Designing and building an automatic cat feeder
Conclusions
Although this build can feed two cats for a day, it won't handle enough food for a longer period of time, and it won't handle the larger volume of food needed to feed a larger animal, such as a dog. Also, the littleBits servomotors would not be strong enough to rotate a large tub with bigger kibble.
As built, this design would be very difficult to keep clean, requiring the removal of several screws before it could be disassembled for washing. Also, if I were to use a tub design again, I would want the inner tub to have a screw-on lid to make opening it easier.
Although as a first try, the feeder worked pretty well, it obviously needs more work and tweaks – maybe even a complete redesign with a sliding panel that opens a food reservoir. The next step after getting a working design would be to create something that I could use while on vacation. However, I would want a webcam, so I could see that it was working. Moreover, I would always have someone on standby to feed the cats should the system have a cat-astrophic failure.
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