Description

Somehow our cats learned to drink from the faucet. We'd turn the water on for them, but they'd never turn it off when they were done! I'm sure there are other cat owners out there with a similar problem. So, I built the Cat Faucet so the cats could turn the water on and off for themselves.

Similar to the sinks that automatically turn on when you wave your hands under them, a small Infra Red 'Cat Sensor' detects when a cat is near and turns the water. The water comes from a piece of 1/4" plastic tubing providing a stream of water for the cats to drink. There's also an optional 'People Sensor' which you can use to stop the cat faucet from turning on when a person puts their hands into the sink.


Here you can see one our cats testing out an early version of the Cat Faucet. She learned quite quickly that if she steps into the sink, the water will turn on. We find that she drinks from the Cat Faucet many times a day and best of all, it's always fresh water!
You might be wondering how difficult it is to install a Cat Faucet. If you can install an ice maker, then you probably can install a Cat Faucet. The Cat Faucet connects to your house water supply with a Saddle Valve and high-pressure tubing, just like many ice makers do. The hardest part of the installation is determining where exactly to run the wires and tubing so that you can connect to the water supply under the sink and still place the Cat Sensor and outlet tubing on the top side of the sink. You may have to make a hole in the countertop to route the wiring and tubing. Each sink will be different. In one case it was possible to remove the drain control and have an 'instant hole'. So, examine your specific sink and counter top and most of all, be creative! We suggest you read the installation instructions here before you order.
This is a sample Cat Faucet installation I recently did. Now.... not all faucets are constructed the same, so your faucet may be different, but view the video, it should give you some idea of how you might install the Cat Faucet on your specific faucet / sink.
The Cat Faucet is available in several forms. Assembled and tested units that you just need to install, full kits where you have to solder the controller boards and assembled the components, and finally a simple circuit board and processor set where you supply the rest of the components yourself.

Order kits and assembled units here.

Note that the Mark II unit replaces the Mark I's servo / ball valve mechanism with a low voltage solenoid valve. This drives the parts cost up a bit, but reduces the overall complexity of assembling the kit since there are no mechanical component. Additionally, reliability of the finished unit (both assembled and kit) should also go up as there are fewer moving parts. For reference the, original Cat Faucet (Mark I) page is here.


Fully Assembled Unit
Here's what you get with the fully Assembled Cat Faucet MKII. (viewed with the valve cover removed) Everything is ready for you to route your wires and tubing and install. order the Fully Assembled unit here and follow the installation instructions here. Remember, even the assembled unit requires some plumbing and wire/tube routing!

Full Kit
Here's what comes in the full kit for the Cat Faucet MKII. Note that in order to reduce costs on the kits, the full kit does NOT come with a enclosure (where as the assembled unit does).

As a kit, I would rate this medium complexity. The electronics are simple and straight-forward to assemble, but you also need to do some plumbing to assemble the solenoid valve, adapters, and tubing, in addition to the water supply connection and wire/tube routing. Order a Circuit Board or Full Kit here and then build and install your very own Cat Faucet!


Usage - Assembling your full kit


Assembly
What goes under the sink is the solenoid valve, microcontroller and power circuit. Here's a shot of the solenoid valve. The solenoid valve says it's rated at 12V / 6 watts, but in this case we run it at 9 volts. Seems to work ok and keeps the power requirements down a bit. You can also see in this picture the 1/4" NPT to 1/8" barb fittings which connect the valve to smaller diameter plastic tubing. The right hand side is high-pressure tubing that connects to the house water. The left hand side is low pressure tubing that runs up and out to the sink where the cats drink. There's a small arrow embossed on the low pressure side showing the direction of water flow. Make sure you use high pressure tubing on the inlet side!
This is the completed microcontroller that runs the Cat Faucet MKII along with the solenoid valve power circuit. The microcontroller limits the maximum 'On' time in case something falls in front of the sensor. It also applies some hysteresis to the sensor so that as the cat moves around, the valve isn't constantly turning on and off.

The power circuit operates the solenoid valve and provides regulated 5v power to the microcontroller board.

A saddle valve with a 1/4" O.D. compression outlet is used to connect the Cat Faucet MKII to the house water supply. The saddle valve has a built-in needle valve which is used to adjust the maximum water flow. This configuration helps to reduce the flow of water in the event the tubing ruptures or something else goes wrong.

Controller Board

If you're purchased a board or full kit, the first thing to do is assemble the board. Otherwise, jump down to the installation section below.

Putting the board together is a relatively easy soldering job. Just solder all the components onto the board with the following exceptions:

  • The People Sensor is optional. If you ever want to use a People Sensor, there is a trace on the backside of the board that you must cut before the People Sensor will work. The trace is easy to identify. It connects pin 3 of the Cat Sensor connector to pin 1 of the People Sensor connector.
  • The silkscreen on the solenoid board for the power FET is rotated 180 degrees . The annotation in the picture on the right is correct with the 'S'ource and 'G'ate on top. You must bend up the gate pin so that it does NOT go into the hole on the circuit board. The 33K resistor is then soldered directly to the gate pin as in this picture.

