Week 6: Portability

The selling point of this pet feeder is that it is portable. Because it has to be portable, the power source of the Arduino cannot be 5 volts of power the computer is delivering to the Arduino. Therefore, the best method to make the pet feeder portable is by attaching a five volt battery pack to Arduino in its external power source pin.


The initial issue that the motor could not handle a nine volt battery because it was a 4.8 volt to 6 volt motor. Therefore, an ideal voltage for the motor is 5 volts. However, a battery pack wired in series would be perfect as a external power source. Most likely, there will be four 1.5 volt AA batteries supplying a total of 6 volts of power. In addition, the battery pack is fairly small so it will properly fit in the section underneath the tin pan.