Automatic Litterbox Central

I haven't been posting my results in here because I've been responding directly to SS instead.

Basically, I'm beside myself with joy at how my new tester model is working.

I'm still using an old box with the former "better" upgrade motor. That one is upstairs where I can give it the daily, frequent maintenance it needs.

But after a week with both of them upstairs working side-by-side, I put the tester model (TM) downstairs.

I'll admit it doesn't get the kind of maintenance it should down there. But the thing is, it is working so freaking good, it can go a little longer without tending.

I've pushed it a little too far a couple times - left it alone for days and come back to find it overloaded - and still working.

Only once did it finally throw up it's arms, beg for mercy and put on its red light. I fixed it and have been more attentive since.

I do get some clumping on the bottom, particularly up front and in the rear where others are having that problem, too.

But people, I have 12 - oops, rehomed one - 11 cats. I don't mind a little necessary maintenance when this box is, overall, so hands-off I can have 11 cats and only two litterboxes, that don't need to be scooped every hour on the hour, all day long.

I am using corn layer chicken feed as litter - discussed elsewhere in its own thread, it's basically The World's Best Cat Litter without the price. I can't see using clay litter in the SS, but then again I switched to the corn layer because I had LitterMaids, and those WOULD NOT FUNCTION with clay litter, period. Switching to the SS, I saw no reason to go back to clay litter at about $8.00 for 28 lbs, when I pay $13.00 for 50 lbs of corn litter that works better.

The tines on my SS are rarely clumped with either litter or poo. I never had a big problem with the "end of the lip litter fling" that others had, and have even less (read that "no") problem with that with the new rubber lip. Yes, I get clumping on the bottom, at the end, and at the beginning where the tines don't go. But, repeated, with 11 cats, I expect this and don't mind the 3 minutes of maintenance required each day versus the alternative of a regular litterbox.

Overall, I'm thrilled with it.

(Side note: I did a search on Google to confirm for this post the size of the cat litter I used to buy. One of the things that came up was wal-mart's webpage with cat stuff for sale. Seems LitterMaid's newest "improvement" on their utter piece of poo box? A hot, red metallic color job. Hoo boy! That's progress!)

I was gone all of Jan. and most of Feb. and just got to put my box up last weekend to start testing it.

I did call about the box not doing the initial cycle when turned on and they informed me that is an intended change for legal reasons. It is a tiny bit disconcerting since if the rake gets stuck you can't make it turn on after unsticking it to clean the box, but it is very, very minimal in my opinion since you can just rake it out the few times it gets stuck. I was wondering if they could legally add the option of running a cycle manually by say pushing in the power button and holding it for like 3 seconds instead of it just automatically running a cycle when turned on. That seems like it would be different enough from the auto cycle upon powering up to make it a legal and useful alternative.

I will start with the sticking issue. My old box use to get stuck 2 to 3 times a day because of either to much waste or the litter being too heavy. Sometimes it was even more times then that. So far this box has only gotten stuck twice. The first time it was with the rake half out of the box in the turning over stage with nothing on the rake. I think it was actually one of the cats screwing around with the rake that made it stop so I am happy it stopped. The second time, I didn't get the waste tray back in right and tried to push it down with the lid and the rake then popped the lid off into the back of the tray and stopped when it reversed into the lid. So at this point after a full week of use with 5 cats (other kitty is confined while we try to fix her potty problems) the new box has not had one UNDESIGNED sticking or conk out. I do get a huge popping sound when the rake snaps back into the down position which I am not sure if it is normal or not, but other then that, no bogging down of the motor or sounds of stress like the old motor had. This thing just hums along no matter what the kitties throw at it. Sometimes literally

That leads me to my next point... I can fill this box up with litter!! With the old box, I had to be careful how much litter I put in each time or it would bog down and stall. This was horrible for me because with 6 cats using it at the time, it would get to the too little litter point very quickly and then the box would turn into a soupy mess often before I could add more litter. Now I can throw a good deep amount in there and just add litter each morning or night as I see it is getting a bit low. This also means most of the waste is on the top of the litter and doesn't sink down and get stuck to the bottom of the box. I have only had a few bottom sticking clumps and those were in the front corners which there isn't much you can do about. With the old box, I continually had to clean up broken off pee clumps and then scrape the rest off the bottom because of the rake cutting off just the top of the clump on its pass. I am still getting some break up of pee clumps, but that is just because the litter doesn't always seem to dry enough and clump enough and the rake breaks it up, not because of the litter not being deep enough to keep it off the bottom. I have tried other litters and all were worse then the Tidy Cat Multiple Cat litter I am using now (yes even the expensive ones in the pet store), but I consider this a failing of the litter, not the box. I keep that KILLER new litter scooper (totally worth the 10 bucks even if it is just a scooper!) mentioned in a different thread here: litter-box-discussion/topic2614.html next to the box and it gets ALL of the little broken pieces out. I do this about once a day and the litter stays pretty much new looking all the time now. I'll continue to do this until I find that perfect litter *crosses fingers*.

