To avoid problems associated with feeding pigeons in my neighborhood I revised the design to accomodate peanuts in the shell, which corvids love. After some trial and error (and some poor designs) I finally have my test candidate assembled. It's not as small or pretty as I want it to be, but I think it will work. This is my 7th enclosure design and the 5th one based on 110mm PVC. I also made a base out of a discarded wooden pallet so I can move it around easier.
It does have enough room for batteries and an opening below the platform to get a mains line or solar charging cable in. The bottom comes off by loosening a hose clamp to replace batteries. The electronics are accessible by removing the top (everything above the camera arm).
A wide-angle camera is mounted on a rotatable mount so you can position it as you like. The deposit hole and dispense chute are on either side of the platform to reduce the chance that a bird drops food into the deposit hole and the dispense chute is 50mm instead of 32mm to accomodate the larger unshelled peanuts.
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Now to put the electronics inside and do some more tests before setting it outside. It should be out back by this weekend.
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