I made more progress on the cat feeder tonight!
I attached the motor to the back, and the shaft now goes thru and connects to the original (modified) plastic shaft from the dispenser.
The lid has an ultrasonic distance sensor pointing down at the food to be able to tell how much is left in the chute.
There's a button on top to be able to manually dispense a dose.
Lastly, I added a terminal block to connect the wires from the scale for easier mounting to the processor later.
Next up, I need to start connecting all the components to the circuitry! The load cell amplifier, stepper motor driver, and finally the esp32 controller. Then it'll be time to write some software!
#homeautomation #esp32 #arduino #catfeeder #hackyourcat #cathacks
#arduino
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Made some good progress on building my automatic cat feeder today!
Tore apart a kitchen scale to extract the load sensor and platform. Built a stand out of some MDF board. Attached the scale to the base, mounted the dispenser to the back.
Tomorrow I get the motor and can mount that to the back as well as wire up all the circuitry!
In the end, this will be able to drop food into the bowl only if the bowl isn't already full. It'll also track how much is left in the dispenser, as well as hopefully be able to tell when she actually eats by measuring the weight of the bowl!
#homeautomation #internetofthings #automaticcatfeeder #smartfeeder #diy #arduino
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Finished building this prototype of an Arduino-based switcher for the #Blackmagic #ATEM video switcher and got a chance to use it to film the @bikeportland live podcast at @simple on Thursday! Of course now I have all sorts of ideas of how I want to improve it!
