Customer Reviews

CSF-3 Cat Super Feeder with Analog Timer, Stand and Bowl

5 star:		(74)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

This feeder is worth every penny. I own two evil-genius cats that collaborate with each other to overcome all of the restrictions I attempt to enforce. I purchased an automatic Bistro feeder about a year ago to isolate ourselves from the feeding process; the cats found a way to extract food from it almost immediately. After months of being annoyed at all hours of the night by our cats attacking the Bistro, I opted for a Super Feeder.

The Super Feeder arrived unassembled with easy to follow instructions. The assembly process took about five minutes and familiarized me with all of the high quality components. I also purchased a "hood cover" to prevent my little devils from stealing food from the machine. The Super Feeder is brilliantly simple. It comes with a high quality power timer that cycles the power on and off at user set intervals. A small hidden dial controls the length for which the machine dispenses food. This analog control allows for an infinite level of feeding precision (unlike the Bistro's huge intervals). The Super Feeder also features a jumper that will restrict the machine from feeding more than once in a (approximate) 45 minute period. This prevents the machine from feeding more than once in the event of a power interruption during a feeding cycle.

The Super Feeder was made for nerds like me. I have mine attached to a network power controller next to my server cabinet. I wrote several UNIX shell and expect scripts to control the feeding behavior. The cats are fed at every even hour of the day (12 times a day). This prevents the cats from getting too excited when food is dispensed and prevents overeating and eating too quickly. I also authored a password protected website that allows me to feed the cats from anywhere in the universe with the click of a button, as well as capturing a photographic image of the cats eating so I know that they are safe and that the feeder is working correctly. Every time the cats are fed I receive a page to my telephone showing me the output of the scripts to verify that everything is working correctly.

I've had the feeder for a while now and it has proved to be smarter than my mischievous cats. The machine operates quietly, reliably, and consistently. It has never jammed, failed to feed properly, or under/overfed. Support for this product is also wonderful. When I purchased the additional 1.8 gallon food hopper I received answers to my emails within 10 minutes of sending them after 10pm PST. Do yourself a favor, buy this.

I got this as a christmas gift and I feel it is a great product. Before the Super feeder our cat was fed twice a day, at 5:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m.. By the time 4:00 a.m. arrived our cat was so hungry that he would do everything in his power to wake us up (He has no shame) and when we got home after work it was impossible to get in the house without getting mauled by the cat. Now he is fed every two hours automatically starting at 4:00 a.m. until 10:00 p.m.. We now sleep until the alarm clock goes off and we have been able to minimize the amount of food he gets per day. Setup was easy and took no time at all to set the gap width for Iams cat food and to dial the timer and cycle time to my desired setting. The double hopper that is provided gives me about 8 days worth of food and the feeder is very accurate. I made a custom stand to hold the feeder in place (see customer images) and I would recommend this product to anyone with a hungry animal that is unwilling to wait for you to feed him.

Don't get me wrong, this is a great product, but as soon as I unpacked it and saw the thin electric cord I knew it was going to be a problem. I attempted to put tape over all exposed cord and tuck away the extra behind the feeder, out of sight. But my food-obsessed rescue cat got impatient with the feeder one day and chewed right through that flimsy cord. I wasn't home when it happened and I think she may have gotten a jolt, but I couldn't detect any injury to her. My one suggestion is that a more heavy duty cord be provided.

I have to admit, I wasn't hoping to spend this much on an automatic pet feeder, but this one is WORTH every penny!
My obese cat, Petey, weighs in at 18.9 lbs....he's a tabby cat. OOPS! (Don't blame me, we adopted him at this weight in February, poor baby).

This feeder is God's gift to me. You can set the amount of food you want (not in actual measurements like 1/4 cup, but you can turn the dial LITERALLY millimeters, and the amount of food dispersed will increase/decrease until you have it perfect). It has not failed me yet, and Petey has stopped begging for his food tremendously since I put him on auto timer. :)

I have to admit, assembling it was quite a challenge. The paper instructions are very poor, but there are instructional videos for additional help! It took me 2 hours...roughly. I was also worried at first because there is no way to indicate that the auto timer is working. You just have to program it, and wait for it to feed at your designated times. This left me uneasy, but I tested it for a day to make sure it was reliable, and it was!

HIGHLY recommended. It is a feeder that is made of good quality materials, and it looks like you spent a pretty penny on it..not flimsy or cheapy looking like so many others.

The customer service was impeccable! I panicked the night I received it due to my being unsure if the autotimer was actually working, and I actually received an email back after 9PM on a Thursday night!!

If you are in the market for an automatic pet feeder, THIS is the perfect one!

