Small Pet Feeder - once a day

thingiverse

My daughter needed a pet feeder for her hedgehogs while we go on vacation. I started by trying out a few auger-type pet feeders but they always would bind on the food and stop. There was a few that were creative and wiggled the motor to try to keep it from binding but I always had trouble with it. So, I made this monstrosity. It's sort of ugly and I don't know if my daughter will even like it or use it but I thought I'd post it on here in case it was just what someone was looking for. I'll admit, it's sort of weird so I sort of doubt my daughter will like it, but I had fun making it. Anyway, I hope one of you out there like it. It drops pet kibble once a day from the buckets. It uses an arduino mega, a 1602 lcd with buttons, a 5v stepper motor, and an led. I should have probably used an arduino uno or nano but I had a few arduino megas already, so I used that. I made the chain link first as I wanted it to be able to print without supports and then made it with the smaller bucket but the wife thought it wasn't big enough so I made the bigger bucket. I included a tank tred link for fun so I suppose the chain links could be used for a lot of projects. Most of the pieces don't need supports but some of them like the cog and brace do. The cog with the motor, you'll want to superglue the axel to the cog (but don't superglue it to the standard). The other cog, you'll want to leave free wheeling but you may want to superglue that axel to the standard. You can feed the chain through and then connect it after it's put together. I've included the arduino sketch if you want to program an arduino mega and build one. The idea is that this thing will sit on top of the hedgehog cage and drop the food down onto a plate. I suppose this could work for sitting above a fishtank also. If you opt to not print buckets all the way around and use some plain old chain links, you should make sure you at least balance the same number of buckets on both sides of the chain otherwise it makes it really hard for the weak 5v stepper to turn the whole chain. Also, don't make the brace too tight or else the chain won't turn - there needs to be a little slack, but not too much. Here's a video of it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_U--DCuswk