{"id":997,"date":"2021-05-17T13:29:27","date_gmt":"2021-05-17T13:29:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.vwlowen.co.uk\/?p=997"},"modified":"2021-05-17T13:29:27","modified_gmt":"2021-05-17T13:29:27","slug":"ultrasonic-fox-deterrent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vwlowen.co.uk\/blog\/?p=997","title":{"rendered":"Ultrasonic Fox Deterrent"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.co.uk\/Repellent-Waterproof-Ultrasonic-Repellant-Deterrent\/dp\/B08XZB161Y\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"313\" height=\"387\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.vwlowen.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/sounder0.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-998\" srcset=\"https:\/\/vwlowen.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/sounder0.jpg 313w, https:\/\/vwlowen.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/sounder0-243x300.jpg 243w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 313px) 100vw, 313px\" \/><\/a><figcaption> https:\/\/www.amazon.co.uk\/Repellent-Waterproof-Ultrasonic-Repellant-Deterrent\/dp\/B08XZB161Y <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>A couple of years ago, I bought two of these fox deterrents for my front lawn but they stopped working during the winter. I&#8217;d assumed that there just wasn&#8217;t enough sun to keep the internal batteries charged but, when I took a closer look this week, I discovered they both have a manufacturing fault.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The solder joint on the positive wire from the solar panel had given way &#8211; in fact it had never been soldered properly at all.  The wire was held in place by little more than hot-melt glue. The connection on the solar panel itself seems to have some sort of nickel-plating and refused all attempts to take solder to reconnect the wire properly. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Normally, connections to this type of metal are made using a cold welding process but the blob of solder on the wire showed the manufacturer had tried to use ordinary tin\/lead or lead free solder<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I was able to make a quick and dirty repair by cleaning off the hot-melt glue from around the connection and slipping a piece of thin metal between the top of the enclosure and the underside of the solar panel. I&#8217;ve hopefully held it in place with a blob of Araldite.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The third photo below shows one unit now charging away (as shown by the blue LED) and the second unit just waiting for the Araldite to harden before reassembling it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>You may also have spotted in the bottom photo that, although the exterior of the units give the impression they have <strong>two<\/strong> ultrasonic sounders, one is just a dummy and they do, in fact, only have one!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"240\" height=\"320\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.vwlowen.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/sounder1.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-999\" srcset=\"https:\/\/vwlowen.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/sounder1.jpg 240w, https:\/\/vwlowen.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/sounder1-225x300.jpg 225w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 240px) 100vw, 240px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"240\" height=\"320\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.vwlowen.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/sounder2.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1000\" srcset=\"https:\/\/vwlowen.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/sounder2.jpg 240w, https:\/\/vwlowen.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/sounder2-225x300.jpg 225w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 240px) 100vw, 240px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"240\" height=\"320\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.vwlowen.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/sounder3.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1001\" srcset=\"https:\/\/vwlowen.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/sounder3.jpg 240w, https:\/\/vwlowen.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/sounder3-225x300.jpg 225w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 240px) 100vw, 240px\" \/><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A couple of years ago, I bought two of these fox deterrents for my front lawn but they stopped working during the winter. I&#8217;d assumed that there just wasn&#8217;t enough sun to keep the internal batteries charged but, when I took a closer look this week, I discovered they both have a manufacturing fault. The [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-997","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-electronics","category-garden"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vwlowen.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/997","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vwlowen.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vwlowen.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vwlowen.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vwlowen.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=997"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/vwlowen.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/997\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1010,"href":"https:\/\/vwlowen.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/997\/revisions\/1010"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vwlowen.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=997"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vwlowen.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=997"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vwlowen.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=997"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}