How much to keep racoon deterrent on 24hours

Kill a watt at Radio Shack or measure the current or use the load draw posted on the machine and multiply i.e. if the thing draws 10 watts it would be 10x24hrx30day divide by 1000 equals 7.2 Times what you pay per kwh. Using my rate of 0.11 that would be

0.792 cents per month.

If your worried about it put a timer or photo cell on the unit so it only runs at night. My guess you could run it for 10 hours a day and be fine.

How do you know raccoons are not attracted to ultrasonic sound? Dog whistles call dogs and a raccon is basically just a little dog. Certainly if they start associating the sound to full trash cans they will come from miles around.

I'm not an engineer, but I'd like to try this one.

This is probably a pulsed device. If it draws current, perhaps two watts, for one out of five seconds, that's 12 seconds per minute. 12 seconds times 1,440 minutes per day = 17,280 seconds used. Each second is using two watts, which equals 34,560 watt/seconds. Divided by 360 seconds in one hour, that equals 96 watts per day.

If you're paying $0.10 per kilowatt hour, divide $0.10 by 96, which equals $0.001041666 per day; or $0.03125 per 30 days.

A draw of 10 watts would have put this estimate close to the manufacturer's estimate.

Okay, fun time is over: bring on the experts.

Michael Whatever it takes.

Mike,

You'll have to consider the fact that watt(power) is rate of energy consumption (joules/s). Total energy consumption is measured in joules, but lay people don't know that, so they give it to you in terms you'll understand. Hence the term kwatt*hour. Notice the multiply sign. A watt is 1000 joule/second. Multiply that by 3600 (number of seconds in an hour). So 1 kwatt*hour is 3.6MJ (megajoules). If you want to know how much 1 joule of energy is in electrical terms take a 9v source and charge a 25000uF (microFarad) capacitor with it. When it's fully charged, lick the two terminals of the charaged capacitor with your tongue and you'll get a "taste" of what 1 Joule of energy is. Of course you won't taste much of anything else after that. I'm not condoning this of course. I'm joking.

Okay back to the lecture. So with the assumption of $0.10/kw*hr that would be ~$27.8e-9/joule. If Miss Cook's vermin annoying device were to operate at 2 watts continuously for a full 24 hours. That would be

2*24*3600 = 172,800 joules of energy in 1 day. Multiply 27.8e-9 * 172.8e3 = $.0048 (roughly speaking). $0.0048 * 30 (days) = $0.144 or about 15 cents a month. I'm thinking Miss Cook can afford to annoy nature indefinitely as long as she's making at least 15 cents a month.

I hope I haven't been too sarcastic. Just couldn't help it.

Cheers!

I bought an ultra sonic gadget to put in my rose garden (two in fact) They last about 2 months on 5 D cells each. That's a lot more than 25 to 30 cents a month. . . I DO NOT FOLLOW MANY OF THESE NEWS GROUPS To answere me address mail to snipped-for-privacy@aol.com

Where I live it would be about $1.90 a month. . . I DO NOT FOLLOW MANY OF THESE NEWS GROUPS To answere me address mail to snipped-for-privacy@aol.com

Put some fish bones or skin in and they will also come from miles aroung.

They used to come right up on my porch and eat out of my 150 pound Great Pyranese dish.

It was a kick. The dog lay there with the dish between his immense paws, as big as a man's hand, and a bowl of water alont side. The coon would come right up to my dog and sit in front of him take food from his bowl and wash it in the water and eat it and the dog would look as amused as we were. Pyrs are gentle to most animals except Wolves, bears and some other dogs.

