Hello all,
We live on a small farm. During this past year I setup surveillance cameras around our property to observe nocturnal wildlife and our livestock. I enjoy sitting inside at night and watching wild opossums, owls, raccoons, skunks, foxes, etc. -- but the rat population is outrageous and extreme, so I need to reduce their numbers dramatically.
My goal is to setup an electrocution trap in front of one of our cameras. Then when I see one or several rats crawl into the "kill zone" I can press a momentary switch that turns the power on for a second or two -- just long enough to kill them. And for my ongoing viewing pleasure I can continue to watch the live action as more rats and/or other wildlife arrive for their barbecue dinner.
I have a microwave oven transformer to power this trap, and although I will never switch it "on" for more than a couple seconds at a time this still brings up a question:
Should I ballast it with something (for example an old 500 watt halogen light I never use any more) to keep the circuit breaker from tripping or to prevent the MOT from burning out? And if I ballast it, how will this affect its output power and rat killing ability?
Or should I just buy a cheap neon sign transformer on eBay ... because from what I have read, NST's are supposedly designed to run forever without needing a ballast, without burning out, and without tripping the circuit breaker?
We live on a small farm. During this past year I setup surveillance cameras around our property to observe nocturnal wildlife and our livestock. I enjoy sitting inside at night and watching wild opossums, owls, raccoons, skunks, foxes, etc. -- but the rat population is outrageous and extreme, so I need to reduce their numbers dramatically.
My goal is to setup an electrocution trap in front of one of our cameras. Then when I see one or several rats crawl into the "kill zone" I can press a momentary switch that turns the power on for a second or two -- just long enough to kill them. And for my ongoing viewing pleasure I can continue to watch the live action as more rats and/or other wildlife arrive for their barbecue dinner.
I have a microwave oven transformer to power this trap, and although I will never switch it "on" for more than a couple seconds at a time this still brings up a question:
Should I ballast it with something (for example an old 500 watt halogen light I never use any more) to keep the circuit breaker from tripping or to prevent the MOT from burning out? And if I ballast it, how will this affect its output power and rat killing ability?
Or should I just buy a cheap neon sign transformer on eBay ... because from what I have read, NST's are supposedly designed to run forever without needing a ballast, without burning out, and without tripping the circuit breaker?
