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Final Project

The problem

The raising of guinea pigs in the area of ​​​​the mountains is very common, people also have their animals where they take them to graze in the field and return only in the afternoon where feeding these smaller animals is a bit complicated or they have to leave enough food or a person in charge but the food if it is left there is the probability that it will be contaminated with their feces. The inhabitants of the area also have other tasks and arrive at night to their homes. It is necessary to have a system that is automated to support the feeding of animals.

The idea

Regarding the project, the proposed solution to solve the problem is a mechanism that facilitates the process of feeding smaller animals such as guinea pigs automatically. It allows owners not to be physically present at their feeding but will inform them when the food and water run out. I will use this model as a reference of my project

Initial project sketch in paint

The project consists of developing a portable house for guinea pigs with wheels where water and food will be installed and according to the animal it sees consuming, it will be registered with sensors so that it can be increased according to need. The data will be sent to a receiving device to keep track of everything in real time.

Project 2D and 3D design:

We carried out the modeling in onshape for the structure of the cage with a model of the Huayllay Stone Forest.

Start with the back of the structure by making openings for your guinea pig door, all measurements are in centimeters and the thickness is 15 millimeters to cut in MDF

We made the design of the flame of the Huayllay Stone Forest and with the bases that will be placed on the sides

When extruding we can see that it looks in 3D

We assemble with the insert command and then enter pieces by pieces

Once assembled the front part looks like this:

The back part looks like this:

Electronics design and production

  • Schematic design

We begin by designing the board with the Kicad 8.0 software, that is where we enter the XIAO RP2040 to be able to design and make the connections with the other components.

  • PCB Design

The PCB was designed there we have to see the distance of the components so that it fits when soldering, also take into account the width of the tracks, in my project, the width used is from 1 millimeter to 0.8 millimeters

  • 3D PCB

You can see how it will print in real mode and you can adjust some impressions

  • Distribution of Electronic Components with the Board

  • Board ready to be connected

  • Making the connections between the sevomotor, the clock and the XIAO RP2040

  • We show the code in Arduino where we have first updated the time of the RTC DS3231 clock then we program it so that at a certain time it rotates 180 degrees 5 times so that it can dispense the food

  • We can see that the servomotor rotates 5 times to dispense the food

Machining of casing parts

We open the CNC laser software to locate the position and cut it

We place the design in the middle of the work area and set the speed to 4 mm/s and power to 80% and press Start to start the cut.

We place the design of the parts of the flame in the work area and set 4mm/s and 85% power

Now the last parts of the flame in the work area and we set 4mm/s and 85% power

Printing on a small scale

We start with the cutting process

Finishing cutting the pieces

We locate the pieces of the base and the sides

We locate the front and back pieces of our la llamamita structure

We begin to assemble by resting the part of the flame and fitting the sides

We join the pieces under pressure

We put the lid on to finish the assembly.

Pasting the labels

Pasting the Fab Lab labels

3D Print

We design the channel to dispense the food

We designed the clamps to join the channel and the circle where the food will be dispensed.

We load the files into Ultimaker Cura and ready to print

The components were printed with Anycubic Kobra Printer

Machining Electronics

We begin by designing the board with the Kicad 8.0 software, that is where we enter the XIAO RP2040 to be able to design and make the connections with the other components. We make the design of the flame of the Huayllay Stone Forest and then we make the unions of the components and the renso logo for our plate We preview how our plate will look

We take it to mods and give it the parameters for cutting the plate and the edge

System integration and packaging.

Connection of components

Connection of the components with the DS3231 RTC clock module to dispense food 4 times a day

Files:

Last update: July 30, 2024