Cat Feeder Idea, Need Help Answered

chubby cats usually cant jump as high. put food atop ladder. only spry cat can access it.

If the cats are used to eat all at once you will have a hard time

within 5 minutes of finding this i found the rfid PET feeder Got some real good ideas from it, the comments AND another project by the same author (RFID cat Door) It would seem the RFID idea has merit. Chip the 4 that can have free access and not the chubby one, then contain access to one cat at a time with a chute of sorts

Thanks for your comments and feedback.

.I will give feedback as I get it going (not pressing as others things have more of my attention)

mike

If the cats are used to eat all at once you will have a hard time.

If a hungry cat sees another cat eating it will come and investigate - and try to get some food.

You need a lot of training to understand only one cat at a time will be able to eat.

Might actually be easier to make individual feeding stations for each cat with your basic idea.

Only the cat with the correct ransponder can make the feeder work and only if there is something to eat in it.

So you have to start with little bits they can get all day before slowly moving on to fixed times and portions.

You do have to scan the passing rfid tag individually and sometimes at a pretty close range. I don't know what you had planned on for the feeding station, making animals go through an individual chute/path to the feeding bowl/trough or a bunch of iris windows/shutter gates that open to access the feeding bowl for each animal. Maybe work with the Pi and kinect controller to sense motion in individuals or groups to trigger the feed rate. Or use pressure sensors like a scale to weigh the animal in front of the feeding bowl. I'm not sure if the capacitance of each animal is distingushed enough to use as trigger data. Good luck.