Pig Trap Build
The Original Bacon Guillotine I
Tired of controlling my pigs, one at a time, at my little place so I decided to build my own cell phone activated pig trap. I am no electronics expert and I am a worse welder. I just started researching some of the commercially available traps to get a general idea. I found a GSM switch on Amazon for 135.00. Followed the instructions and went to the ATT store and activated it on a prepaid plan. More on this later. Bought a couple door poppers, one a 100lb and one a 30lb, and old feeder battery. Bought some metal, had an idea on the general build and off I went.
I made my door 5'x5' but it should have been 5' x50" tall to match a cattle panel. The channel was two pieces of angle iron welded together 7' tall.
The time I spent the most on was the trigger. I could not find anything that was simple and cheap, a key component to this build. I tried a few different things and just wasn’t happy with any of them. At this point I was thinking I needed a really powerful solenoid or a heavy duty electronic switch. What I came up with next was probably the cheapest, crazy, flimsy idea ever…but it works amazing. I was trying to think of what holds a lot of wait and is really easy to trigger…… a caliper style archery release. Found a cheap cobra in my pile, fabricated it up and testing worked flawlessly. Who knows on the longevity of it but I am not building this as a commercial unit and if I have to replace something it would not a lot to repair/replace
At this point it was just throwing everything together and I could not be happier with it, assuming it works in the field! The switch is simple, two power wires in and 2 switch wires from the relay to the solenoid. I don’t know the quality of the switch but it was not expensive if I need to replace.
Ok on the GSM switch application. The literature says that after activating your prepaid plan you will never use any data because the switch will recognize your number, reject the call, and activate the relay. I wanted to use ATT because I know how the service is with them at my place. The plan I chose with them is 27.00 worth of data but here is the kicker…it expires in 90 days so the selling point of not using any data is really not applicable with ATT. Also, using the call method you need to call to activate the relay and then call back again to close it. This leaves the relay open for several seconds, and longer, which caused a couple wire fires on my set up. I switched to the texting method of operating the switch which you can program a delay and have the relay close after the desired time. Works perfectly and since my data will expire anyway, I will never use 27.00 of data by texting unless I am catching a ton of pigs. Supposedly there is a way to program the delay with the call method, but I abandoned it because I like the texting method better. One other issue with the prepaid plan is that if you want to manage your plan online you have to create an account. To do that you have to have the prepaid sim in a phone so they can text you a password for the initial account creation. The SIM of the switch is the old, larger sized SIM cards. I had to order a sim adapter for an old Iphone I had. The adapter is just a metal template of the smaller sim card and then a metal adapter of the larger sized SIM card(to get back into the switch). You have to cut the larger sim card to the template of the small size. You then use a tiny file to fine tune the cut piece into the template. Kinda scary but it was pretty simple. The whole process took 15 minutes. Pop the small sim into your old phone, go to ATT. Com and open a new prepaid account. They will text you a temporary passcode and you are good to go. I wanted to monitor the usage so I would never run out otherwise you can skip this step and just call the ATT prepaid automated number and pay by phone.
I do have video that I can send to anyone if they are interested in seeing it work.
Costs
Switch 135.00
Solenoid 25.00
Component box 30.00
Metal 210.00
Odds and ends 20.00
The Original Bacon Guillotine I
Tired of controlling my pigs, one at a time, at my little place so I decided to build my own cell phone activated pig trap. I am no electronics expert and I am a worse welder. I just started researching some of the commercially available traps to get a general idea. I found a GSM switch on Amazon for 135.00. Followed the instructions and went to the ATT store and activated it on a prepaid plan. More on this later. Bought a couple door poppers, one a 100lb and one a 30lb, and old feeder battery. Bought some metal, had an idea on the general build and off I went.
I made my door 5'x5' but it should have been 5' x50" tall to match a cattle panel. The channel was two pieces of angle iron welded together 7' tall.
The time I spent the most on was the trigger. I could not find anything that was simple and cheap, a key component to this build. I tried a few different things and just wasn’t happy with any of them. At this point I was thinking I needed a really powerful solenoid or a heavy duty electronic switch. What I came up with next was probably the cheapest, crazy, flimsy idea ever…but it works amazing. I was trying to think of what holds a lot of wait and is really easy to trigger…… a caliper style archery release. Found a cheap cobra in my pile, fabricated it up and testing worked flawlessly. Who knows on the longevity of it but I am not building this as a commercial unit and if I have to replace something it would not a lot to repair/replace
At this point it was just throwing everything together and I could not be happier with it, assuming it works in the field! The switch is simple, two power wires in and 2 switch wires from the relay to the solenoid. I don’t know the quality of the switch but it was not expensive if I need to replace.
Ok on the GSM switch application. The literature says that after activating your prepaid plan you will never use any data because the switch will recognize your number, reject the call, and activate the relay. I wanted to use ATT because I know how the service is with them at my place. The plan I chose with them is 27.00 worth of data but here is the kicker…it expires in 90 days so the selling point of not using any data is really not applicable with ATT. Also, using the call method you need to call to activate the relay and then call back again to close it. This leaves the relay open for several seconds, and longer, which caused a couple wire fires on my set up. I switched to the texting method of operating the switch which you can program a delay and have the relay close after the desired time. Works perfectly and since my data will expire anyway, I will never use 27.00 of data by texting unless I am catching a ton of pigs. Supposedly there is a way to program the delay with the call method, but I abandoned it because I like the texting method better. One other issue with the prepaid plan is that if you want to manage your plan online you have to create an account. To do that you have to have the prepaid sim in a phone so they can text you a password for the initial account creation. The SIM of the switch is the old, larger sized SIM cards. I had to order a sim adapter for an old Iphone I had. The adapter is just a metal template of the smaller sim card and then a metal adapter of the larger sized SIM card(to get back into the switch). You have to cut the larger sim card to the template of the small size. You then use a tiny file to fine tune the cut piece into the template. Kinda scary but it was pretty simple. The whole process took 15 minutes. Pop the small sim into your old phone, go to ATT. Com and open a new prepaid account. They will text you a temporary passcode and you are good to go. I wanted to monitor the usage so I would never run out otherwise you can skip this step and just call the ATT prepaid automated number and pay by phone.
I do have video that I can send to anyone if they are interested in seeing it work.
Costs
Switch 135.00
Solenoid 25.00
Component box 30.00
Metal 210.00
Odds and ends 20.00
Attached Files
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