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[mb30]

Hello! Do you remember a few years ago you did a little experiment where you hooked a counter up to your chinchilla wheel and got a rough estimate of how much ground was covered? Do you remember the results of that?

[GrayRodent]

Wow I don't remember exactly but it I think it was something over three miles.

[mb30]

Was that in one night do you remember?

Out of curiosity

[GrayRodent]

I just did a search on the forum and found it. The highest count recorded was 5700. I calculated around 4mi on a 15" wheel. Normally counts were around 2,000 by morning after the counter was reset at night.

The data was a single magnet that closed a reed switch every one rotation. Considering the wheel can spin a few times after the animal jumps off the number is probably a bit higher than if it were to detect whether or not the animal was actually running.

I have plans to build a more sophisticated system but I don't know when I'll actually do it. That one will measure quarter rotations and will log RPMs to help weed out false positives.

[mb30]

Thank you for the reply. Very interesting stuff.