Share My Creation JG eCatFeeder

Hi all,

Here is my latest creation an AI powered cat feeder :)

JG_eCatFeeder2.jpg


Inside is a 3D printed mechanism with an auger allowing to push out the pellets.
3DPrint.jpg


Here is a picture taken from the bottom side :
a servo (on the bottom right) rotates gears and the auger which is into a PVC pipe.
bottom_view.jpg


That's all for the mechanics :cool:

Now electronics side :
The front face is equiped with a PIR sensor and an android smartphone (screen is dead but the camera works !)
front face.jpg

And finally the other side :
inside.jpg


And now the software :

- The PIR sensor wakes up the ESP8266
- if it's time (NTP connection) to feed the cat, then the ESP8266 sends a firebase notification
- the smartphone is registered to this notification. It wakes up
- a cat detection is launched (THANKS to @JordiCP for his wonderful OpenCV lib and all his help :))
- if it is a cat then the smartphone which has connected to the ESP8266 via UDP, sends a feed notification
- the ESP8266 launches the auger rotation
- and meanwhile the smartphone streams a video of your beloved cat over internet !


Well does it work ?

Yes here is my cat detected with Jordi's software!
MyCat.jpg


And finally a video of the system running :

To be totally honest I must admit that I do have a few false detections of my cat...

[edit] : new version with a balance to weight the food (see post #26)
now the plate "floats" just above the ground !
 

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Marko Druskovic

Member
Licensed User
Longtime User
Amazing.
Question: How long can the food last outside of a sealed container? Would you be able to use this for short vacations, and would you rely on it or is it too risky?
Thank you. I used it this summer while I was 10 days on vacation. It all went fine. My wife and I laughed as we fed our cat and watched over the camera. ;-)
 

freedom2000

Well-Known Member
Licensed User
Longtime User
Amazing.
Question: How long can the food last outside of a sealed container? Would you be able to use this for short vacations, and would you rely on it or is it too risky?
Hi,

Thanks :)

I must say that it has now been working for more than one week without problem.
I wouldn't however put it outside as pellets are quite sentitive to humidity. In my system, if you at the video, there is a kind of "anti jaming" protocol which works really well, but who knows if pellets would survive to outside conditions (in winter times) ?
 

freedom2000

Well-Known Member
Licensed User
Longtime User
I use Erel example https://www.b4x.com/android/forum/threads/esp8266-wifi-remote-configuration.68596/ to setup ESP8266 and create server.
Then I configure portforward on myrouter to get access to the feeder outside wifi. I also connect wifi camera to another port.
Android app comunicate with feeder via http and with camera thought RTSP.

Hi

My question wasn't a software one but an hardware one :p

I just wanted to know how the pellets were going down (apart from the servo).

JP
 

freedom2000

Well-Known Member
Licensed User
Longtime User
Hi,

It was Xmas for my cat... I gave up the idea of the face detection. It worked but was too slow to boot.

Another drawback was that I was always feeding the cat with the same amount of food. So sometimes too much when the cat wasn't hungry...

I decided to mod a little my cafeeder to add a balance to weight the food.
A simple load cell + a Hx711 interface circuit, and now !!!!

load_cell.jpg


and now :
- always the same quantity of food into the plate
- a real time monitoring of the weight which allows to detect the cat "eating" and to post a notification for the camera streaming
- a detection of empty tank plus a notification to alarm you
 
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