Anti Vole Device With Vibration Motor

Every year voles dig holes in my lawn, although there are so many beautiful meadows around it for their work. No, it has to be my little lawn of all places. Earth wasps nest in some of the holes, which makes things unpleasant. I have tried so-called "mole-chasers", small solar-powered buzzers that are supposed to scare away voles and moles. But they don't. The buzzers hum too regularly, the voles get used to it.

They say you should let your children play a lot of soccer on the lawn, that would drive the rodents away. But my girls don't play soccer. And we are not in the garden all the time. So what to do?

My own Anti-Vole consists of a vibration motor like the ones used in mobile phones. A Wemos D1 mini ensures that the motor vibrates at randomly selected intervals to avoid a habituation effect on the voles.

The Wemos D1 randomly selects from 5 vibration programs, the signal strength and the pauses between the operations are also subject to randomness.

After one season, the holes in the lawn have been reduced to a perceived 20%. (Unfortunately, I did not collect any comparative data beforehand for a scientific study).

It is important that the vibrations of the motor are transmitted via an iron rod (pipe) into the ground, where the vole perceives them.

Wemos D1 (or another Arduino)

LiPo charger with battery

Solar cell

Vibration motor

Square tube + iron plate (I used an old balcony railing bracket.)

Cable

[ Note: The photos may look different from what is indicated on the supply list. I only had one large solar cell left, but it provides so much energy that I could set the intervals for the vibrations shorter.

Whether with charge controller board or readymade LiPo unit: It works! ]

Close lower end by welding. Cut off the upper end at an angle and weld on the mounting plate.

Drill holes: One large one below the solar cell holder, one small one a little deeper.

Solder the cable to the motor, polarity doesn't matter in this case.

Push the motor through the large hole in the top of the square tube and let a little slack off the cable. Insert a fine wire loop through the small hole, catch the motor with it and pull it to the wall of the tube. Fix the wire with a small wooden stick, a screw or a nail. Seal both holes with silicone.

Attach the solar cell to the holder.

Upload the sketch "AntiVole.ino" to your Wemos D1 via Arduino IDE.

The Anti-Vole should not buzz regularly, but play a randomly selected buzzing programme at randomly selected intervals. After that, the Wemos D1 (Arduino etc.) falls back into deep sleep and saves energy. In the meantime, the battery recharges itself through solar energy.

Random strength of buzzing:

 pwm = (random(160, 250));  // random choose strength and buzzer

Random buzz (1 of 5):

buzNum = (random(1, 6));
 if (buzNum == 1) {
  buzz1();
 }
 else if (buzNum == 2) {
  buzz2();
 }
 else if (buzNum == 3) {
  buzz3();
 }
 else if (buzNum == 4) {
  buzz4();
 }
 else if (buzNum == 5) {
  buzz5();

Random sleep

sleeptime = (random(40e6, 300e6));  // random 40 sec - 5 min

- Connect the vibration motor to the Wemos D1 via 5V and transistor as shown in the image.

- Connect LiPo charger to Wemos D1

- Solder the solar cell to the LiPo charging unit

Important: Connect D0 and RST, otherwise the Wemos D1 cannot wake up itself!

Punch a hole in the ground with a square tube and a hammer.

Insert the anti-vole as deeply as possible to allow good vibration transmission.

The Anti-Vole worked the whole summer of 2021 without a restart. I modified the software for this project.

Housing for the circuit (Tupperware, lunch box or similar). Make it waterproof with silicone.

I took the Anti Vole device out of the garden to photograph it for this project and to protect it from the winter. What can I say: the voles are back.

So the Anti Vole works!