Every person who keeps a cat in the house knows: when leaving for work, one should not forget that you need to fill the bowl of your pet with the necessary amount of food. But, as a rule, the animal does not understand that the portion of feed served is designed for the whole day, so it can eat everything at once, than it can harm your health. To solve this problem, specialists have created an automatic feeder for animals. This device gives out a certain portion of food once every few hours. However, such a pleasure is very expensive.
In our master class we will show you how to make an automatic feeder for cats with your own hands. It is quite simple in terms of design. For this we need the following materials:
- clay;
- a stove with an oven, will be needed for the burning of our clay pot;
- thin sheet of plywood or dense plastic for making a rotary disk;
- mechanism from the quartz watch, hour and second hands;
- A wide tin can of candy or round cookies;
- nails - 2 pieces;
- nippers.
I would also like to note the following points:
- This feeder will give out the required amount of feed once every 3 hours;
- the clockwork mechanism used in this design is designed for small loads, therefore, the lid of the car feeder should be very light;
- to create partitions in a bowl you need to use environmentally friendly clay, because the feed will contact it.
We make an automatic feeder for cats
- We remove the mechanism from the quartz watch . The seconds and hour hands are not thrown away. It can be seen how the clockwork looks ahead. In the center there are two white tubes (one in the other). These are the shafts of the arrows. A second arrow is moved by an iron rod.
- We take a tin can and draw a line 3.5 cm from the bottom along the perimeter.
- Cut off the upper part of the canter with wire cutters.
- The outer surface and the upper sharp edge of the canopy clay clay, close. It is necessary that the upper face was flat and parallel to the bottom.
- Burn the bowl in the oven for about 20-30 minutes.
- Approximately the size of the clock mechanism, we cut out a piece of a wooden plaque. The thickness of the plate must be such that the white tubes protrude above the surface of the bowl, with the mechanism body below its walls.
- We take clay of a suitable color, in our case, black. We mold the internal partitions, which separate the sections for feed, as well as the compartment for the clockwork.
- We take the hour hand, bend it in half and wrap it around with adhesive tape. Thanks to this, the arrow will be stronger and shorter.
- We mount the arrow on the clockwork, namely the white shaft. In order to fix the whole mechanism in a special compartment, we install several pieces of soft wire bent at an angle of 90 ° on the partition.
- From thin plywood or plastic, we cut out a disk of such a shape that a quarter of the disc corresponds to the dimensions of each compartment in the bowl, and the secluded clock mechanism remains closed.
- Drill the hole in the center of the disc, which will include the outer white tube of the clockwork.
- We drive into the disk two nails, between which should fit an hour hand. In this case, the studs must be hammered in such a way that they do not look over the surface of the cover.
- Nails are cut with wire cutters in such a way that they remain as long as possible, but the watch cases do not touch. Install the disc on the feeder.
- We paste the hour hand between the nails.
- We take out of the mechanism an iron pin, on which the second hand held.
- We fix the arrow on it and shorten it so that the ends are approximately the same length.
- Cut out the lid of plywood. Using an adhesive tape, attach the arrow with the pin, which we removed before, to the bottom of the cap.
- We stick the pin with the lid in its place. The lid should begin to turn swift enough.
- Now the feeder for our cat is ready, it remains to decorate it with some drawing or pattern.
We check whether the mechanism is placed in the compartment. If there are flaws somewhere, and the clay has not yet hardened, you can slightly adjust the shape of the partition. If the clay has already hardened, we can remove the corners of the mechanism on the grinding machine or carefully cut them with a very sharp knife. With wet hands, we smooth out fingerprints and bulges on the clay.
To ensure that the feeder is more stable, four rubber pads can be attached to the bottom, so the feeder will not slide on the floor.