Self flushing toilet

[Quixote_1]

Hello!
I'm looking to build a self-flushing toilet with a twist...
 
I've trained my cat to use the toilet instead of a litter box, which is amazing because I don't have to deal with the smell of the box or with changing the litter. I do, however, have to flush the toilet when he uses it. If I leave for the weekend, I come back to a nasty fermenting soup of cat crap and piss which tends to stink up the place. He seems a little discontent about the situation as well.
 
I recently set up an unused aquarium pump in the toilet tank with a tube leading to the overflow and plugged the pump into a hydroponics timer set to run the pump for 45 seconds every 8 hours. Although it's somewhat effective at refreshing the water in the bowl and reducing the gross factor, it lacks the oomph to flush everything completely. I considered using a stronger pump until I found this cool device that I'm thinking about ordering: https://www.amazon.com/TECHO-Touchless-Toilet-Automatic-Flusher/dp/B01DO7ABHW/ref=pd_sim_sbs_60_5?ie=UTF8&dpID=51lBkpEJimL&dpSrc=sims&preST=_AC_UL160_SR160%2C160_&psc=1&refRID=P8XBJE7PVPYCJFBTC04B#productDetails
I'd have to hack it and wire it to my own system to trigger it somehow, but when I contacted the company they said that another version is in the works and they would consider my suggestion of adding some terminals that could be used to trigger it using an automation system.
 
My dilemmas now are what to use to detect when the toilet needs to be flushed and how to do so. My two options at the moment are a Raspberry Pi or an Arduino, but I'm favoring the Pi because it seems more versatile and if I ever want to re-purpose it, it would probably be the most useful.
Secondly, how to detect that it needs to be flushed. A simple limit switch on the seat would be useless because the cat seems to like to do this weird routine, or "dance" as I like to call it, where he runs around the apartment howling and jumping up on the seat, then down, runs around and then back on the seat again until he's ready to do his business. Limit switches and motion sensors seem to be out of the question.
I'm thinking maybe some way of beaming IR into the bowl and detecting a change in the reflected light.
 
Does anyone here have any better ideas before I embark on this project?  Thanks!!

 

[pete_c]

Yes the WAF thing here is the seat  and seat cover being up or down after or before use. 
 
Mixing in the WAF and Cat function automation makes it difficult. 
 
The solution here is separately used bathrooms with singular male or female functions or a combination of.
 
Too having a bidet in some bathrooms and having urinals in other bathrooms.

 

[Quixote_1]

I could care less about the WAF. I've fixed that pesky problem and it no longer interferes with my automation projects, or anything else for that matter. Why deal with that nonsense when I can just entertain women half my age that are amazed by my "incredible gadgets"?

 

[pete_c]

Yeah here years ago it was just flowers, dinner and a movie and no gadgets.  Best to wait to 60 or so to settle down eh?
 
My parrot is still jealous today (40 years old).  She is the only one that I have been with now for 40 years.  She likes me doing stuff for her as she coddles me when I get close to her. She will lunge at my wife like she is hunting for food.
 
OK so you are automating your cat?  Making life easier.
 
You can really utilize the RPi and Arduino in your endeavor using a combination of sensors for temperature, water levels, and amounts of water utilized.  It's been a couple of years ago here that I just purchased a bag o sensors to test with.
 
The sensors are very reasonably priced these days.

 

[giesen]

Is there such thing as an ammonia detector? I hear cat piss is full of it

Sent from my SM-N910W8 using Tapatalk

 

[pete_c]

There is one for fish tanks called the Seneye Home.
 

• temperature - constantly monitors water temperature, so you can get an alert if your heater breaks
• Free Ammonia - monitors the highly toxic free ammonia (NH3) at very low levels, so you can stop your fish from dying from Ammonia posioning.
• pH - the seneye monitors pH in your aquarium or pond water between 6.4 and 9. This range is ideal for most aquatic life and by monitoring this range increased accuracy has be achieved.
• total Light - monitor your light levels over the course of the day and know if if your lights fail.
• water Level - readings are only taken when the seneye device is in water, no false readings.

Don't like the smell cat urine; especially when a cat sprays it's territory.
 
Cat urine, especially that of male cats, contains the putative cat pheromone 3-mercapto-3-methylbutan-1-ol (MMB), a compound that gives cat urine its typical odor. The MMB precursor felinine is synthesized in the urine from 3-methylbutanol-cysteinylglycine (3-MBCG) by the excreted peptidase cauxin. Felinine then slowly degrades into the volatile MMB.

Rats and mice are highly averse to the odor of a cat's urine, but after infection with the parasite Toxoplasma gondii, they are attracted by it, highly increasing the likelihood of being preyed upon and of infecting the cat.

 

[mikefamig]

Maybe some sort of pressure sensitive switch under the seat that can sense the cat's weight and then flush some minutes after the sensor is violated.

 

[batwater]

How about a proximity tag (RFID ?) on the cat's collar that gets picked up and can trigger automation based on enter, event <poop, pee>, exit.  Using the term loosely, photo eye at cat level and at people level, if broken only at cat level, after break clears flush?

 

[picta]

Hilarious problem!
 
