Automatic Litterbox Central

Hazmat wrote:Rich33527 where did you get thos contacts> in the second picture?

I actuall made those from the metal part of a hanging file folder. There is a flat metal "rod" that the folders hang on. I had to cut them to length and then trim the width of them down. The process of trimming the width with snips actually put the bend in them nicely. Then I put This connector:
on the end and took the red plastic part off and then took this connector:
and took the blue part off and slid the small end over the small end of teh red one and soldered them together with the wire inside. I needed the ring to be able to screw te piece on with.
Im thinking of doing it all over and thread some copper bolts through the wood part to contact the chip with. I can just solder some wire to the bolts. That way i will be able to tighten it a bit more and get better contact.

I finally got my EPROM programmer in the mail today - hurrah! It's surprisingly small and lightweight, but I can't wait to start hooking things up tomorrow. Hopefully I won't get all those error messages reported in this thread, but if so, I'll definitely try out all your suggestions. If this works, then my final task will be to concoct my own brand of home-made "green-solution". Wish me luck!

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Still2cats2many wrote:Best of luck! I just picked up a gallon of my new faux sanisolution at Pet Smart. A gallon of PetZyme for $12. After refilling an empty cartridge, it smells suspiciously like the standard Sanisolution. It contains safe, live enzymes that break down the pet waste odors along with a mild detergent, which is perfect. The stuff is specifically for treating pet stained surfaces and I've used a (far more expensive) enzyme based solution before that genuinely removes that wretched cat urine smell, so it seems like this might be the perfect alternative. PetZyme has also received a lot of positive reviews online. At 128 ounces per gallon, that works out to 8.5 fifteen ounce cartridge refills per gallon of PetZyme, which works out to $1.50 per cartridge refill.

$1.50 for a full cartridge of solution and 60 more cleanings? Yes. I do believe I like the sound of that.

Bah...now you tell me.....
I just went and picked up a gallon of simple green to mix up som solution myself.
What Im excited about is setting it to run 4 times a day and not worrying about the cost. A good feeling.

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What would someone do if they owned a mac. I cannot seem to locate a program on the web that would work.

Why is no one making these with just a simple push button reset feature. Talk about a way to make a few bucks.

Or is there a way to short out the chip so its read only, like maybe block a contact or two? I am a stay it home person so I am not worried about it running out.

Thanks.

With all of the problems I've had with "Smart" cartridges failing with less than half the cycles that I'm supposed to get .. I figure I have about $150 worth of washings/unused solution due to prematurely failing cartridges .. I am glad to see someone has figured this out. If I were to do this, I wouldn't be refilling with anything harmful for my kitty. In fact, I picked up about six old (unused) LitterFree cartridges on eBay a couple of years ago to keep my LF running. Each one will refill the CG cartridge about 4-6 times. The solution is very similar, if not the same. After that, I might use Simple Green or the stuff someone else found that is used in animal hospitals (can't remember the name, but it can be found in the LF forum).

I don't have a problem buying the "Smart" Cartridges. I am more than happy to keep them in business. **BUT** I am also sick of getting no more than 15 washings and then getting "empty" beeps. As I said .. I have about $150 worth of solution (in failed cartridges) that I can't use because the cartridges are defective. CatGenie/Petno have sent me three PU's and ALL of them still have the "empty" cartridge warning defect. So .. I have gotten used to having about 20 3/4 to 1/2 full cartridges that on't work any more, and always making sure that I have at least two or three brand new cartridges at the ready. That becomes very expensive. I also know that I cannot rey on leaving for a few days with the CG in automatic mode because if it fails on day one or two, I will come back in town to a CG that has been beeping for 3-5 days and has scared the cat away from ever using it again! Which kind of makes the CG useless, except that it alleviates manual scooping (which is fine, but not exactly what the CG is fully capable of). So, I come back hoping that the cat will still use a filthy bowl with about 5 days worth of pee and poop and not resort to pooping and peeing on the couch! IMO, this is NOT getting my $$$ worth out of the CG. So pardon me if I fail to shed tears about what happens to CG/Petno if I choose to refill my own cartridges! I'm more worried about getting my money's worth!!

If CG would just fix these problems and reprogram the machines to disable the "empty" beeps automatically after a short time, or allow us to turn them off altogether, this wouldn't be a problem! Many of us already have VERY skittish cats who will use the CG, but will also be scared away from using it again if there is anything that will scare her away from it. For this reason, I always run manual cycles. After two years, she uses the CG but she also still looks at "The Hand" as if it is some evil alien that is just waiting to kill her before she squats!

WOW NFLnut. Have you asked them for another processor?

A little dielectric grease on the chip fixed my "half used" cartridge problem. Give it a try.

Hazmat:

If I remember correctly, haven't you asked me this question before? And my answer was: "Sure .. if Petno wants to send me a FOURTH processing unit, then they can knock themselves out!" I've just given up on trying out new processors and will continue to keep several new cartridges on hand.

As to Petno losing money from people refilling their own cartridges .. I would imagine that the handful of people who would actually try to do this will lose them far LESS money than sending out three or four processing units to each of these customers and paying for shipping back the defective ones, which is the case with me.

The "Smart" cartridge thing is a dismal failure which severely compromises an otherwise fine product (except for the incessant beeping part, but ditching the DUMB cartridge "copy protection" would fix THAT!)

If the cartridges worked properly and every one gave me a full 60 washings, I wouldn't even think of doing it. But, as I said, I have a garage floor full of cartridges .. some which have less than 10 washings (i.e. should have 50 left) .. that I have not gotten my money's worth from. AND, even a bigger problem than the lost money, I have had several times when I put in my last brand new cartridge that ends up not working, or one with less than 10 washings, which fails and then I have a CG that won't operate until several days later when Amazon or whomever has the cheapest price can ship me some new cartridges. For that reason, I never have less than two or three new cartridges on hand so that I don't have any "down" days due to another cartridge failure. This gets quite expensive, and I'm getting tired of having about $60-$75 tied up in extra CG cartridges plus a couple of hundred in not-empty defective cartridges all because of a chronic design failure!

NFLNut,
Are you sure that your partially used cartrage issue isn't bad contacts.

I use the saliva method:

Wash and dry hands, lick finger, rub finger on cartrage contacts. This usually works for me first or second try.

Which brings me back to my question a few posts up.

Can you block any of the contacts so the chip would become read only? This would make a new cartridge always read full.

I can't see how that would work. There is a post that claims that shorting a few contacts will do it but then again I can't see how that would do anything but burn out the main controller.

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Still2cats2many wrote:Just buy the EEPROM programmer and follow the directions in this thread. For a meager one-time investment of about forty bucks, you can refill and reuse your cartridges till the cows come home. BTW, I'm having very good success after several days with PetZyme in the cartridge. Pleasant smell, cats dig it, leaves no sticky residue, etc.

This is not possible for those of us with a MAC, at least not after looking online for about 2 hours.