I have been researching a way to do a project and everyone mentions Arduino. I would like to know if what I want to do is possible to achieve using Arduino. Hoping someone can tell me.
I would like to build an automatic feeder, I would put a measuring device under the food bowl. As soon as the weight is less than 100grams it activates a motor to turn (I would build some kind of "gate" to open from that motor turning) and then after X amount of second it turns back or turns more to close the "gate". The measuring device will of course pick up more than 100grams is in the bowl afterwards and not activate the motor again unless the weight drops back down below 100grams. If it picks up the weight dropped again below 100grams, it would activate the motor again to open the "gate" for X amount of seconds and after those seconds activate the motor again to close the "gate" and so it goes on.
So my question is this, can you code the Arduino in such a way that the measuring device constantly reads the weight of the bowl and activates a motor two times, once to open the "gate" and once again after X amount of seconds to close the "gate" after it picks up that less than 100grams is left in the bowl??
I’d strongly suggest that while buying your Arduino, you start drawing out the mechanical concepts, so you’ll know what type of motors, sensors etc you’ll need, and possibly any driver required.
Next, sketch out a schematic (circuit diagram), so you’ll be able to ask more advanced questions if anything goes haywire later.
What are you feeding? Often with domestic pets, such systems just dispense food on a timetable rather than whenever the bowl is empty. I can think of one dog in particular that would hang out by your bowl eating until she exploded
bbwahahahaha our dog is like that as well. This is for our 7 cats though which bowl is on a desk where the dog can't reach Luckily our cats eat only until they are satisfied and don't eat all the pellets in the bowl in one sitting empty lol
We used to do it manually, fill up the bowl 3 to 4 times a day ..... then we got one of those "manual autofeeders" that drops pellets out from a reservoir for the cats as the bowl gets empty BUT with this system 8 out of 10 times the pellets get stuck and don't actually fall out from the reservoir with the help of gravity. So now we have to check every time IF the system works and if it got stuck, we have to lift up the bowl and reservoir and shake it to get the stuck pellets lose and then it drops again.
So now I thought of making a reservoir, a funnel and a "gate" or something to block the pellets in the pipe. Once the weight becomes less than 100grams (estimated at this stage at 100grams, I must still plan and measure and draw everything out) then the "gate" opens up, drops pellets in bowl enough to at least make the bowl more or less at 80% and then close it again. The amount of time it takes to fill the bowl, I will have to play around with the seconds once the coding is done but that is the general idea for now.
Cats will eat from the bowl, the amount will become less ..... when it's less than 100 grams the motor will activate, the pellets will start dropping for X amount of seconds to make it more or less 80% full and the motor will close the "gate" again. It will then remain like this until the sensor or whatever picks up the weight is less than 100grams and it will activate the motor again .... pellets will drop for X amount of seconds, activate the motor again to close the "gate" and so we will go on.
Then we will only have to monitor the reservoir to make sure it is topped up but thinking of this now, the next step would probably be to put some sensor in the reservoir to sound a buzzer when the reservoir is empty or close to empty but this is for much later once the feeder actually works
