Or rather, homelabs and home labs?

Labrador (image from Wikimedia)

  • ShadowA
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    24 days ago

    I have a sliding door that I want to toss a stepper motor on, so my dog can push a button and let himself in / out.

    Dog tax

        • Madison420@lemmy.world
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          24 days ago

          Linear actuator, that’s literally how the commercial units work. Most are step capable either addon or built in and some have built in close resistance tests so you don’t mush the puppy or a kid or whatever is running about your house.

          If you just Amazon automatic sliding door linear you’ll get results for units you can wire into your own setup. They’re Chinese but you can use it as a base to build better or simply an example to do the same.

  • laranis@lemmy.zip
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    23 days ago

    I have a self-filling, self-cleaning water bowl for my dogs. With two Great Danes, keeping the water bowl clean and full is a chore.

    Right now it uses a digital timer and does an empty/fill cycle 16 times per day using those capacitive water sensors for the level setting and overflow detection. In a future iteration I plan on incorporating MQTT via WiFi for alerts and manual control.

    • johntash@eviltoast.org
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      23 days ago

      Self cleaning? Is it something you made or what’s the name is it? I’d be interested in details either way

      I really want a fancier water fountain for my cats but never found a self cleaning one :(

      • laranis@lemmy.zip
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        21 days ago

        It is a DIY setup. Basically is a sink bowl with the logic of a sump pump with high/low floats (couple of relays and sensors), a fountain pump to drain to a nearby sink, and a valve to fill. The timer drains the water every hour and the fill part is essentially a cheap shower head aimed at an angle so when it is draining and filling at the same time the water is swirling, making it (mostly) self-cleaning. I wipe the inside and outside every week or so just to make sure it is working and isn’t growing anything.

        Biggest worry since it is DIY is that something will fail and flood my house. I have a separate high level sensor that closes the valve, starts the pump, and sounds an alarm to help with that, and one of those cheap, warbling 9v water sensors nearby just in case.

      • thegreekgeek@midwest.social
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        23 days ago

        I would also like to know this, best I could come up with was one of those electric water cooler pumps that fit over the top of the bottle.

      • laranis@lemmy.zip
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        21 days ago

        It is a DIY setup. We had one of those bottle setups like you describe. For my big dogs all it did was slowly become more slobber than water. I realized the problem wasn’t more water but getting rid of the slobber.

        Post above describes what I did if you’re interested.