While every home is different, there are some common points of entry: Weep Vents Activity peaks during the fall when mice return to their indoor nests as temperatures decline. Mice will spend spring and summer gathering food to store through winter inside walls and attics. They easily ascend vertical brick walls to access roof areas and will also climb vines and vegetation that extend to the roofline. Mice also have an amazing ability to climb, meaning they can enter your home through openings well above ground level. Mice can take advantage of existing holes and gaps but will also use their powerful teeth to create holes of their own. Regardless of age and construction, nearly every home is a candidate for mouse intrusions. While mice easily take advantage of building material deterioration on older homes, their small size also allows them to find their way into houses that are newly constructed. These troublesome rodents are found as often in cities and suburbs as they are in the country. Mice are able to enter through holes the size of a dime. Due to their size and physical makeup, mice are capable of squeezing themselves into the tiniest of holes. The door is made of red and white 3mm acrylic with a black 3D printed bracket.Preventing mice from entering your home is a critical step in solving any mouse problem. The 5mm metal rod is secured by 5mm flange bearings set into the top and bottom acrylic sheets of the outer box.Īt the top of the 5mm steel rod is a pulley that connects via a GT2 timing belt to another 5mm steel rod that acts as a hinge for the door (picture 3 and 4, above). To achieve this I laser cut a slider-crank linkage (picture 2, above) out of acrylic that would connect to a 5mm steel rod and rotate 120 degrees as the carriage slide down the linear rails. I moved towards a different design that ensures the mouse is clearly visible and the door opens wide (picture 1, above). This plan was quickly abandoned for two reasons, firstly, the mouse’s snout would quickly become deformed and secondly, when the mouse made contact with the spring-loaded door, most of the mouse’s body would be hidden from view. I initially planned to use a spring to keep the door closed and the mouse would physically push the door open as it extended out of the house. This is due to the soft nature of the plywood, and while this installation ran for several hours a day for a month without fail (estimated 18,000 cycles), in the future I would like to improve this by replacing the wooden base (picture 5, above). At timestamp 1:35 in the YouTube video it is clear that the stepper motor “wiggles” as it drives. One weakness of my design was using plywood as the base plate. To achieve this I use a laser cutter to cut a piece of 3mm black acrylic into what is effectively a template, ensuring that when each component is attached, everything will remain aligned (pictures 3 and 4, above). I also used brass heat-set inserts, pressed into 3D printed parts with a hot soldering iron, to ensure the M3 and M4 bolts would securely hold everything in place (first 2 pictures, above).Įnsuring the optical guide rails are perfectly parallel is critical to avoid binding the carriage. To assemble the carriage that attaches to the mouse I used a fairly standard 200mm linear guide commonly used in 3D printing and CNC applications.
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