Silent Bob’s an electrical genius…

Hmmm i smell a Rat!

What no arduino connected to a ethernet shield to twitterthat the mouse is dead?

I agree with the thing about batterylife.. And if could not have designed it in another way I would at least wire up a transistor to invert “the signal” so the led only was on then the trap had been activated. Just for the looks of it…

Anyway cool project, and even trough people might kill me, the thing about twittering mouse trap would be kind a cool… And you can always hope for the mouse to pee on the arduino or something.

@Wiregeek I don’t know if you have all day or something, but someone is actually just skimming what hackaday haves to say about the project, and then moves on. This article actually sums it up pretty good, so no need for actually visiting the site.

Anyway, why use more power than needed?

“…so no need for actually visiting the site.”

Unless you want to look like an idiot who can’t read.

A nice hack! No need to invert the signal since it would make the project about 5x more complex and it wouldn’t really function any better.

I probably would have soldered one wire to the back-breaking wire (whatever that things called) then twisted some stranded wire around it to complete the circuit. When the trap closed it would yank out of the stranded wire breaking the connection. (One less awkward solder joint. But I’m lazy.)

Cool. Looks like I need to get my traps out and wire them up. I have a similar problem in my attic. And since I follow the K.I.S.S. principle, I’ll go the battery/off till tripped mode.
Otherwise I’d have to make it trip something to turn something on, to broadcast it to my ethernet (the router of which is in the attic), to my web platform, to send me a text message to my phone. Which wouldn’t do any good, since I am at work all day.
So K.I.S.S. it is.

@ Henrik Pederson

No, your an idiot who can’t read if you DON’T visit the site, he’s saying…

You fail.

@Kuhltwo

I’m curious as to the basic design you’re looking at here. I cannot successfully envision a simple, reliable way to use a mousetrap to complete a circuit, given the presence of a large, furry, nonconductive obstacle under the killbar.

When the trap is open, it holds a switch open too. This switch closes, goes through a serial interface to a Mac Classic, then through a 14.4k modem to the mouse’s Facebook page, posts “blargh i ded” and sends an alert to its followers.

Why not wire it directly to the mouse, so the mouse will light up once it is electrocuted?

if you’re really concerned about using more power than needed, manually (no electric drill) drill a hole, run a fishing line down through the ceiling and attach it to the swinging end of the mousetrap (either the killing end or the trigger bar) glue (no hot glue) the mousetrap in place, go downstairs, get a ladder, mark the string with sharpie.. DUDE IT’S A COUPLE LED’S!
solar panel, windmill, charging batteries to run 2 LED’s. the point of having the LED’s always on is that if the lights are off, either something’s wrong with the electronics, or the trap has been triggered. either way, somebody needs to go upstairs and fix the problem.
anyway, to maximize efficiency, you should sharpen the kill-bar to minimize drag. just watch your fingers! (Disclaimer: Mini-Guillotine mousetraps will have PETA going nuts, so keep it a secret!)

Why not getting a cat?

Everybody thinks they can build a better mousetrap ;-) The fact remains he’s already caught HIS mouse. DONE.

I saw the wire soldered to the trigger, and I was really hoping it was high voltage and shocked the living daylights out of whatever touched it. I guess not. Oh well :]

Just for fun, rig it up to an mp3 playback module so when the trap is triggered it plays that clip from Ghostbusters when the secretary shouts:

“WE GOT ONE!!!!!!!!!!” and she triggers the alarm

It should have the microwave ding sound.