As I stated in the first post, the Multi-Kill traps are great when you have lots of mice to deal with. The only issue is that after awhile I stop checking them as diligently and this becomes a rather smelly problem. Enter XBee!
XBee's are neat little wireless modules that handle the dirty work of signaling. I use the Series 1 XBee with the wire antenna. It is very easy to setup, which allows the remote XBee to cyclically send data to the receiver base XBee.
I use Linux (namely Ubuntu) for pretty much everything these days. Unfortunately the XBee X-CTU application is Windows only. However, it is known to work with Wine and in my experience it works very good. (
Here is a guide for setting up the X-CTU in Ubuntu).
Here is the plan:
- Make the smallest amount of changes to the mousetrap
- Use the least amount of power as necessary on the remote transmitter XBees
- Leverage Adafruit's tweet-a-watt project for remote XBee hardware (with some modifications)
This post will focus on the hardware modification to integrate the remote (transmitting) XBee into the mousetrap. I determined that the best place to acquire the +5 and GND where on the back side of the controller board. I used +5V because the adafruit module I 'm using has a built-in 3.3V regulator. Here are a few pictures showing the install.
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh52dKcgbS0eOZUQT5yg9nPQtSTlSnPiA3A8T-npyrjlYaAB5i_cDjzZL3wSdt77mVw4nwhoZVEI9cF33vWRkMF0gLWYy3bgZeaBE59eiZE8FKWNR6g5xDlqqjRZeceRpHzX4t7gXumIdzW/s400/dsc_7749_sm.jpg) |
The tweet-a-watt uses a few more components. I removed the large capacitor. |
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_3gmvaN-tdFOhmBS5_nynbiba6Usm-ZlrlIwp97Nwd4dfVT6PA3U9Ub2Rg5OBl26VQTbByZeP2aPioqeWVv0Ik-0Y3eqm7uv8vsPynjdrpfWnav_6rtJMn_66LE8HFObjPa7SzGUaateH/s320/dsc_7760_sm.jpg) |
orange wire to AD0 and yellow wire to AD4 (shown with 10K resistors) |
Using a bit of shrink tubing solder the yellow wire to AD0 and the orange wire to AD4 of the XBee carrier board shown above. Once connected, solder the I soldered the wires as shown below.
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhENeE9tqMwbeoCjrQN8FDnXhIbIGvWH8xNIMvqPemVO53zs9lT4VlOtr1lO9sxUrKsCwHuJBRx7z-K-hdjo2Hsk57inlhw2BEdX57GrAODG9-vwjyBxJsNC854JvSyyTtbllN7Doh_9qUK/s400/dsc_7758_sm.jpg) |
Yellow wire to the Green LED lead, Orange wire to the Red LED Lead |
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUpc98oBJ3noj_FerNQ1fsSAq63-xgTX4Q683Xw0TzNpCQXlZk7QC3GEcaz57FTJyhMkwBTecnC528Mg1MRO-ptBNuTGKPkl7ey7xMxLzRQGaRUlMUGa_UJPO-xsP8XlYHhAK868QrrChq/s400/dsc_7754_sm.jpg) |
Back of board showing with White wire to +5 and Black wire to GND, this supplies XBee |
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJCM58hXzZgGjx4yJwpWxJiMH9xbcHD6_lULUUyNq4Mu82TpjItIFr2L0l0AInv6oe3o-_wOUYcEvmbE6hIrT9qFi7WHzakAnAlZgPJNLg1mmSkMGvU7n6BHO7qsDXtudWwl4dSKeJ3pis/s640/dsc_7764_sm.jpg) |
Completed mod |
Once the mod was completed I positioned it as shown above. I used a small amount of 2-sided tape to stick it the top of the battery compartment. The board fits between the back of the motor and the side of the trap. I drilled a small hole in the top of the trap for the XBee green led to protrude through the front. This is pictured below:
Next up I will talk about the programming and data collection...
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