I have had my pyre jump a 6 foot fence to chase an old momma bear that used to cross over the mountain ridge I live on to get to the lake below. He bloodied her and she took a different path in the future. . . I DO NOT FOLLOW MANY OF THESE NEWS GROUPS To answere me address mail to snipped-for-privacy@aol.com

I really don't have a problem with raccoons or any of the other critter that live in my yard. I just secured my trash cans so they don't make a mess. My neighbors do everything from trapping to shooting and it doesn't seem to scare them off. I doubt a little noise will do anything. It's like thinking those ultrasonic gizmos can keep roaches away. They outlasted the KT meteor and everything the planet has thrown at them for the next 65 million years including some of the most deadly chemicals man can make. You really think a little noise will bother them?

I keep my raccoon out of the yard by keeping him in a cage in the family room. Bert only goes out on a leash. You're right about the raccoons heritage, procyon means before canine and the Eastern American Raccoon is procyon lotor lotor. Unlike a dog, if we whistle for Bert, he whistles back!

ARM

Loi,

It seems kind of silly to convert to joules to do the calculation when device power consumption is spec'd in watts and electric power is billed by the kw/hr (at least here in the US). You get the same results without the intermediate conversion to joules:

Using your numbers...

2 watts * 24 hours/day * 30 days = 1.44 kilowatt*hours

$0.10/kilowatt*hour * 1.44 kilowatt*hours = $0.144

So you see, even we "lay people" can figure out the cost of our energy consumption! ;)

Regards,

Paul

Loi Tran wrote:

yOU must have dumb coons where you live. The coons around my house can open any type of garbage pail cover. Lucky we are connected to a sewer. Fish remains go down the garbage disposal.

Where I live, shoot a coon, go to jail. In fact shoot any thing in a national forest, go to jail. in fact, shoot, and go to jail. . . I DO NOT FOLLOW MANY OF THESE NEWS GROUPS To answere me address mail to snipped-for-privacy@aol.com

When I whisle for one of my pyrs they just give me a quizzical look.

But that is one way, (keeping him in a cage) that keeps him from getting rabies. They can climb trees like mad. When one climbs a 150 foot tree around here, forget about getting him down.

HOw does you coon take to the cage. Here we are not allowed to do that. Mountain lions pets and pet bears are also frowned upon. . . I DO NOT FOLLOW MANY OF THESE NEWS GROUPS To answere me address mail to snipped-for-privacy@aol.com

1. There hasn't been a case of raccoon rabies in Ohio in many years.
2. Bert has had his shots, both feline and canine rabies vacinations.

My daughter has found that a TootsieRoll Pop makes a good lure to get Bert out of a tall tree. What's amazing is to see him climb down head first! Of course, it was a shag bark hickory!

ARM

OBTW - When my wife told people where she works that we had acquired a raccoon, 90% of her email that day was recipes.

Personally, I refuse to eat anything I have named.

I understand. I am of the Rube Goldberg school of thought when it comes to lecturing. Sorry. I was just trying to point out the poster's error in thinking that watts was energy when it is actually rate of energy consumption. Anal? Yes. Correct? Also yes. It evens out. I'm a correct anal jerk. Hence my meandering calculations to drive the point home. Yes, I know. I can be annoying sometimes. :)

And I meant no disrespect when it comes to calling non-engineers "lay-people."

Later.

Loi

I am in Florida. I think there is enough natural food in the environment to make trash less appealing. A bungie cord over the top of the can and having them in a cart that the coons can't turn over seems to be plenty. It is funny to watch the coons drop out of the orange trees and run off into the scrub when you go out back though.

In article , snipped-for-privacy@cox.net says... | If your worried about it put a timer or photo cell on the unit so it only | runs at night. My guess you could run it for 10 hours a day and be fine. | |

A photo cell or PIR would likely consume as much as the unit or possibly more than the device itself.

I suspect the device will use such a tiny amount of current that your electricity meter will not even register it.

In article , snipped-for-privacy@all.com says... | It seems kind of silly to convert to joules to do the calculation when | device power consumption is spec'd in watts and electric power is billed | by the kw/hr (at least here in the US). You get the same results without | the intermediate conversion to joules: | |

He was just showing you how good he was at mathematics ;-)