

I dusted off the old $10 RC car I bought a couple years back and experimented with, for its RC range and interference. The range on the sender is limited and outside RF can suddenly trigger the trap using such unregulated frequencies, but it isn't bad as a cheap alternative to the $50 hobby store sender/receiver/servo. I trigger action with the RC car, with either its two actions, wheel motion, forward or backward, or wheel axle movement.

BAck to the colony trapper. I am making it basically a large wire collapsible cage, that can be sturdied with braces, will have a feeding shelf in the large chamber and two tunnel entrances, both of which can be closed, both of which will be capable of closing simultaneously with remote trigger. The cats can then be let out one at a time into live traps.

I am attempting to write this as Whisper Willow, the Spicer Red girl kitten, attacks and plays with my hair and nose. It isn't easy.