I was really impressed by all the positive reviews of this product, but the truth is that it is not a miracle-feeder. I have owned one of these for quite a while now, and I've really tried to make it work with every possible configuration of the settings on the device, even though it is fairly difficult to adjust. My cat is on a diet, and he eats a dry food composed of pellets that are shaped like giant aspirin tablets - round in one dimension, flatter in the other. He is fed an amount that works out to between 1/8 and 1/4 of a cup of food 3 times a day. This feeder cannot dispense these amounts reliably, and the range of variation is relatively huge. Sometimes it dispenses a dozen pellets, sometimes over 30 pellets. In short, I can't rely on this feeder, even though it cost over $100. Only purchase this feeder if the food you are going to put in there is perfectly round and fairly small - it was originally developed for fish food and that's what it works for, NOT most cat foods.

I bought this feeder in early August and wanted to wait a bit to review. We have two Siamese siblings, Mork & Mindy, and Mr. Mork was driving me NUTS yelling for breakfast at 4:30 am. My most recent potential solution was to remove the human equation from their food, and so I revisited automatic pet feeders that I'd looked at years ago but thought were too expensive. I read all the reviews here plus some others and finally decided on this, somewhat more expensive one. I echo many of the set-up comments but the video was clear as day. I made some simple adjustments to replace their twice-a-day dose of 2/3 cup of Iams with four doses of 1/3 cup. It took maybe four dry runs to get dispensation perfect, and I've checked it periodically since and it's still right on. We use the stainless steel bowl it came with, and truthfully I still get a chuckle every time it runs because it sounds like a Las Vegas slot machine paying off. The cats have no problem with it, but you DO NOT want them sitting in your lap when it goes off unless their claws are very well trimmed! ZOOOOOMMMMMM!

The machine is very sturdy, not very tippy (low center of gravity) and while Mork & Mindy were curious at first about where the food comes from and how to get more, they've pretty much quit further study. One piece of advice I would give that I haven't seen in these reviews is to be patient! Siamese are very vocal, Mork overly so, and he didn't stop meowing right away. He'd actually start 5 minutes BEFORE his first "payoff". And it took them a while to figure out that neither my wife nor I are responsible for sustenance. We're almost there, but I figure we had to undo seven years of their food habits and introduce new ones. All in all, totally worth it. Very little AM begging, and the periodic "FEED ME" during the day has totally disappeared. The hopper (I have the standard one) is easy to fill without unscrewing the retaining screws.

While the timer is very flexible and intuitive, recently we've found it to be quite noisy, especially early in the AM when it's so quiet in the house and neighborhood. So I just moved the whole thing from the kitchen into the laundry room where their litter box is; problem solved. And I should say that the added bonus of being able to go away for a weekend without having to find someone to give them food is GREAT!

August 2010 update: We thought Mork & Mindy were looking a little chubby so I ran the machine through a cycle and measured the food. 1/4 cup, just as I'd set it last year, four times a day. We are continuously amazed at how they know within five or ten minutes when the slot machine is going to pay off and they line up on the back of the couch down the hallway and look toward Mecca. We are still as happy with this machine as when we first bought it, although I must admit that I had to duct tape it to the floor since Mindy would lick the bowl SO incessantly after eating that it would migrate across the floor. But never has it turned over.

My cat was getting a little chubby, and since he's missing a foot, that's even worse for him. I decided I wanted to get an automated feeder and looked at all of the amazon reviews before deciding. All of the other products, people said their cats were able to get into the food, knock the feeder over, or the feeder didn't work as expected. I decided to shell out the money for this one, and I'm glad I did.

People have mentioned that this feeder is hard to set up - I didn't think so. I was really worried for some long hard set up process, but it was simple (I'm an engineer - am I biased?). The setup consisted of screwing together a few parts, putting together the hopper and putting the bowl on the stand. There are several different screws, and the instructions are hard to read, however I felt it was rather intuitive.

I bought the feeder from amazon with the timer that you have to push the nubs out for feeding times. Once I had the feeder set up, I worked on setting up the food times. I use Science Diet Adult Indoor cat food, it's shaped like a pyramid almost. It seems to work. I set up the "food size" selector, I actually opened it as far as it would go and just removed the set screw. No extra food is coming down. Then after not reading the directions, finally read the directions on the amount of food set screw - it is EXTREMELY fine adjustment. One end of the spectrum was spitting out one piece of food, and the other seemed to be a lot. I put it somewhere in the middle - at some point I'll measure. I set the timer for 4 times a day, and voila, done.

I did have to find a new food spot that had an outlet nearby, as the timer is kinda bulky. I also replaced the giant steel bowl with a shallow smaller silicon one. My cat did not like the other bowl at all, and it was loud. He took a few days to warm up to the feeder, but seems to be happy now, he knows that the sound is - he still flips out, and it's rather hilarious. If you get this for a cat, you may want to think about replacing the bowl, as I've read that a lot of cats don't like their whiskers to touch the bowl while they eat - and their whole head fits in this bowl IT'S HUGE!

My cat has not tried to burgle any food out of the machine, but he's not the smartest. He's getting more brave and has begun to investigate. The base is huge, so I don't think he can knock it over, and it's screwed shut so go ahead and try to get more food Dexter! I also am not sure he's smart enough to stick his paws up the machine, I couldn't get my fingers in there, and I have small fingers - so I don't think he'll get anything if he tries. A piece or two may get stuck during feeding times, but that's his allotted food anyways.

