3D Printed Food Dispenser For Your Cat

One man who is simply wholeheartedly in love with cats, Piotr Westfalewicz  has spent roughly a year and a half  of his life designing and building a 3D printed automatic cat feeder which not only feeds the cat without the need of human help, but it also tracks the cat’s weight and how fast it is eating. The cat feeder is open source, so you can do whatever you want to it.

How much time does it take you to feed your cat?

Westfalewicz estimates that it takes roughly three minutes to get the cat fed. So, to reduce the time it takes to prep and feed, he took the “art of over-engineering to a next level” and spent over 22 hours alone designing an awesome automatic cat feeder. Overall, the whole project took him 1.5 years to finish.

3D Printed Food Dispenser For Your Cat 1

Westfalewicz took to Reddit to post: “I’m not sure if I would spend 1.5 years building this thing again… however the result is pretty neat and the cat is happy, too.” Westfalewiczis a Software Development Engineer at Amazon Web Services, so over time he had gained the necessary skills to design, code and 3D print the feeder to be both extremely useful and to look cool.

Some of the automatic cat feeder’s features include:

  • Food is dispensed in accordance with schedule.
  • The cat feeder only opens at certain times and will make noises to get the cat’s attention to tell it that it’s ready to be fed.
  • It measures the cat’s weight and adjusts the feeding accordingly.
  • The dispenser measures food consumption time and how long it takes for the cat to arrive at the feeder, from the moment it opens.
  • The majority of the feeder is 3D printed.

One of the Smartest Feeders there are

Westfalewicz explains that the automatic cat feeder took over 100 hours of printing time and used over 1kg of PLA filament to create it.

Image result for piotr cat feeder

The end result of the 3D printed cat feeder ensures Westfalewicz’s cat, Emma, doesn’t put on unnecessary weight as it monitors her diet and feeds her according to a defined schedule. The cat feeder is also linked to a set of scales to weigh his cat and only dispenses as much food as the cat needs. The cat feeder also tracks and monitors the cat’s food consumption.

Westfalewicz built-in WiFi connectivity and even developed a website which shows useful information about his cat’s eating habits including how long it takes her to get to the feeder.

“This was my first time doing 3D design, so probably I made every possible mistake along the way. The end result isn’t completely satisfying for me (I was hoping for a better, more organic overall look) and some people say it looks like piano…” Westfalewicz posted to his blog page.

Westfalewicz has made his design open-source so you too can monitor your cat and its eating habits closely. He explains this will include dozens of STL’s and source code. Make sure that you visit his website for more.