I use these to detect my dog going into his bathroom: https://www.amazon.com/Indoor-Outdoor-Photoelectric-Infrared-Detector/dp/B00N4PB0ZM/ref=sr_1_4?s=security-surveillance&ie=UTF8&qid=1471555315&sr=1-4&keywords=beam+motion+sensor
 
If you can attach these on either side of the bowl, it can trigger a flag for a set time, and once the time is up, flush!

 

[Quixote_1]

I use these to detect my dog going into his bathroom: https://www.amazon.com/Indoor-Outdoor-Photoelectric-Infrared-Detector/dp/B00N4PB0ZM/ref=sr_1_4?s=security-surveillance&ie=UTF8&qid=1471555315&sr=1-4&keywords=beam+motion+sensor
If you can attach these on either side of the bowl, it can trigger a flag for a set time, and once the time is up, flush!

 

Maybe some sort of pressure sensitive switch under the seat that can sense the cat's weight and then flush some minutes after the sensor is violated.

How about a proximity tag (RFID ?) on the cat's collar that gets picked up and can trigger automation based on enter, event <poop, pee>, exit.  Using the term loosely, photo eye at cat level and at people level, if broken only at cat level, after break clears flush?

 
These three ideas could work if my cat didn't have such a strange routine before doing his business. As it stands, I'll need a different approach or the toilet will be flushing 5 or 6 times before he even gets around to using it. The other problem is that he's a pretty smart little bugger and at one point I taught him how to flush the toilet but couldn't figure out how to teach him to flush immediately after using the toilet. Instead he would just keep flushing the toilet and watching the water spiral down the drain. I set up a counter on the flush handle and discovered that throughout the day while I was out he would flush it up to 20 times. At that point I had to remove the handle and try to figure out a new method. If I set up either of the two suggestions, not only would the toilet be triggered several times during his pre-poop ritual, but he would also inevitably discover that he can cause the toilet to flush in a certain way and then the games would begin again.
 

There is one for fish tanks called the Seneye Home.

 
I think I've seen that product before. Looks very cool, especially since I am a pretty avid aquarist myself. The problem with that method is that I would need to have the device suspended in the toilet. That sounds like a pretty messy solution. Secondly, these type of ammonia detectors usually use a reagent that mixes with a water sample, then reads the colour of the reaction. You have to replenish the reagent every once in a while and I'm not sure I like that idea. I'm also relatively certain that the sensor would become caked with gross stuff over a very short time.  It's imperative that what ever solution I/we come up with does not make contact with the water or be positioned anywhere that it will be splashed. It must also be easily cleaned.
 
So parrots are a good deterrent for clingy women?  I'll have to look into that.


Does anyone know of a sensor that will detect colours in front of the sensor? I don't want to use a camera for obvious reasons, but maybe I could use a pressure switch just to do a check of the colour of the water 20 or 30 seconds after it's triggered. If the result is just white (the colour of the bowl), then it wouldn't flush, but any deviation from that and it would. I'd just have to make sure that I keep it gleaming clean at all times.

 

[ToniaBond]

Sounds interesting

 

[Bzncrewjr]

I bought this automatic flusher thingy.   Not this one, but similar
https://www.amazon.com/FlushMinder-Dual-Flush-single-flush-dual-flush-Accessory/dp/B00AP8UO9E
 
http://www.gizmosforgeeks.com/itouchless-toilet-flush-handle-replaces-your-manual-toilet-handle
 
Detects motion and flushes toilet after a delay.   Sorry, not as much fun as 
 
Bought it for the same reason.  Toilet training cats.  However, second cat ruined the toilet training program and I had to remove it.  However it was pretty WAF friendly.   Waterproof, battery operated and replaces lever.   I still have it..boxed up someplace.
 
--Russ

 

[Quixote_1]

I bought this automatic flusher thingy.   Not this one, but similar
https://www.amazon.com/FlushMinder-Dual-Flush-single-flush-dual-flush-Accessory/dp/B00AP8UO9E
 
http://www.gizmosforgeeks.com/itouchless-toilet-flush-handle-replaces-your-manual-toilet-handle
 
Detects motion and flushes toilet after a delay.   Sorry, not as much fun as 
 
Bought it for the same reason.  Toilet training cats.  However, second cat ruined the toilet training program and I had to remove it.  However it was pretty WAF friendly.   Waterproof, battery operated and replaces lever.   I still have it..boxed up someplace.
 
--Russ

 
Thanks for the leads. Both of those products look interesting, but again, I need more control over when the toilet is flushed to prevent my little friend from purposely triggering it repeatedly. The first product gave me a good idea -- I can detect motion and then keep track of the time spent on the seat. That way when he jumps up, starts pawing the tray and jumps down right after, maybe I can time it correctly so that it won't flush unless he's there for a specific amount of time.
I still really want to find a way of analyzing the colour of the water or reflected IR light level.
 
By the way, how did your second cat ruin the program?

 

[xlurkr]

Yes the WAF thing here is the seat  and seat cover being up or down after or before use. 
 
Mixing in the WAF and Cat function automation makes it difficult. 
 
The solution here is separately used bathrooms with singular male or female functions or a combination of.
 
Too having a bidet in some bathrooms and having urinals in other bathrooms.

 
Pete:
 
Do you have a urinal in one of your bathrooms?  You're my hero.
 
-Tom

 

[Quixote_1]

Pete:
 
Do you have a urinal in one of your bathrooms?  You're my hero.
 
-Tom

 
Yeah, it's called the sink, bro.