Gear-powered fish feeder

[bulrush]

I am interested in learning about spring powered mechanical items and possibly making a spring-powered fish feeder. My initial design is, a mechanical spoon would start at the top of a circle, then slowly rotate to the 6pm position where the fish food would dump into the tank after about 4 hours.

Anyone have any links of that sort?

Is there a lego Mindstorm set that has spring-powered contraptions? My point is not to use electricity or batteries of any kind.

Well...a moustrap is a spring. Now how do I slow it down? I assume I need gears and such.

[Gray Wolf]

That made me wonder why I let my Popular Mechanics subscription lapse. They always had projects like that.

Here's some already made.
http://saltaquarium.about.com/od/toppicks/tp/TPautofeeders.htm
http://www.aquariumguys.com/aufe.html
http://www.drsfostersmith.com/product/pet_supplies.cfm?c=3578+4430

[bulrush]

Thanks Gray Wolf. But commercial feeders, in general, do not last long, are expensive, and cannot be repaired. They also tend to plug up due to moisture getting in the food chutes. I would also like to learn the basics of gears and spring-powered devices, hence my fish feeder project.

Indeed.

[Gray Wolf]

Best of luck on your project. I'll see if I can find anything or even come up with an idea.

Question, how are you planning to fill the spoon, without leaving the fish food container open?

[erunkiswldrnssurvival]

The Greeks made a machine that mapped out the movements of the stars and planets.feeders are justas important.good luck the steel spring is primed for action . so there are options to power.

[Dennis K.]

Simply use a wind up clock as your motor. The hour hand spindle can be a trigger to dump food every 12 hours.
There are "build it yourself" clock kits - shouldn't be too difficult to modify.

[Gray Wolf]

erunkiswldrnssurvival, I'm sorry but were you locked in a room and had to watch reruns of Kung Fu over and over???

[erunkiswldrnssurvival]

Obsession, hhmmm....Yes i am proud to have been labled " grasshopper " by cherrishing that which defeats you,you learn how to live with it.

[Proud American]

You know theres a problem when you type in a question and our sight is the first choice with the same question:D.lol. An intresting dilema I would just go with a feeder that relies on gravity, but I don't know.

Gray Wolf don't you know erunkiswldrnssurvival is a showlin monk(slaps head in obvios dissapointment). He can not be seen by anyone (like the old blind man sensei lol) or touched. You are lucky that a Showlin Monk is so forgiving:p

[crashdive123]

I've got no idea if this will work, but maybe this will help. http://www.instructables.com/id/Automatic_Aquarium_Feeder/

[Rick]

Let's see. A wind up alarm clock turned upside down. Use the the clapper for a shaker and attach it to a small holder with holes in the bottom. Like a spice bottle. Set your alarm and when the time is reached the alarm goes off, the clapper vibrates, shakes the bottle that feeds the fish. Viola! The only thing you have to figure out is how to attach the bottle to the clapper. That one's yours....

[crashdive123]

The shaker method should work. One draw back though - it'll only work once unless the alarm is reset. Now if you could train the hampsters to do that......

[bulrush]

Question, how are you planning to fill the spoon, without leaving the fish food container open?

My idea was the spoon will contain one dose of food and will need to be refilled each day.

Yes I considered taking apart one of my wind up clocks and have the hour hand trigger something. Perhaps have the hour hand dump one dose of food into the tank.

[crashdive123]

If you plan on refilling it each day, Rick's idea will probably work well. Buuuuuuuut, if you're going to refill the spoon each day, just change their feeding time and instead of filling the spoon, feed the fishes (Jeez that sounded like Johnny No Thumbs --- feedin the fishes)

[Rick]

Watch your etiquette, Crash. Feedin' da fishes. Big difference between "the" and "da" (duh).:rolleyes:

[crashdive123]

Yous got dat right.

[Dennis K.]

We have evolved so much! We are tool users. The tools we create save labor, energy, time and effort so that we may pursue other activities, like higher learning, religion, art, philosophy.
So I will now go build a remarkably complex tool, which will require maintenance, and refilling, and precision measurements, precise timing, and complex calculations....

... in order to feed the fish.