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.
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!
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.
Assembly
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
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.
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.
