[acallahan]

Dissenting opinion: I owned a Super Feeder before upgrading to the feeder pictured in the original story. My cat was able to produce food from the super feeder continuously, just by lightly smacking the tall column on the top. Perhaps the kibble my cat eats is below the minimum supported size?

The new PetSafe feeder is better: it will produce a little food when kicked, but it will only drop out a bit of the next meal from the top of the ramp; in contrast, the super feeder could drain its entire reservoir through continual knocking. I also find the PetSafe a better machine in other regards (battery operated, much larger reservoir, easier to program a serving by volume).

I do think the super feeder is more hackable though, so if you're looking to do metalwork maybe it's the better fit.

[sigstoat]

huh. usually a solid rap will drop a bit of loose stuff from our super feeder, but a second one doesn't drop anything more. basically behaves as you're saying your petsafe does.

> Perhaps the kibble my cat eats is below the minimum supported size?

i do think it has some issues with sufficiently small kibble. i noticed a bit of increase in portion size variability when we moved to a smaller kibble.

did you have any luck with reducing the gate opening?

> I do think the super feeder is more hackable though

controlling it by applying power is certainly convenient. i've got an rpi which dispenses on a schedule, and lets us hit a web page to dump out some more food when the cats are complaining.