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Really awesome - thanks for posting the video, Bob. Sean On Thu, Jun 23, 2011 at 7:36 PM, Bob Blick <spam_OUTbobblickTakeThisOuTftml.net> wrote: {Quote hidden}> On Thu, 23 Jun 2011 23:54 +0100, "Oli Glaser" wrote: > >> On the cat door Bob - what exactly does it do and how? Does it ID the >> cat(s) or do you only have one? >> I'm asking because we are total "cat people" here (i.e. the cats own the >> house and are tolerating our presence) >> We already have an electric cat door purchased from a small L.A company, >> but I was thinking it would be nice to know things like which cat (we >> have 4) comes in/out and when, we have had a few situations where it >> would be useful to have that information. >> I'm thinking PIC with some wireless ethernet module to network, or cheap >> radio module at either end to USB. For the ID it could be RFID, IR, >> optical recognition, etc. >> It's just a "rainy day" project idea, that will be filed alongside the >> other hundred things I want to do when I have a spare minute, but any >> info on your project would be appreciated. > > Hi Oli, > Just the one cat, sadly no longer on this plane. It takes about two > weeks to train a cat to open doors from the outside. There's a patch of > loop fastener fabric glued to the door, she has to grab it with her > claws and pull the door open a bit, here's a video: > http://bobblick.com/yumyum_hi.wmv > There's a PIC and a hobby servo on each door and a photocell that gets > polled when the door starts to open to figure out which side of the door > the cat is on. The doors plug into an extra wire pair in the house phone > wiring with a simple network protocol that talks to an interface on the > linux box that is my home fileserver and is always on. > > I've built a lot of cat doors over the years and the pull-open style > outfoxes pretty much all critters, including other cats. YumYum had a > bad hip so in her later years I moved one of the doors(the one in the > video) from a window down to ground level and even then never had > intruder problems. But raccoons could be a problem because they are > strong. They probably wouldn't fit but if they tried they could break > the mechanism. > > If I was doing it today I would probably use Sureflap doors, which can > be trained to trust each cat's implanted RFID microchip. And if I had > multiple cats I'd hack the door to get the RFID numbers to track each > one separately. The Sureflaps must have an awesome RFID circuit, they > run on 4 AA batteries for almost a year. Here's a link: > http://www.sureflap.co.uk/ > You can get them in the UK and also the US. If you'd rather roll your > own, you can get 125KHz RFID readers at seeedstudio. The microchips in > disposable syringes are on Ebay or Amazon. I recommend the Bayer brand. > I wouldn't implant them myself, but here in the US there is no > standardization in pet RFID so the brand does matter and you might need > to bring the one you want to your veterinarian. > > Cheerful regards, > > Bob > > -- > http://www.fastmail.fm - A no graphics, no pop-ups email service > >

On Thu, 2011-06-23 at 16:36 -0700, Bob Blick wrote: > Hi Oli, > Just the one cat, sadly no longer on this plane. It takes about two > weeks to train a cat to open doors from the outside. There's a patch of > loop fastener fabric glued to the door, she has to grab it with her > claws and pull the door open a bit, here's a video: > http://bobblick.com/yumyum_hi.wmv > There's a PIC and a hobby servo on each door and a photocell that gets > polled when the door starts to open to figure out which side of the door > the cat is on. The doors plug into an extra wire pair in the house phone > wiring with a simple network protocol that talks to an interface on the > linux box that is my home fileserver and is always on. OMG Bob, that is AWESOME!!!