IOT 3D Printed Automatic Cat Feeder

[HoolyHoo]

So I wanted to make something fun but practical for my entry. Procrastinated a while until one day while sitting on the couch I looked over and saw this.

IOTCatFeeder - 4.jpg (1.25 MiB) Viewed 9867 times

That's our cat Nala trying to camouflage herself into that chair. She gave me the perfect inspiration. Lazy cat deserves a lazy owner. So I decided to go with an IOT automatic cat feeder. Here is a short video of what the final version looks like.



I'm quite pleased with its simplicity and its practical nature. I used a small servo with the ESP32. Inside there is also a RTC to set up an automatic feeding schedule with portion sizes. The red push button overrides the schedule and does a manual feeding. The active buzzer sounds when feeding, sure to induce Pavlovian conditioning. And since the ESP32 has wifi built in and we are going with the lazy approach, I added a web server with a push button and some info to be able to control it from any smart phone or internet browser.

Some more photos of the internals and a screenshot of the web page from my phone.

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IOTCatFeeder - 1.jpg (2.01 MiB) Viewed 9867 times

IOTCatFeeder - 6.png (244.95 KiB) Viewed 9867 times

IOTCatFeeder - 7.png (249.84 KiB) Viewed 9867 times

IOTCatFeeder - 2.jpg (244.63 KiB) Viewed 9867 times

A few thing left to do:

* Paint the Pringles can
* Possibly add a proximity sensor to sense if the bowl overflows
* Tweak the code to be able to change the feeding times from the browser rather than being hardcoded
* Teach Nala how to push the button so she can feed herself, haha

Here is the BOM:

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CatFeederBOM.zip

(12.94 KiB) Downloaded 279 times

All for under $15, minus the cat food
Comments are always welcome Hope you enjoy my build and thank you for reading

[YaYa]

Awesome project ! Well done.

May i suggest a tactile touch button so you can teach your cat to auto feed himslef. And THEN, you’ll be a really lazy owner

[HoolyHoo]

Awesome project ! Well done.

May i suggest a tactile touch button so you can teach your cat to auto feed himslef. And THEN, you’ll be a really lazy owner

Lol, yeah see my last comment on the list of things to do. Only problem is she may get even fatter

[YaYa]

Yeah i saw the comment, but to help her, replace the tact switch with a touch sensitive one

Super Size Me !!!!!

[dryja123]

I love it! My only observation is that the Pringles can would be too small for my fat cat.

[YaYa]

I love it! My only observation is that the Pringles can would be too small for my fat cat.

[HoolyHoo]

I love it! My only observation is that the Pringles can would be too small for my fat cat.

it allows for portion control. Next up... Esp32 kitty treadmill, lol!

[littleferris]

Trying to figure out how to apply this to feeding my kids...hmmmmmmm