Bizarre Problem: Bird-Proofing A Desktop

[ArtShapiro]

This is a delightfully weird situation which might evoke some outside-of-the-box suggestions from folks.

I have a good friend whose home desktop computer (on 24x7) is in the same small office as her large moluccan cockatiel. "Feathers" is constantly preening himself, and the unexpected result is that the entire room is always coated with a fine layer of microscopic feather particles to a degree that I find remarkable.

Unfortunately that includes the computer, including the inside.

In December, I opened up the computer do do some upgrades, and was astonished by the amount of crud inside. I've seen bad computer insides before - things that haven't been opened in years - but this one trumped 'em in spades. We took it outside and blew it out with a leafblower, and it would not be hyperbole to say that it looked like a small nuclear device had gone off in the neighborhood! If only I had a video camera.

She recently reported that both her CDRW and her DVD drives had stopped functioning. I came over last weekend and found with a couple of my CDs that it was sporadic, although hers didn't seem to work at all. I opened up the computer and as expected there was a lot of feather debris inside, although not as bad as before. I opened the CD tray and found, as I feared, that the normally-closed tray had the dreaded dust. My finger was white from touching the tray.

My theory is that the lens is probably coated with this stuff. I have a CD cleaner brush gismo on order, and hope it will clean the lens although I'm apprehensive. I hate to think that nice Toshiba and Sony drives have to be considered as consumables requiring periodic replacement due to feather particles!

Does anyone have any wild ideas about minimizing this unusual problem? She's not anxious to move the bird to another room, which I can appreciate. It's a store-built box without a fancy filtered case; getting one of those cases would certainly be an option although non-trivial in cost and transplanting effort. I'd thought about cutting pieces of a furnace filter and taping them in front of the power supply fan and the single case fan, hoping that airflow wouldn't be severely constricted.

But perhaps someone has some experience in similar situations or can come up with something offbeat.

Art

[RealBlackStuff]

You came to the right website!
Our Chief of Staff, Bill Morrow, is kept by parrots.
He should know all about your/her problem .

As an offbeat solution, go to a birthing hospital etc. and see if you can buy a used incubator!
http://www.nuh.nhs.uk/qmc/MESU/images/A ... _small.jpg

[rkawakami]

I would suspect you mean a Moluccan cockatoo, not the smaller relative, the cockatiel (see picture at left). Rather than trying to keep stuff from entering the computer case I think she should attack the problem at the source. Best bet to keep bird dust down is to give the bird a "bath" every day. This can be as simple as using a spray bottle (if the bird is comfortable with it) or going as far as taking the bird into the shower (no soap or shampoo). This will not totally eliminate the dust but it's good for keeping the bird dander down and healthy for the bird himself. If the bird has not been exposed to the joys of a bath or shower before then he may be leery of the experience. This would especially be true if a squirt bottle has been used as a behavior correction tool .

A portable air filer/cleaner may also help a little bit but they're usually not too efficient and they can be fairly costly.

My problem is that my cockatiel likes to get preened by my fingers as I'm typing on the keyboard. He will crawl down off my shoulder, jump onto the keyboard and stick his head down at my fingertips. He also likes to sit on any open keyboard and clean himself.

[ArtShapiro]

As an offbeat solution, go to a birthing hospital etc. and see if you can buy a used incubator!

Gee, I'm not sure how Feathers would react to being kept in an incubator!

Art

[Kyocera]

Art I have no experience with this. That being said I"ll give some advice anyway!

I think your on the right track by cutting up the air filter. BUt I know they make car air filters in many different sizes and shapes. Maybe you could get one cut it to size and tape it to the outside or inside of the fan vents. Also copiers have air filters on all the fan vents (some copiers have up to 5 fans) that slide into a slot. Every time I go to the local landfill there are 3 or 4 copiers getting dumped. If you remove the rear cover there may be one or two small filters you could get for free.

[ArtShapiro]

I would suspect you mean a Moluccan cockatoo, not the smaller relative, the cockatiel

... This would especially be true if a squirt bottle has been used as a behavior correction tool .

A portable air filer/cleaner may also help a little bit but they're usually not too efficient and they can be fairly costly.

Thanks - yeah, this is a BIG white bird - bigger than a breadbox, smaller than a pterodactyl.

She does use the squirt bottle to curtail the frequent stentorian screeching. I'll ask about bath frequency.

I have one of those round Honeywell filter contraptions at home in one bedroom and it sure collects a lot of cat hair. I think in a relatively small area it might be a reasonable thing to try, if the resultant draft wasn't harmful to the bird. I know they're not very expensive on eBay or CraigsList.

Appreciate the input so far, everyone.

Art

[rkawakami]

<snip> I have one of those round Honeywell filter contraptions at home in one bedroom and it sure collects a lot of cat hair.

Don't get me started on cat fur. We have a long-haired Maine Coon who absolutely loves to keep leaving "fur circles" on our dark green carpet (she runs around chasing real and imaginary toys, depositing tuffs of fur as she turns sharply or rolls around). Besides the bird dust on my open Thinkpads, they also attract "Boo-fur" . Of course it doesn't help that my work desk is also one of Boo's favorite places to watch the world pass by outside.

I think in a relatively small area it might be a reasonable thing to try, if the resultant draft wasn't harmful to the bird.

If the filter/cleaner exhausts the air in one direction, then simply pointing it away from the bird cage would be fine.

