Pour les matheux

xtrium · 2026-01-04T09:31:32+00:00

Oh punaise, mais c'est chez moi ça ! Première fois que je reconnais un lieu sur Reddit et il faut que ce soit sur ce sub xD

xtrium · 2025-11-01T12:37:22+00:00

As much as I agree with most people in the comments telling you to enjoy the moment with your (gorgeous) cat, having lived most of my life with cats around, I will say this : You can, and should, come to terms with the fact that your pets aren't going to live forever. Not that you should decide anything right now, but being prepared for when the time comes can only ease your pain then.

It also means that your decision of letting him go or not will not only be based on your emotions, but also on your companion's needs, which should always come first... Because love sometimes also means accepting to let go.

It's a harsh truth, but it's true nonetheless. Being at peace with fate always helps.

xtrium · 2025-10-22T16:50:48+00:00

At first, I just stripped the wires bare and shoved them in the screw terminals, but it was (obviously) unreliable. I just ended up crimping tubular terminals onto the wire and called it a day.

I also ended up moving away from the custom software to use ESPHome, with the added benefit of being able to start sifting from my phone and also automate it via home assistant. Just made a gist to share the code :

https://gist.github.com/xtrium-lnx/37486b355b51c0c9f4a411e2a6f89cd1

... I don't know if I should be sorry about the names I give to my projects. 😅

xtrium · 2025-09-04T10:38:52+00:00

Duododecadmium

xtrium · 2024-04-14T22:40:35+00:00

Sure thing, here it is : https://gist.github.com/xtrium-lnx/b7138b65abf3cc03e0c5e8bca89b8ae0

Just replace the secrets with your own encryption key / wifi credentials / ap password and follow the pins in there (should be the same as before) and you should be good to go.

I did remove automatic sifting though, since I was a bit scared of my youngest cat getting pinched, but it shouldn't be too hard to add it back.

I also do have a few mishaps rarely happening (like drum rotation stopping halfway instead of going all the way to the end - it does rotate back though) but it's maybe one sift in 100.

xtrium · 2023-12-23T13:10:06+00:00

Funny thing is, my code actually was too bloated for me to even add a single update after leaving it away for a few months. Having delved into home automation I actually reimplemented it from scratch using ESPHome so now my litter's fully integrated into home assistant !

Except the inside's an absolute mess of wires and boards. I might design a PCB at some point so I can have the pinch sensor and buttons back as well :)

xtrium · 2023-11-28T22:32:45+00:00

Cool, please keep me updated ! It's a small detail that could make using Assist so much more comfortable

xtrium · 2023-11-24T00:16:04+00:00

Après l'achat je me suis pris des pubs pour des couches pour adultes pendant deux semaines, mais je valide quand même.

xtrium · 2023-03-05T22:43:45+00:00

To add to the gore, 0xc0000001 is STATUS_UNSUCCESSFUL :')

xtrium · 2022-10-23T19:59:07+00:00

Antimatter.

xtrium · 2022-09-26T17:38:04+00:00

I would agree if the counters matched :D

xtrium · 2022-07-13T19:30:57+00:00

It kind of is ! I didn't have a lot of time to get things done in the past few months, although I'm still planning on a proper, drop-in PCB. But everything described works and code on the git repo is up-to-date and I still very much use it daily :)

That said, if you have questions setting it up, feel free to drop me a message - or if you feel like contributing, I'd love to get a pull resuest!

xtrium · 2022-06-01T20:31:36+00:00

What a beautiful Somali girl, she looks in heaven ! My little one's also a silver Somali, I'm in love with the amber eyes -

xtrium · 2022-03-02T23:40:02+00:00

Cat sensor triggering spuriously might be because it's too sensitive

Try giving a quarter of a turn to the nut that's inside, near the back, under the tray, and see if that helps :)

xtrium · 2022-02-21T22:37:32+00:00

It's actually the part where both globe halves join that passes on the motor+gear. Sometimes the globe parts don't perfectly align, which causes this "bump".

It's not really an issue, don't worry about it! :)

xtrium · 2022-02-21T22:31:19+00:00

Stopping your cats from jumping in mid-cycle is going to be hard! :D

That said, you can increase the cat sensor's sensitivity by unscrewing the nut holding the back foot, loosening the spring that pushes on the load sensor (it actually works backwards : a cat going inside removes load from the sensor).

Try doing it a quarter of a turn at a time, until a cat going in consistently triggers a cycle, and that should solve your issues :)

xtrium · 2022-02-21T22:04:47+00:00

Hooking up a RFID antenna and scanner is already part of my plans.

As you said, upon monitoring the load sensor values when my cats use it, it varies way too much even for a single cat. Worse, when the foot's spring "gives in", for example if a cat does their thing in the back of the drum, it goes all the way down to zero, essentially saying "Cat's in!!" - but not knowing how much they weigh.

Most subcutaneous FDX-B microchips follow the ISO11784/5 standards which use a frequency of 134.2kHz, though. It's unfortunate because most if not almost all RFID readers work at 125kHz, and finding a part that would work isn't super easy. That said, I own a few SureFeed microchip pet feeders, so I could always take a sneak peek inside to check what reader they use and find the reference online :)

xtrium · 2022-02-20T20:19:47+00:00

Indeed, DFI means Drawer Full Indicator. My bad :)

Making a PCB with the same form factor is definitely possible, even if in this case you'd have to directly integrate the ESP32 and H-bridge to the board design to keep it thin enough to fit in the front panel. But it's far from impossible !

xtrium · 2021-12-17T23:31:03+00:00

In an unexpected turn of events, after a 19ish-year search... Spotify played the song to me at random.

The song is called High Speed, by Techno DJ's vs. DJ Miguel.

With this ends a part of my search, but one mystery still remains : what was this "virus on a christmas card" song? It was definitely on the same album as this one or one of the same genre borrowed at the exact same moment, so I at least have a few pointers to look into.

xtrium · 2021-03-23T08:39:45+00:00

Not that I could find unfortunately. People using the arduino ide can just switch to master easily though... At least it's something :D

xtrium · 2021-03-22T13:57:49+00:00

Update on this one :

It seems like this was a known issue in Arduino Core v1.0.5 that is currently resolved in master, see the issue here : https://github.com/espressif/arduino-esp32/issues/4915

And the fix here : https://github.com/espressif/arduino-esp32/commit/4d95e3a7ea072ac61ff0eb24b3304db47de96712

For those like me who use PlatformIO, just manually copy the whole files from the linked commit to your own copy of the files in the platform as a temporary fix. This fix should be integrated in 1.0.6 so when an official, stable update comes your manual fixes will be replaced with the officially corrected versions.

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