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Djbetterly

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ok, so for the most part this thing is working, but I want to make a some changes to refine it a bit. The timing is off by about a half a second and I can't program the controller down to that small of a unit of time. Stay tuned!

UPDATE: Issue resolved, typing up guide now.
 
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Djbetterly

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Ok, I attached a PDF of what and how I mod'd my eheim feeder. This is the first "how-to" I've written so please feel free to ask me any questions if you find something unclear. Good luck!
 

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  • Eheim Auto Feeder Mod.pdf
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Djbetterly

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That was my initial intention. The problem however is that the timing needs to be very precise and the controller is not precise enough. What ended up happening was that after about 8-10 times of turning on and off the feeder rotation was so out of sync that you might end up with the feeder end of the hopper being stuck in the feed position so it would just be dropping food into the tank until the feeder rotated again. You could in theory attach an additional power supply that hooks up to the battery contacts so you wouldn't have to use batteries. Does this make sense? I've had too much coffee and feel like I'm mumbling.
 

Josh

in the coral sea...
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This is GREAT. I was just wondering the other day why no one had set something like this up.

What would be fantastic is if you could design one that is strictly controlled through the battery compartment. Meaning you just pop in some fake/empty batteries and there are connectors going from the batteries to a 110v plug.
 

Djbetterly

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So here's the deal, due to a limitation with the design of the eheim, in order to completely power the unit off of AC power there will need to be two power plugs. I ordered some materials this morning for a new power supply build and will post pics next week. It's not ideal to have two power plugs, but with out the option of a simple relay in the apex, this seems to be the only option. I went through some things with an electrical engineer last night and this seems to be the easiest. Stay tuned, I'll keep you posted.
 

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