 Can A Program Be Made Cheaply To Do This? |
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 Feb 8 2008, 03:24 PM
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 Feed me some spyware!  Group: Members Posts: 4,481 Joined: 18-July 04 From: USA Ware Shoals SC Member No.: 1,500  |
I have a idea to make a auto feeder. Its a simple process. Robot starts at a certain time each night and fills itself up full of water and food power. Circulates for a set amount of times with its pump to stir the contents. Moves on a track and stops at certain spots that the computer tells it to. Simply pumps milk out its extended arms. Come back puts soap on and goes through a rinse cycle. Shuts off. I would also need it to be able to not feed certain containers through the software selection. Like when animals are not in the pen. Could this be done? I know it could but for a descent price? See we are getting lots more calves than we used to. Calf feeding systems cost like 400,000 a pop and only feed like 50 calves. We run on average almost that. In short for now it would never be able to pay itself off if we spent money like that. But something that works well and costs say 2000 bucks might be worth it. I can build it cheaply and design it myself as I am really good at that type of stuff but I am no software maker. It does not have to be pretty just a basic thing that can be ran on a OS say linux or Windows. -------------------- "The fool hath said in his heart, 'There is no God'" (Psalm 14:1; 53:1)
"The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork" (Psalms 19:1) If you were to die today where would you go? Learn how to go to heaven today click here! Come check out my new blog!! -Austin Z If we are what we eat then I am fried,greasy and 99 cents.(nah I eat healthy most of the time) |
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Feb 8 2008, 06:59 PM
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 Hail Groovicus! Group: Site Admin Posts: 5,673 Joined: 5-June 04 From: Vermillion, SD Member No.: 689 |
A custom application and customized hardware just to drive the machine is going to cost way more than just a few thousand dollars. Sorry. You might be able to build the machine for that much.
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Feb 8 2008, 09:00 PM
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 542 Joined: 21-July 07 Member No.: 144,952 |
Something that is required to perform just a few simple functions, repeatedly, shouldn't need to have any type of sophisticated control. It would be far easier to make the entire process mechanical. Computers are not the best solution to every kind of problem.
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Feb 8 2008, 09:22 PM
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Feed me some spyware! Group: Members Posts: 4,481 Joined: 18-July 04 From: USA Ware Shoals SC Member No.: 1,500 |
It was just a idea as I thought with the right person it might be cheap being I only need it to do a simple repeated process.
Guess I better get to the "drawing board"... -------------------- "The fool hath said in his heart, 'There is no God'" (Psalm 14:1; 53:1)
"The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork" (Psalms 19:1) If you were to die today where would you go? Learn how to go to heaven today click here! Come check out my new blog!! -Austin Z If we are what we eat then I am fried,greasy and 99 cents.(nah I eat healthy most of the time) |
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Feb 8 2008, 10:45 PM
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Member Group: Members Posts: 19 Joined: 7-December 07 Member No.: 175,154 |
An Auto feeder? Well, my car uses gasoline..At least that's what I feed it....Oh...You mean an AUTOMATIC feeder....not for a car......Oh.....
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Feb 14 2008, 12:19 AM
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 Member Group: Members Posts: 59 Joined: 15-January 06 From: Junee, NSW, Australia Member No.: 50,879 |
Ask others that you know in your industry (maybe your neighbours) and see what they have found. Maybe there already exist some sort of basic process controllers that would do the job for you at a reasonable price. You might try Googling on the subject and searching for something like "automatic cattle feeders". Your problem sounds like it may be a common one in which case there may already be a cheap solution on the market.
To the picky Chayisun who doesn't like your use of "auto" tell me how you feed your car? Where is its mouth, or is it fed intravenously? Also your punctuation is lousy!!  But I am sure your very helpful reply is appreciated!!Alan -------------------- There are 10 types of people - those who understand binary and those who don't!!
Today is the Beta version of Tomorrow! |
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May 8 2008, 12:26 PM
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New Member Group: Members Posts: 7 Joined: 8-May 08 Member No.: 207,731 |
If I were going to build something like that, I would consider doing it on a BASIC Stamps kind of platform, which is basically an entire computer on a chip.
http://www.parallax.com/ BASIC stamps are ideal for simple automation tasks - you would have to learn the programming language first, of course. I have programmed a few of them, and it is not difficult if you have ever done any type of programming at all. --------------------  |
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May 31 2008, 02:39 PM
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 Distinguished Member Group: Members Posts: 633 Joined: 2-June 07 From: Maryland Member No.: 134,342 |
You should consult Botball.org. It's an educational regional club (maybe national? Maryland) where they program robots with Interactive C, which is similar to Java. It's really easy to use. I'm in the club, and we use things as simple as Lego RCX bots (lego computer bricks) which are about half the size of a masonry brick. Or you can step it up to Botball's new venture: the iRobot Create, which is like a Roomba mixed with an RCX. It's pretty cheap, but the programming would be... complicated.
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| Lo-Fi Version | Time is now: 6th July 2008 - 08:39 AM |
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