I think I may get another plastic hopper for the top, as I'm refilling every 3-4 days I think, maybe sooner. I also keep a screwdriver behind the unit, so I don't get angry when I have to re-fill it.

I would highly recommend this product to anyone who is looking for a reliable self-feeder.

Update: December 8, 2009
I have been using this feeder without problems. Dexter LOVES the sound of his food dropping, and he's still hilarious to watch. He runs over to it and does some crazy looking around thing. He's actually started to leave some food for later and not eat it all immediately! We have used this feeder while on several day trips, and though the cats are attention starved when we return, they are not hungry. This feeder is awesome!

My cat was always waking me up at 4 or 5 in the morning because it was crying for food. I knew I needed to get an automatic feeder and I was suprised to find out that so few feeders exist and all of them we're getting terrible reviews. I looked at every single feeder on Amazon and other sites before deciding that this one was worth my money.

It's twice the price as most of the other feeders you'll find, unless you buy like a $300 one, but I want to let you know it's worth the money. It took only 2 days for my cat to learn that the machine, not me, would be giving him the food he wants so badly. He has since stopped crying in the morning and I get a full night's rest. I even use it to feed him the rest of the day now which makes my job easier.

I'd highly recommend this to anyone considering a automatic feeder for their cat or dog. I'll sum up the rest of my thoughts in pros vs cons in case you're still undecided:

PROS:
-It works! It does what it says it will and portion control/timing are a breeze.
-Sturdy construction. Looks and feels solid. I think it'll last quite some time. You can even purchase additional hoppers to increase the food storage capacity.
-Cat proof. My cat sniffed around and hit it but was unable to steal food from it. The chute is a few inches long and quite narrow.
-It's quiet. The only sound that you'll hear is the food actually clinking the metal plate as it falls into it. I don't mind it and it actually acts as an alert for your hungry cat.

CONS:
-Not the most aesthetically appleasing device. It's not terrible looking but it's not stylish either. Also, you'll have to think about where you're putting it, as the wire and the somewhat bulky timer need to be plugged in somewhere. If you don't have an outlet on the floor, like me, it's a little hard on the eyes.
-The instructions are poor. It'll actually take you an hour to an hour and 30 minutes to complete the construction, testing and setup. This is due in part to small blurry pictures and not so clear instructions; nothing some common sense can't figure out though.

I found the Superfeeder after discovering that my cat could break into any timed pet feeder on the market. I often have to take short trips, and my cat does not have the foresight that if she eats the whole pile of food now, she will be starving by the time I return home (I can't say I'd be much better were I in her paws :) ). Along with doing its timed feeding job perfectly, this machine can withstand a full-on hungry feline assault from the highly trained feeder demolition team that is my cat. It completely blows away all competing models I've tried; while it's pricey and requires a little analog configuration, you won't regret purchasing this feeder.

I have a mult-pet household, and this product has been worth every penny.

One of our cats is a rescue with food issues. She is very overweight, and if given the opportunity, will gorge until she gets sick. We had tried various feeding schedules to control both the amount of food per feeding and total amount of food daily, but this resulted in a very food aggressive cat, and did not help when we went on trips.

Enter the SuperFeeder!

Based on other reviews, we purchased this product and crossed our fingers. It has wildly exceeded our expectations.

The feeder is actually a lot smaller than I expected, and fits nicely on a small bench we use to keep the cat food out of dog reach.

It does take a bit of setup, but if you can use a screwdriver, you can assemble this easily. You will need one very small Phillips Head to do some of the small screws, but unless you are using this outside, you probably won't need them. I put them in, and later realized it was unnecessary for my cats. Assembly time was about 30 minutes, including reading the instructions. Watch the online video at the SuperFeeder website, and it will make a lot more sense.

Setting the amount was also very easy, just two screws to adjust, one for the size of the food, one for amount, which is actually the length of time the motor runs. I got the feeding size to 1/8 of a cup per time in less than 5 minutes.

The feeder is actually very quiet. The loudest sound was the food falling into the metal bowl, which I fixed by cutting a cheap silicone pot holder to fit the bottom, which has the added advantage of being dishwasher safe.

Because of the way the motor is triggered, you can use any outlet timer you want. The one delivered with mine can give me up to 24 feeding a day, which was awesome. My cats now get ten 1/8 cup feedings a day, so my rescue cat can't gorge, but feels fed, and the other cat can eat unmolested.

The constant yowling for food has stopped, the gorging and vomiting has stopped, and my overweight rescue cat has started losing weight. For all those reasons, this product was worth the money.

I will probably order one more clear extension for the food reservoir, which by my calculations will feed my cats for 8 days between refills. Right now, with the basic package, it feeds my two cats about 6 1/2 days. If I had more cats than that, I would get the version with large black hopper. The hopper looks really big in the photos, but now that I have seen the whole machine, I realize that it is not.

Don't bother with the cheaper models from other manufacturers. These suckers are made in the US, and are very sturdy. I wish I had bought one a year ago.