Ping Sensor and Other Questions

jtrz

Hi all,

New to Basic Stamps.· Just got my starter kit a few days ago.· The lessons are coming along nicely.· I also have a Ping sensor and have a few questions/issues with it:

1. This did not hit me until I received it and played with the Ultronic Ping Sensor a bit.· I wired up an example circuit that lights up an LED if it senses something within 8 inches of the sensors.· When I showed my wife the crcuit and switched it on, our cats stopped dead in their tracks !· It was the same effect with a dog as if someone·blew a silent dog whistle.· Then it hit me..."ultrasonic."· We cannot hear it but animals can.· Anyone else experience this ?
   
   Parallax -> Might want to put that somewhere in the descriptions/instructions ?
   
   Here's a little something from http://www.showcatsonline.com/x/hear_kitty_kitty.htm·on cat hearing:
   [font=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][size=-1]
   At the lower-pitched frequencies, there is little difference between cats, dogs or people. People hear sounds of frequencies up to about 20,000 cycles/second. Dogs hear up to 35,000 to 45,000 cycles/second. But cats can hear sounds of an amazingly high pitch - up to 100,000 cycles/second - that is 2 octaves above what humans can hear!··Of course, it is also the high pitched range of sounds made by mice and other small rodents that in the wild would be the food source for a cat.
   
   [/size][/font][font=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][size=-1]Cats also are expert at telling the precise direction that a sound is coming from. They can detect between two sound sources separated by an angle of only 5 degrees. The cat determines the direction of the source of the sound by differences in the time of arrival and intensity of sound received by the each ear.
   
   [/size][/font][font=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][size=-1]The cat's superb hearing is an evolutionary advantage that helped cats hunt for their prey food.
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2. It doesn't seem like it's hurting the cats.· But it seems like it's really annoying them.· My question is what would be the range of the sound they would hear ?· I've seen the diagrams in the instructions and they say about 8'-10' based on elevation.· So I'm assuming a radius of that ?· I'm in a basement and am hoping that they canot hear this on the 1st or 2nd floor.·
3. This circuit I'm making is for use in a magic act for a magician friend of mine.· I'm just glad he only has doves and not tigers · But I'll see if there is an effect on the birds when I take it over to his house when I'm done.· I'm thinking there should be something.· I just don't know how severe it might be.
4. Is there a way to make the sensor work on a different freq ?· I assume no.
5. I've heard that there is a "sleep" function you can program that will "wake up" when the sensor is tripped.··I·want to be able to have power to the sensor and then when the sensor is tripped, supply power to the rest of the circuit so battery life can be extended.· Can someone point me to or post the code for that ?
6. Is there an "extension" cable available that would allow the sensor to be placed away from the main circuit ?· If so, what would the max distance be ?

Thanks,

John