Mar 29, 2016 at 4:27 AM
Join Date: Aug 28, 2009
Location: The Purple Zone
Posts: 5998
Pronouns: he/him
not to be confused with a machine for pigs
i've been trying to get this together for a long time now but finally all the stars have aligned, and I've produced my very own Automatic Cat Feeding Device. Basically what this does, is dispense small amounts of cat food at measured intervals to ensure the healthiest feeding cycle for domestic felines. Pics to follow:
https://vine.co/v/iDXddOXUiYA
The design is really simple. The basis is the 3D-printed "water wheel" for kibbles, which I was able to draw up in Autodesk Fusion. This is then screwed to a continuous rotation servo that is controlled by the Adafruit Huzzah ESP8266 module. The Huzzah is obviously overkill for a project like this, but I had like a hundred of them lying around from work so I figured it'd be fun to have a wireless enabled cat food dispenser.
Anyway, the wheel sits beneath an empty 2L soda bottle that acts as the reservoir for cat food. In a future design I'd consider using a bigger container, but this works well for now as I reckon I can fit at least a week's worth of food into it. The bottle also has a soft vinyl flap keeping the food from spilling out too soon.
The rest is simply a wooden box that houses the mechanisms (out of reach of curious paws) and a window cut into the front panel, made from the wall of another plastic bottle and adhered with hot glue. If someone really wants I can go into detail about the box but yknow.. its' a box whatever.
so that's my project. felt like sharing because it was fun and kind of cool to make. Props to my grandpa for help with the woodworking, I'm not actually very good at that stuff. I know I could've bought something just like this online for like a hundred bucks, but mine's made of garbage and that makes it special.
i've been trying to get this together for a long time now but finally all the stars have aligned, and I've produced my very own Automatic Cat Feeding Device. Basically what this does, is dispense small amounts of cat food at measured intervals to ensure the healthiest feeding cycle for domestic felines. Pics to follow:
https://vine.co/v/iDXddOXUiYA
The design is really simple. The basis is the 3D-printed "water wheel" for kibbles, which I was able to draw up in Autodesk Fusion. This is then screwed to a continuous rotation servo that is controlled by the Adafruit Huzzah ESP8266 module. The Huzzah is obviously overkill for a project like this, but I had like a hundred of them lying around from work so I figured it'd be fun to have a wireless enabled cat food dispenser.
Anyway, the wheel sits beneath an empty 2L soda bottle that acts as the reservoir for cat food. In a future design I'd consider using a bigger container, but this works well for now as I reckon I can fit at least a week's worth of food into it. The bottle also has a soft vinyl flap keeping the food from spilling out too soon.
The rest is simply a wooden box that houses the mechanisms (out of reach of curious paws) and a window cut into the front panel, made from the wall of another plastic bottle and adhered with hot glue. If someone really wants I can go into detail about the box but yknow.. its' a box whatever.
so that's my project. felt like sharing because it was fun and kind of cool to make. Props to my grandpa for help with the woodworking, I'm not actually very good at that stuff. I know I could've bought something just like this online for like a hundred bucks, but mine's made of garbage and that makes it special.
