I am currently designing a product which will automatically dispense parrot seeds into my parrots food bowl at a certain time or when the seeds have been eaten from the bowl. The reason I am designing this is because it would be a lot easier to fill a hopper full of seeds and then know that the parrot will be fed regularly for a longer period of time such as a week. It would also be helpful so that if my parrot was to be left for a short weekend he would be fed and watered without having to pay anyone to look after him.

Velleman K8200

No

No

0.25

A Brim with a width of 2mm was used to help stick the hopper to the printbed.

I first designed the main hopper which is 'bird_feeder.stl'. I recommend printing this off first. It doesn't really matter to what height the hopper goes to, as long as the feeding ramps are fully printed. The height will give extra storage for more seeds to sit until they are dispensed.

I am using a Velleman K8200 3D printer with the Repetier_Host software. I used the following settings to print the thing file 'bird_feeder.stl' file.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SvmksHyphKU

I printed off the the 'Undersection2' file and the 'flow stop' file. I used some super glue to stick the undersection2 on the bottom of the box around the hole so that the flow stop can swing under the ridge of the undersection2 file and stop the flow. I then stuck a servo on the backside of the box and stuck the flow stop on the servo. I added a toggle switch to the back of the servo as it is a continuous servo which can not be controlled to a precise angle. I stuck it on the back of the continuous servo so that the back of the flowstop arm would switch it when it hit its end limits. I then coded the Arduino to control the servo. I have coded it so that when the arduino is reset the servo will turn open, then when the switch is activated the servo will then turn in the opposite direction until the switch is activated once more and then it will stop.