Dog's Computer !

Here another Instructables to show to you guys! This isn't a Dog's Computer, it actually was a IR remoted Dog Feeder that i made it with my old computer's monitor. I am gonna to show youu guys how i made it, by the way making a tutorial too!I am also attending the 'Animals Inovation' contest, so if you like it, please vote me, if you doesn't like it, feel free to comment to let me know how i can make it better. Lastly, sorry for my English Grammar because i am a chinese.

In this project, you needed these parts :

1.Aruduino Uno R3 (you can also use the other version of Arduino)

2.An old computer's monitor

3.IR receiver (you can get it easily from the old broken cd player or other things that do use controller)

4.IR transmitter(another word a TV's controller)

5.DC motor

6.5V relay (optional*read the description on the following part)

7.AAA battery (optional*read the description on the following part)

8.Jumpers cable

Programs:

1.Arduino IDE(you can download it from here https://www.arduino.cc/en/Main/Software )

2.IRremote Library (download it from the file i attached)

3.IR dog feeder sketch (download it from the file i attached)

4.IR reader sketch (download it from the file i attached)

I connected the pins with following:

Arduino ---> IR receiver

- 3.3v ---> VCC (pin 3/the right one)

- GND ---> GND(pin 2/the middle oone)

- pin 11 ---> Data(pin 1/the left one)

Arduino ---> 5v Relay

- pin 13 ---> IN

- 5v ---> VCC

- GND ---> GND

5v Relay ---> Motor

- NO ---> '+'

5v Relay ---> Battery

- COM ---> '+'

Motor ---> Battery

- '-' (negative pin) ---> '-' (negative pin)

**i used the relay and battery because i need a slower speed for the motor to turn the motor, the Arduino PWM isn't slow enough for me, of course you can also use the Arduino PWM to slow down the motor, here the tutorial from Arduino https://www.arduino.cc/en/Reference/AnalogWrite if u used the PWM, the relay and the 1.5v AAA battery is not needed. Another way is that using a 12v battery with a voltage regulator, the voltage regulator works as a AAA battery by giving a low voltage for the motor to run in a low speed, connect the Arduino with the 12v output directly to the Arduino (this is what i am doing currently), but i didn't recommend it because the 12v voltage could damage the Arduino (9v works just fine).

Step 1:

I 'cleared' the monitor by taking apart the monitor controller board and other things inside , it took me awhile to clean the chassis because it was extreamly dusted. Be careful while taking apart the monitor because the glass thing inside may hurt you.

Step 2:

I printed a 'bowl' (i don't know what it was called so i named it as a bowl , as you can saw the white thing with three black line)with the holder

Step 3:

I made a square hole just big enough for my bowl to pass through, then i sand it with sand paper to make the edge smoother when the bowl and the holder was printing.

Step 4:

After it was done, I attached it with my DC motor's shaft and secured it will hot glue then the other side of the bowl is inserted to the bowl holder. Both of the DC motor and bowl holder is sticked at the monitor chassis. I also inserted a bearing at the bowl holder to make it turns smoother.Then i tested it to see whether they works well or not.

Step 5:

I made a simple funnel for the dog's food to flow into the bowl. Therefore when the bowl start turning, they will fall out. I took two pieces of wood and one piece of plastic bag and stick them together with some selefon tape as the picture shown above.

Step 6:

I also used a piece of wood to cover the screen of the monitor

First, open the IR reader sketch and upload it to your Arduino, make sure you had choosen the correct port and board. After uploading the sketch, open up the serial monitor and set your baud value to 9600, then press any button you want to control your dog feeder (make sure you pointed at the IR receiver to let the IR receiver receive the data clearly), then you should get this :

2027

4294967295

4294967295

4294967295 or even more...

If you hold the button the number will keep repeats itself until you release the button. The first number is the number that we are going to use , the rest are useless, you can ignore them. In my case, I get the value of 2027 (i am using a LG tv controller with '1' button is pressed, yours could be different). Note down the number you get.

Then, open up the IR dog feeder sketch and upload it to the Arduino.You will saw a bunch of code, find the 'case' as the picture that i attached above then change the '01' with the code you get (e.g. case 2027: ). You can add as many 'case' as you want by changing the value of the number after the 'case' as you did before, the 'case' was actually a part of the SwitchCase statement if you don't know what SwitchCase statement is , here is the tutorial https://www.arduino.cc/en/Reference/SwitchCase .

So how to did it ?

First open up your Peel Smart Control app that originally installed in the S6, open it up and setup it(you can choose whatever option you want), after setting up the S6 will works like a normal TV's control that emit infrared, so just simply setup it to control your dog feeder(step 4), Done !

This is a project that i made to take part in the Animal Inovation Contest, the project doesn't looks nice because i don't have enough time to finish my project, the contest is going to end soon. On the future i would made some upgrade:

Interface with pets:

A keyboard like button will be made so that the dog are able to interface with the dog feeder, they get reward when they pushed the button

Servo:

changing DC motor to servo, servo is much precise and much powerful, its more suitable for this project, sometimes the DC motor will stuck because of the dog's food so the motor do not have enough force to move.

Chassis:

More beautiful chassis with decoration like LEDs.The theme will be all about Christmas because Christmas is coming!


Raspberry pi ! :

By changing the controller board to the Raspberry pi, i am going to use web interface to controller my dog feeder , so I am able to control my dog feeder wherever i am. Webcam is also added so that i could saw my pet ! Or maybe more, the 'monitor' could become a real monitor that the pets are able to saw you from the screen.