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Archive for the ‘pets’ Category

An orange and white cat eats from a bowl with a hinged cover. The cat and the bowl are on top of an MDF platform.

If you have more than one pet, you may know how hard it is to tell how much each furry friend is eating. If you introduce prescription foods, then this minor annoyance can have a major impact on your pet’s health. Facing this dilemma, [tomasdiazwahl] set out to make a pet feeder that feeds his pets exactly what they need when they approach the feeder.

Using the ever-popular Arduino Uno, the feeder is connected to a platform that uses load cells to detect the pet’s weight. The weight data is then used to identify which animal is looking for food. Once the pet is identified, the correct food bowl opens. It seems this prototype only has one food chamber to keep unauthorized pets from eating the special food, but the basic idea should be extensible to two or more chambers. While some existing solutions read the pet’s microchip or NFC collars to determine who’s at the feeder, [tomasdiazwahl] decided against these given the fickleness of trying to reliably get a reader at the correct position relative to the pet. As long as you don’t have multiple pets with the same weight, it should work just fine.

This project has a nice mix of woodworking, 3D printing, and electronics showing what can be accomplished when you aren’t afraid to mix techniques. We also really appreciate that [Tomasdiazwahl] spent the extra time to include a testing procedure and safety mechanism into the project. Designing a device to improve your pet’s health shouldn’t come with a safety risk!

This isn’t the first cat feeder we’ve covered that uses weight to tell the difference between the pets, and if you want a simpler project to start with, check out this Simple Auger Pet Feeder.

Pic-2016-02-16-23;44;53Need a quick mood lift when you're missing your pet? This treat dispensing camera rig will text you a photo of your pet.

Read more on MAKE

The post Remote Treat Dispenser Sends You Adorable Photos of Your Pet appeared first on Make: DIY Projects and Ideas for Makers.

Feb
13

New Project: GPS Cat Tracker

arduino, Computers & Mobile, Electronics, pets Commenti disabilitati su New Project: GPS Cat Tracker 

WithTracker1Find out exactly where kitty wanders all day.

Read more on MAKE

Ott
18

New Project: Pet Water Warden

arduino, cats, dogs, Electronics, GreatCreate, Hacks, Home, pets, RadioShack, Weekend Projects Commenti disabilitati su New Project: Pet Water Warden 

Stella_Pet_DrinkUse an Arduino, MakerShield, and ethernet shield to build an automatic water dispensing system to fill up your pet's water bowl while you're away. The sensors connected to the circuit know when the bowl is low - and filled - with water, and it can even tweet when the reservoir runs out.

Read more on MAKE



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