Automatic Cat Feeder

thingiverse

Hi community This is my design for an automatic catfeeder System. WHY? and what can it do? My cat has a problem with its eating-behavior, so he is always hungry. That's what made me think of a feedersystem, which releases some dried catfood once in a while. The Setup contains following 3D printed parts: - Unterteil - Oberteil - Spirale ganz V2.0 - Einfüllstutzen - Deckel - Deckel unten - 2x Halter The Electronics and mechanical Parts are as following: - 1 Arduino Nano - 1 Stepper Motor 28byj-48 - 1 Stepper Motor PCB ULN2003 - 1 microUSB PCB (to power Arduino and Motor parallel) - 1 ON/OFF Switch - 8 Neodym Magnets 5x8mm - 1 15mm 5mm Stainlesssteel rod - 1 5x11x5mm bearing - 2 M3x10 Screws - 2 M2x8 Screws It is a very easy setup and so is the Arduino Sketch. <textarea rows="20" cols="50"> #include <Stepper.h> #define STEPS 4076 // the number of steps in one revolution of your motor (28BYJ-48) Stepper stepper(STEPS, 8, 10, 9, 11); void setup() { // nothing to do } void loop() { delay(900000); // equals 15min timeinterval for next partrotation stepper.setSpeed(6); // 6 rpm - spped of rotation stepper.step(200); // do 200 steps -- corresponds to one revolution in one minute - change this according to the catfood you use } </textarea> As you see, you need to hookup Pins 8, 9, 10 and 11 on the arduino. Power it up via the mainswitch to 5v and connect also to negative Pin of the USB Power PSU. VERY IMPORTANT: THE POWER FOR THE MOTOR NEEDS TO BE PARALLEL TO THE ARDUINO POWER! This prevents the Arduino getting destroyed, if anything gets stuck and the motor is unable to turn...Negative Pins also need the same potential, so connect them. And that's it mainly. I've set the delay time to 900 seconds, which equals 15mins, but feel free to adjust this to the catfood you use! This Thing is still work in progress, upcoming updates might contain the following: - Internal Battery Pack (9V Battery) - Supports preplaced in *.stl-file - Ultrasonic Sensor to recognize if Argi is around and then release food if there has 15mins passed - any community whises are welcome! Hope you folks enjoy it and keep your cats happy :-)