Raspberry Pi Automatic Dog Feeder & Live Video Streamer

This is my Raspberry PI powered automatic dog feeder. I used to work from morning 11am to 9pm. My dog goes crazy if i'm not feeding him on time. Surfed google to purchase automatic food feeders, They're not available India and expensive importing options are available. So decided to make my own with my custom requirements like Live video streaming.

Step 1: Raspberry Pi Setup

• Install Python, PHP, Apache in Raspberry
• Add USB web camera and Install MJPG Streamer

https://sourceforge.net/projects/mjpg-streamer/

• Add Wifi dongle and configure that in network file (https://learn.adafruit.com/adafruits-raspberry-pi-lesson-3-network-setup/setting-up-wifi-with-occidentalis)

Step 2: Complete the Circuit

• Connect L293D motor driver with raspberry

• Connect High torque DC motor with Motor Driver (http://www.rhydolabz.com/wiki/?p=11288)
• Run feed.py to test motor
• Place Index.php inside apache www root folder,You can use that to feed your pet on demand by clicking feed now button ( It will call feed.py file in the background)
• Create crontab entries with your preferred feeding time ( I added entries to feed in ever 3 hours gap )
• Create a free ngrok account and Install Ngrok and create two tunnels using ngrok custom config file ( one for apache, another one for mjpg port (https://ngrok.com/)

Add post-up script to start ngrok in network folder so that whenever netowork/ raspberry restarts your ngrok script will be invoked (https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t...

Step 3: Login to Your Ngrok

You can login to ngrok anytime to view your apache , mjpg streamer public URL. You can click those links to monitor your pet. Food will be dispensed automatically as per the cron timings. If you want to feed on demand, you can use the ngrok link and click feed now button on your web browser.