[ArtShapiro]

If the filter/cleaner exhausts the air in one direction, then simply pointing it away from the bird cage would be fine.

I don't know if they make various models; the one I happen to own is omnidirectional. A fan sucks in air from the top (I think) of the cylindrical unit and exhausts equally about the perimeter through two filters, a large cylindrical Hepa filter looking like a furnace filter bent into a circle, and a thin (1/4") carbon meshy sheet which goes around the first filter's circumference and is held with two pieces of Velcro. Then a louvered cover sits over the whole ball o' wax to make it look attractive.

Actually, I might have it all backwards, as the outside of the thin filter is what's covered with cat hair. Maybe that's the input and the exhaust is equally directional from the center. But that's an implementation detail.

That latter filter might make an excellent candidate for jury-rigging the computer's case.

Art

[mikey pizano]

I know the feeling well! We have 10 chinchillas and a Citron cockatoo. We have dust and fur in everything!

[joester]

Can I enter my dog in the "fur and/or dander all about the place" contest?

Joe

[RealBlackStuff]

Gee, I'm not sure how Feathers would react to being kept in an incubator!

Art

ROFL! No you silly, the incubator is for the laptop!
That way the bird can frolick around as before, without doing any damage to the laptop.

[ArtShapiro]

Alas, it's a desktop (mid tower)!

The neatest thing I've stumbled on so far is the Clean Aire enclosure:

http://www.clean-aire.com/index.htm

but I think the $350 price would be a show-stopper for her. I guess this is the same general idea as the incubator with the addition of K&N automotive filters.

Art

[phool@round]

Like this one? Incubator

Instructions....here.

LOL!!!!!

[Andersonjoe711]

back in boy-scouts we used to use mosquito netting for alot of stuff (including pasta straining)

may or may not work.

[ArtShapiro]

back in boy-scouts we used to use mosquito netting for alot of stuff

Joe, this stuff makes talcum powder look granular. Think white soot!

Mosquito netting ain't gonna cut it.

Art

[RealBlackStuff]

Only 2 options:
1) the bird goes into another room (or gets replaced by a goldfish)
2) the PC goes into another room (or gets replaced by a laptop inside said incubator or similar)

[o1001010]

i have no idea if this will work or not but i heard about it.

in front of your pc, install a larger fan than the one behind. that way the atx tower is slightly pressured, it will be a little hard to build up dust.

[ArtShapiro]

One interesting thing: I have one of her CD drives in front of me; I swapped it out last weekend.

Upon opening it up, it's actually quite clean inside. One of those silly CD cleaners - a tiny pair of brushes on a CD that get moistened with a cleaning fluid - did nothing. I guess it doesn't take much to disrupt reading and tracking of a CD, but the guts of this unit aren't covered with any of the white dust that inundates the inside of the actual computer.

But the fact remains that both drives - one CD and one DVD - were very sporadic in correct operation.

Art

[leoblob]

Thanks - yeah, this is a BIG white bird - bigger than a breadbox, smaller than a pterodactyl.

Well, since I don't know anything about birds, I'll step right in with my suggestion...

Since dust is getting into the CD drives, etc, as well as the case itself, I would build a simple wooden frame that covers the entire front of the computer and which goes back a few inches to fit tight over the case. Then, on the front of this frame I'd get some really good air filtration material such as Filtrete. Whenever the computer is running, ALL the air entering the case (whether thru the "regular" vent slots, or thru the CD drive itself) will be filtered.

Drawbacks: This filter/frame will need to be temporarily removed every time you want to turn the computer on or off, or when you want to insert or remove optical media. Also, since good filtration material will offer some resistance to air flow, you need to make sure there's still enough air flow to keep things adequately cool inside the computer case.

IMO a room air cleaner (even a good one) will not do the job. I have a giant one and there's still dust.

[Andersonjoe711]

I was in the local computer repair shop today, and saw these packages that had vinyl or similar materials that were formed to cover the keyboard, monitor, and tower. If it's not being used 24/7 it may be an option to cover them when not in use.

you may even be able to modify them to function while the tower is on?

[ArtShapiro]

As my original message indicated, the machine is, in fact, never turned off.

I'm just about to head up there (we're entered in a grotesquely difficult bicycle ride tomorrow and are driving up a day early) and will describe some of the interesting responses in this thread.

If you never hear from me again, assume the ride was fatal.

Art

[rkawakami]

Now that's not the way to end a thread Good luck on your ride!

[ArtShapiro]

Thanks - I'm still waiting for the phone call to get out of here.

It's pretty bad - 110 miles with 12000+ feet of climbing. It's the first of three similarly wretched ordeals spaced three weeks apart. Completing them all gives one the right to wear a "King of the Mountain" jersey. Said jersey attracts a lot of attention.

And the call just arrived as I'm typing. Bye!

Art

[Miller88]

I took the front bezel off of a few PCS and modified a furnace filter to work with it. This Actually worked pretty well ... A LITTLE dust got in around the optical drives but other than that it worked well.

[Andersonjoe711]

that clean aire enclosure looks like it would be relatively simple to make on your own, then it wouldn't cost $300+


Edit: Looking on youtube I found an interesting concept. Oil cooled computers. Set this baby up, and you don't have to worry about filters and enclosures! don't know how good it is for a computer to be soaking in oil, but there's alot of postings about it, so it cant be too bad.