Hello there!
Welcome to our Arduino pet food dispenser instruction manual.
We are Dan and Tom, we are product design students at the Metropolitan University in Cardiff, South Wales, and as part of the assessment briefing we are given this challenge, to demonstrate our basic understanding of coding, electronic prototypes, and machinery. . .
Here are the electrical components you need sarawauno or MegaLCD screen 12x2 l298n motor drive module 32 31 real time clock module-
040 rotary non-coded bread board 5v bread board power jumper cable (
Good mix of men and women)
Insulated transformers of different colors (220 and 10k ohms)
Switch button 3 ledshweigh torque, laser cutting machine for low speed electric tool welding wire cut metal/wood chip cutting tool (or equivalent)
Ultimaker 3D printer (or equivalent)
Or 3mm thick acrylic 1 piece 6mm thick MDF4 length M10 threaded metal rod 3D milling processing material 4 pieces (Approx. 140mm each)
8 M10 Washers8 M10 package (
Or insulating tape)
M3 nuts and bolts for mounting Arduino and assemblies 4 metal bearings (
We used 26 outer diameter and 10mm inner diameter)
10mm RodAdhesive (
We use the Gorilla Glue whether other brands or adhesives are suitable or not)
We have made several different components to make the whole work properly
Food storage box and funnel-
Distribution Agency-Base and Chute
Interface assembly food storage box and funnel the parts of this assembly are all cut from 3mm acrylic and all parts are assembled together using finger joints.
The parts are all cut using the Epilog Laser cutting machine and the vector file is developed using the Corel Draw x7.
Acrylic is a food safety material that is easy to laser cut and is a suitable food preservation material.
This section can be made by hand with different materials, but please make sure that the materials are properly completed to ensure safe food storage. [
Picture of set-top box]
This part of the food dispenser assembly is made of acrylic pipes (50mm and 30mm)
Two 3D printed screw parts, 6mm mid-fiber plates, metal bearings and metal rods.
Cut the main medium fiber plate bracket from the Dxf file called \"medium fiber plate bracket\" below. dxf\".
Cut 50mm pipe, 140mm, drill 30mm hole 40mm end of one pipe and top suitable for 30mm pipe (
Bellows as shown in the figure).
You may need to grind some material using Dremel to make it fit.
The screw part is 3D printed and then connected again, due to the limitations of the 3D printing capability on the Ultimaker printer.
Overall, the printing time should be 12-
Depending on the settings you choose, 14 hours per part. We used a 0.
4mm nozzle, printing quality is normal, no support structure is required.
Install two metal rods or metal tubes 30mm long on the bearing.
When the 3D printing is complete, press these bearings into the screw parts and you may have to file some materials when we print the parts to ensure a tight fit.
As shown in the figure, slide the screw over the pipe, slide the pipe over the bracket, and then slide the axle into the end bracket.
This setting ensures that the amount of food allocated is adjustable, depending on the size of the animal you have.
The bearing reduces the friction on the moving parts, thus reducing the load on the motor.
By using two screws, the quantity of the food will be much easier to control, one mounted in a semi-rotating position and the other fully rotating position means that the food is constantly flowing out of the dispenser.
We chose to make 3 full rotations on our screw parts (
3 full \"threads \")
As this allows to measure a small amount of food to ensure that your pet is not overfed or underfed. [
If you have the facilities available, you can CNC mill the screw parts into one piece, however, we grind two medium density model plates and choose to do 3D printing later, because the model board needs a lot of finishing (
Sanding seal)
To make sure it\'s safe to touch food).
The base and chute are quite straight, similar to the food storage box and funnel at the front of this section.
Download the DXF file labeled \"Base and chute. dxf\".
The interface assembly consists of 4 laser cut acrylic pieces, each of which is constructed using the M10 screw bar and nut as hsown. . . [
Interface picture]
After that, the rotary encoder, LCD and led can be installed. . .
After assembling the dispenser assembly (MDF part)
, Simulate it into the assembled base and chute section and cut a slot in each 50mm tube so that the food can fall into the chute to collect and prepare to slide directly into your pet bowl!
Below, you can see the Fritzing diagram of the circuit we use.
According to the ets you are using (
I know there are many different versions of RTC and motor drive modules)
You can use different libraries.
This is the code for arduino.
This code checks the time and compares it to the alarm and if they match it turns the motor and pushes the food out.
In order to calculate how long the motor should turn, we calculated how much food will be released every turn.
A screw is rolled out in a circle of 10g, which takes 11 seconds for each turn.
So 2 screws push 20g every 11 seconds.
We studied the portion size of dog food and found that a puppy needs about 50 grams of food, a medium-sized dog needs 140 grams, and a large dog needs about 260 grams.
This means that the screws turn 27 times for a small part.
5 seconds, the medium part turns for about 77 seconds, and the majority turns for about 141 seconds.
Depending on the food you use, you may want to change that.
You can usually find the right part on the back of the package.
Keep in mind that the time scale in the arduino IDE is in milliseconds. ((
Recommended size)/20)
* 11 = the length of time cog should open the libraries we use can all be found on the arduino website, they are called time. h, DS1307RTC. h.
The other two have been installed in the Arduino IDE.
