Is there a clock module with at least 10 alarms?

[onix_fellar]

I am trying to make a pet feeder. I am looking into clock modules which would run on low power like cmos cell or aaa battery, and not required to have a microcontroller attach or running . I found out clock modules like ds3231etc runs on cmos cell for months. But I realized it can only trigger two alarm daily. Is there any other module with at least around 6-10 alarms capability daily or any way to increase alarms capability of ds3231. So that I can amplify the alarm signal and use it trigger motor or servo that will dispense the treat/food. I was unsuccessful in finding such module, I also tried to find cheap circuit board of a commercial pet feeders on amazon. Still nothing.

Thanks in advance.

[madmark2150]

Have it chime the hour

[onix_fellar]

I don't want to trigger it every hour.

[Juraj]

you program a microcontroller. you can have any logic you want

[paulpaulson]

You can brew your own scheduler simply.

Have a nice day and enjoy coding in C++.

[guix]

Welcome

You can reprogram the DS3231 alarm indefinitely

Here is an example Alarm RTC DS3231 wake Arduino? - #4 by guix

[PaulRB]

Maybe not everyone read @onix_fellar 's post carefully:

@onix_fellar

not required to have a microcontroller attach or running

[madmark2150]

Add a 74ls74 flipflop and divide by two or four to dispense hourly, 12x or 6x per day. Smaller portions more often is best for cats and nibblers.

[guix]

Oh sorry then, but he posted in the wrong forum

[hammy]

Your pet feeder will require significant power to operate the dispensing mechanism - so you will need larger batteries .
How will you set your alarm /feed points to a certain time or adjust them ?

You will quickly find you need a display , setting buttons etc and some form of micro to run all this .
There are steps you can take to minimise power consumption

[Idahowalker]

@onix_fellar

Is there any other module with at least around 6-10 alarms capability daily or any way to increase alarms capability of ds3231.

A Micro controller can accomplish what you want. A Microcontroller can read the time from say an RTC and then can determine if 1 microsecond or 1 millisecond or 1 second or 10 seconds or 100's or even 10000's or even 100000000's of seconds have passed since the last time a thing was done and do the thing again at a preselected time.

I like using ESP32's, RPi's and Beagle Bone Blacks as micro controllers.

An alarm from a RTC is not necessary to make a Micro controller to a thing at a time.

Look at File|Examples|02.Digital|BlinkWithoutDelay to use millis() for timing instead of delay().

Info about multi-things

Demonstration code for several things at the same time

NOTE for newcomers. The demo is entirely contained in this Post and Reply #1. There is no need to read further unless you are interested. ...added 25Sep2014 There have been a few occasions recently where newcomers seemed to have difficulty applying the "blink without delay" and "state" concepts to a sketch that is intended to manage a number of concurrent actions. Its very time consuming to respond with suitable code examples - particularly as every case is a little different. I have prepared…

Finite State Machine

The Finite State Machine

[er_name_not_found]

@onix_fellar

and not required to have a microcontroller attach or running

You can do this with most any Arduino, but if you're looking to do this without an Arduino, then you are asking in the wrong forum.

Edit: I didn't mean for that to sound exclusionary. It's just a question for another forum.

[westfw]

For minimal power consumption, you might use an RTC with a single "alarm" to wake up a microcontroller from deep sleep mode. The microcontroller would decide when the next alarm needed to be, set that up on the RTC, and go back to sleep.
Even the tiniest Arduino-compatible microcontroller can easily handle 10+ alarms using such a scheme, and the added power consumption of the micro (spending most of its time in deep sleep) would be minimal.
(However, many Arduino boards have other power-consuming bits on them that make them poorly suited to such low power applications.)

[bluejets]

@onix_fellar

I am trying to make a pet feeder. I am looking into clock modules which would run on low power like cmos cell or aaa battery, and not required to have a microcontroller attach or running . I found out clock modules like ds3231etc runs on cmos cell for months. But I realized it can only trigger two alarm daily. Is there any other module with at least around 6-10 alarms capability daily or any way to increase alarms capability of ds3231. So that I can amplify the alarm signal and use it trigger motor or servo that will dispense the treat/food. I was unsuccessful in finding such module, I also tried to find cheap circuit board of a commercial pet feeders on amazon. Still nothing.

Digital timer.......
https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/313724743217

[Nick_Pyner]

@onix_fellar

Is there any other module with at least around 6-10 alarms capability daily or any way to increase alarms capability of ds3231.

I recall the Time Alarms library enables an infinite amount of alarms with any RTC. I think it is a supplement to the Time library

[noiasca]

@onix_fellar

But I realized it can only trigger two alarm daily. Is there any other module with at least around 6-10 alarms capability daily or any way to increase alarms capability of ds3231.

you could add two more ds3231 and you will have 6 alarm times.
Just joking

Alternatives:

• set a hour alarm and decide the controller if it is really time to feed the pet
• use a 5v/12V clock timer - for example: https://s.click.aliexpress.com/e/_Dl2gRMb

But as @hammer already pointed out, the main power consumer won't be the microcontroller, but the pet feeder itself.