10$ Timer Based Automatic Pigeon Feeder Using NodeMCU.

Recently My neighbor went out of town and asked me to feed his pigeons daily around 10 am in the morning. After feeding them for few days, I realized that I can make a 10$ Automatic timer based pigeon feeder using NodeMCU which can really ease my task of feeding pigeons daily. So I quickly started off.

Components required:

9V battery - 2

9V DC motor - 1

ESP12E NodeMCU - 1

5V relay Module - 1

Breadboard - 1

Single core wires, cardboard and a plastic container.

Step 1: Video

This is the full tutorial and my journey of creating the automatic pigeon feeder.

Step 2: Design

I created very simple design to make the pigeon feeder. My ultimate goal was to make it under 10$ and by using as much as recycled stuff I could find. So the design basically revolved around scattering of seeds due to vibration. The design had a simple plastic container which will be hung upside down. Pigeon food can be put in the container from a small hole at the bottom of the container. There will be a motor connected to a "food scattering section" which will have a long pipe like structure. So when the motor will revolve, it will revolve the scattering section throwing seeds from the pipe like structure. The pigeon food would automatically come down due to vibration in the body and gravity thus scattering pigeon food all across the floor. Here is the rough sketch which I made before creating the actual work.

Step 3: Making Structure

Making the upper part. So our upper part basically consists of a lid connected to a dc motor on the inside of the container. The motor will rotate a cardboard circular structure which will scatter pigeon food on the floor while rotating. And a hole in the plastic lid of the container will constantly allow pigeon food to go down on the scattering platform. A tiny hole on the bottom of the container will allow me to to put pigeon food from there inside the container.

Step 4: Testing the Structure

After that simply solder wires on motor and assemble everything and connect the motor to a 6V or 9V power source to make sure that everything is working fine.

Step 5: Circuit

Make the breadboard according to given circuit diagram. The circuit is really simple with relay is connected to pin D0 of ESP12E and both are powered by a 9V battery. And upload this arduino sketch.

https://github.com/vikkey321/10-Automatic-Timer-Based-Pigeon-Feeder-using-NodeMCU

(To get the time from internet, I made a small function, which pings google.comand gets the exact time in 'GMT' format. I got this function on this forum http://www.esp8266.com/viewtopic.php?f=29&t=6007&... . This helped me to save money on my RTC.)

Since, the time returned is in GMT format, You can change the time by converting GMT to your time zone by using the below website.

https://www.worldtimebuddy.com/