I will concur with what someone else said about the rake. It does not go down deeper into the litter, which is something I also suggested needed addressing with the old box, and the way it curves at the ends and then hits the lip sometimes breaks the clumps up a bit and dumps bits back into the litter. For me however, the depth the rake goes is no longer an issue since I can put more litter into the box and the waste ends up mostly being on the top layer so the rake has no trouble grabbing it. I still get the breaking up of some of the litter when it starts to flip, but I don't see that as a major issue since it isn't much and I just rake the whole thing out once a day with a scooper. Most of it seems to come from the litter breaking up anyhow and not from the rake breaking it up on the flip over and as I said before, I consider that a failure of the litter, not the box. For me, that is a huge improvement over manual scooping since the box stays pretty darn clean throughout the day, even with 5 cats using it. When I was scooping it manually, it would often get pretty nasty before I got home.

Now I will address one of the things I think needs a bit of improvement still. The lip of the box... While the rubber lip added is a hundred times better then how it was before, I think the rubber lip needs to be made longer so that it goes from one side of the box to the other. Right now the lip terminates where the old one did about two inches shy of the sides of the box. In the last week of use, I have had 3 pee clumps rolled out of the box on the right corner because there is no lip there and the cats just happened to pee right on the very side edge of the box. All this would take would be extending a thing hard piece of plastic past the snap in point and running the rubber lip long that out to the edges of the box. This would make the lip longer then the rake and hopefully end the roll outs completely.

This leads me to two concerns I had before and voiced which I don't think were addressed. First, the handle on the waste tray is still very thin and when I try to lift out a full tray, it feels like it is bending somewhat unless I support the other side with my hand and I am worried it will snap off and drop a full tray of waste all over the place. Not a big deal really since you can support it and it is fine, but I still worry it will snap before I can get it to the point of lifting it out enough to get your other hand under it. So far though I haven't had it snap in months of use and I haven't seen anyone else mention this, so maybe I am just worrying about it too much. Secondly, the tabs that hold the waste lid on are very short and it is easy for them to pop out. On the old box they were thin as well so they ended up shearing off after a while and the lid would no longer stay on at all. The beefed the new ones up, but they are still very short (I know it is so you can take it off for cleaning) and I have already popped the lid off once by mistake and it fell into the box and stalled it out. That was my fault though so maybe the beefier tabs will be enough to keep it on over time, I just though some kind of spring loaded metal tabs that you could retract and then pop into the holes would be sturdier and not to hard of an improvement to make. If the new tabs hold up though, I am happy with having less metal in the box to rust down in this salty and humid environment! As I said, both of these are just concerns and I have had zero issues with either feature to this point on the new box (and the old for the waste tray handle).

Hope that gave everyone looking for info. on the new boxes some insight. If I have not addressed an issue someone was having with the box or wasn't clear on something, please ask and I will do everything I can to clear it up. If I had to rate this new box after just a week of use, I would give it a 4.5 stars. In comparison, the Litter Maid I used for 3 weeks and then returned would have gotten a 1 star only because I don't believe you can give zero stars. That thing caused more work then manually scoping a box.

Dawn

Mad, Ol' Cat Lady wrote:I was wondering if they could legally add the option of running a cycle manually by say pushing in the power button and holding it for like 3 seconds instead of it just automatically running a cycle when turned on.

OMG - YES!!!

April, I hope you saw this. And MOCL, I hope you add that to your comments on your survey directly to SS.

I never liked how either the SS or the LM did the automatic cycle when turned on, and equally don't like how you can't make the SS go through a cycle automatically now, either. Being able to hold the button and MAKE it go through a cycle WHEN NEEDED would be AWESOME.

Critter

Mad, Ol' Cat Lady wrote:First, the handle on the waste tray is still very thin and when I try to lift out a full tray, it feels like it is bending somewhat unless I support the other side with my hand and I am worried it will snap off and drop a full tray of waste all over the place.

I actually already had a problem with this. I lifted a rather full bin out and the bin itself ended up cracking where the handle meets it.

In my survey directly to SS, I suggested adding an additional 1-finger handle to the opposite side with which to support it in a more balanced manner.

I am very interested in this. I have never used a ScoopFree before. I have 10 cats of differing ages and sizes, so I could have a lot of helpful feedback.

Can anyone tell me if there's a way to tell the diff between the old and new by looking at the boxes? I want to get one, but it needs to be a new one . I think SS implies on their website that theirs is the new one that's selling, but they never say anythin about old or new

The old one is dark gray and blue with no lip on the end of the box. The new one is a light kinda beige/gray and green with an attachable rubber lip that sticks up on the end. No idea if the picture on the box has changed or not, but hope this helps.

Dawn

1 - Testing is closed. It has been for a while, but I am still receiving tester slot requests, so I thought I should post something here.

2 - The older and newer SmartScoops cannot be differentiated by color. We have always had a green "basic" model (the SS300) and a blue "deluxe"* model (SS400). The only way to differentiate is once the box is opened. The newest version will have a metal gear visible through a cut-out in the top of the motor (as opposed to the older white nylon gear seen there) and a rubber lip along the top edge of the deflector.



*The basic and deluxe models are identical as far as the litter box itself goes. The difference comes in the accessories: the deluxe model comes with a sampler pack of our No-Stick and Odor Control Sprays, as well as a litter-catching ramp, which do not accompany the basic model. The deluxe model also comes with more No-Touch Waste Bags and carbon filters than the basic model.

Thanks, April! can you confirm when the newer one will be in stores?