Cat Feeder relies on RFID to keep you calm at dinnertime

Anyone who has had more than one cat can tell you that cheerful The harm they bring to your life is much more than the weakness of a single cat. And if those felines have different nutritional needs, you could end up where [Benjamin Krejci] He found himself, which led to This fancy RFID cat feeder.

For a little backstory, [Ben]furry friends [Luna] And [Fermi] Eating patterns vary greatly, the former being a type of grazing animal and the latter being more of a “restless eater”. [Fermi] She tends to eat until she pukes, which is fun, and flexes her picky sister’s muscles away from the bowl if there is anything left in her. [Ben]The idea was to take advantage [Luna]existing RFID chip, which I thought would be a breeze. But the veterinary-introduced microchip is designed to be read by a high-powered reader directly in contact with the cat’s skin, which made reliably reading the microchip a challenge.

Several rounds of design iterations have led to the current configuration, with a large air coil above and behind the food dispenser. [Luna] She has no choice but to put the back of her neck and shoulder blades in almost direct contact with the coil, making it easier to read the 134.2kHz chip with the RFID module over long distances. if [Luna]A chip is found, and the lid of the food bowl opens gently and quietly, so as not to scare the mild cat. The lid stays open as long as [Luna] It’s in place thanks to some infrared sensors, but once you retract it, the lid comes down to keep it secure [Fermi] from devouring itself.

hats off to [Ben] to solve the problem and come up with what appears to be a good solution. We suppose he could have tried something easier like weighing the two cats to tell them apart, but this seems like a much cleaner solution to us.