Once assembled, when you apply power to the board you will notice that the status LED flashes. The number of flashes indicates the state of the controller:

  • 1 flash = Cat Sensor off
  • 2 flashes = Cat Sensor On
  • 3 flashes = Cat Sensor On, but maximum on time expired
  • 4 flashes = Cat Sensor off, but in delay
  • 5 flashes = People sensor on, overrides Cat Sensor
  • 7 flashes = Controller reset

Component List
Automatic Valve
The solenoid valve is easy to assemble. Wrap a little Teflon tape around the 1/4" NPT side of the barbed adapters and screw them into the plastic housing of the solenoid valve. Make sure you use a good bit of Teflon tape, especially on the high pressure side (side away from the embossed arrow) as you want to make sure you won't have any leaks when you connect the water supply. Now boil a bit of water and use the hot water to soften up the high pressure tubing (the frosted, stiffer tubing). While the tubing is warm, push it over the barb on the high pressure side. Make sure you push the tubing on past at least 2 barbs. be careful not to break off the plastic barb on the adapter! Once that's completely, put the low pressure tubing on (the clear, flexible tubing). You should not have to soften the low pressure tubing to install it.

If possible, pressure test the assembly at this point! Make sure you don't have any leaks where the 1/4"NPT adapter screws into the solenoid valve housing. If you do, tighten it up a bit or go back and put on more Teflon tape. Note that if you find water leaking through the solenoid valve even when it's off, you probably have the high pressure and low pressure sides switched. The direction of water flow must follow the direction of the embossed arrow.

In the picture on the right, high pressure is on the right, low pressure on the left.


Cat Sensor

The IR sensor in the Cat Sensor kit comes with an odd (and hard to find) JST connector. Our suggestion is to either remove the existing connector or simply solder the cable wires to the connector pins on the underside of the board. Removing the existing connector is relatively straight-forward. Start by cutting off the white plastic bit on the top side. A pair of wire clippers slipped between the connector and the black plastic of the IR sensor can fairly easily clip the 3 pins from the top side of the board and the connector will fall off. Then with a soldering iron and needle nose you can remove the remains of the pins from the board leaving 3 holes where the new cable can be attached. You may need to use a bit of solder-wick to clean up the holes.

On the other end of the cable, both the sensor kit and assembled unit come with each wire already having a crimped on female pin connector covered in heat-shrink tubing. This configuration was chosen to make it easier to thread the sensor wire through small holes. The down-side is that when you disconnect / re-connect the Cat/People sensor to the controller board you must make sure you get the wires in the right order.

On the controller side of the cable, Pin 1 = Green - signal, Pin 2 = Red - Vcc, Pin 3 = Black - Gnd and on the Sensor side, it should be Pin 1 = Green - signal, Pin 2 = Black - Gnd, and Pin 3 = Red - Vcc. Double check your wiring before you apply power as incorrect wiring can damage your sensor! You can check the pin out on the sensor spec here if you have any questions.


Installation - Kit and Assembled Unit

First and foremost determine how you are going to run the water tubing and the wiring for the sensor(s). You need to place the automatic valve so that the input tubing (the frosted, stiff tube) can be easily connected to the water supply and the output tubing (the clear, flexible tube) can be run into the sink. The Cat Detector needs to be positioned such that a cat, when drinking is within 6-10" of the front face of the sensor. If you're using the optional 'People Detector', this needs to be positioned so that a person using the sink will be within the same 6-10" range of the People Sensor. Don't forget you also need to place the solenoid valve/controller unit within reach of power!

When placing the Cat Sensor, make sure the faucet and/or the water stream are not in direct line with the Cat Sensor otherwise the reflection off the faucet or water may fool the Cat Sensor. Also try not to aim the sensor directly at light sources as this may also cause false triggering. Finally be aware of what is directly across from the Cat Sensor. A shiny, white, highly reflective surface will be picked up at a much greater distance (perhaps 18") than a dark colored, fuzzy cat. So try to keep the area the Cat Sensor points at, clear of other non-cat obstacles.

Once you have everything located, drill any necessary holes for routing the tubing, wiring and power. Then run the tubing, run the wires and Sensors. If you need to disconnect the sensor cables to run the wiring, do so, but remember the correct connection order; Pin 1 = Green, Pin 2 = Red, Pin 3 = Black.

The Cat/People sensors include individual female pin connectors on each wire. Being wired individually makes it a bit easier to run the wiring though small holes. The wiring for the both sensors is the same. The S1 connector on the controller for the Cat Sensor and S2 is for the People Sensor. Pin 1 is the control signal (green wire). Pin 2 is +DC power (red wire). Pin 3 is ground (black wire). Note if you're not using the optional People Sensor, make sure pin 1 and pin 3 on S2 (the People Sensor) are shorted together. Unless ordered with a People Sensor, all boards already have this shorting trace. If you later add a People Sensor, you must cut the trace on the back of the controller board.

Connecting to the house water supply you must make sure that you attach the frosted, stiffer, input water line to the house water supply. The clear, flexible output tubing is not pressure rated and would eventually burst if connected to the house water supply. After installing, the saddle valve can be used to adjust the water flow out of the cat faucet. You must have some kind of valve between the water supply and the cat faucet valve to control the water flow. The cat faucet valve is not meant to control the amount of water, it only to turns the water on and off. The saddle valve included in the full kit and assembled unit accomplishes this nicely.

After you have connected the water but before you apply power, please turn the water on and make sure there are no leaks!!. If you have an assembled unit with a box, please remove the top of the box and ensure there are no leaks inside the controller box as well. We check the assembled units before we ship, but you never know what happens in shipping or during installation. So no matter what, make sure you do a leak test before you leave the cat faucet unattended.

At this point, connect the power, the LED should start flashing a very quick flash. After a few seconds it should slow down to about one flash a second. Then wave your hand in front of the Cat Sensor, the solenoid valve should open and stay open for a few seconds after your remove your hand. If you have a People Sensor, block it and no amount of waving in front of the Cat Sensor should turn on the water.

Read the Assembled Unit install notes here.


Download

Controller Circuit Diagram
Solenoid/Power Circuit Diagram

Source code


Forum

Talk about it here