Overall, this thing has been great. Here's a couple notes how I've catered it to my situation and how that's continuing to evolve:
– Red lid: not so much. Painted it teal and it looks way better. Any color other than red would have been great too 😀
– Aside the from lid, I initially implemented this with no other modifications. I mounted it indoors and my dog intuitively understood how to use it. We got a puppy and he also intuitively understood how to use it… hence my additional modifications.
– The springs on the door can sometime be not quite strong enough to fully close the door. This is generally ok because we're inside but if this were outside I'd imagine it could lead to bugs getting in. A work-around may be to use an "automatic door closer", which would need to be mounted to the inside of the feeder during installation. That would create additional pressure on the door to close (using springs). I picked one up for under 10 dollars and it seems to work well (though it does create additional force for the dog to push open the door so be mindful of this as well).
– Now, with 2 dogs on different food, I needed some kind of access control system. If you're not a complete loon that's willing to dedicate hours of your life towards securing your dog's food from each other, you can stop reading now. I'm implementing an access control system using this feeder combined with a gate latch and an arduino-controlled servo motor. Each dog will carry two very small/long lasting BLE beacons and when the right dog is in proximity of the right feeder, the gate latch (mounted on the inside) will open, allowing the dog to push the door open and get their own food. This was all fairly easy to implement with the design of this feeder. This design also lends itself to controlled feeding portions if that's your jam and you're handy with a 3D printer. There's a narrow portion in the back where all of the food flows through. A 3D printed sleeve could be made and inserted into this area as a later upgrade that would portion the food and allow it to pass through/dispense.
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