Automatic Litterbox Central

I've had one of these for a couple of months now.

It handles urine clumps well; it doesn't break them apart.

It handles fecal clumps much less well. If your cat deposits solid logs, then I don't think that you will have much of a problem. However, the plastic "fingers" used to transport the waste from the litter to the container are so wide that smaller turds will simply sit in the scallops and not make it to the container. While they are riding up and down as the conveyor motor runs, they will rub against the stationary fingers and flake bits off. The poo bits tend to collect near the axle.

When I first got the machine, it was very quiet. After a couple of weeks of wear, the various parts started to emit a very loud squealing sound. I used sewing machine oil to lubricate the parts, which was a really bad idea. Given the amount of litter dust that's around the box, the oiled parts rapidly become parts with a caked on layer of oily litter. I think that you'd be better off buying some graphite lubricant to use. (I would have, but the noise of the box was bothering me 2 rooms away.)

The gears used are plastic and I've noticed the gear used to turn the litter tray has already worn to the point where sometimes the tray won't turn.

Somebody else has also mentioned the litter overflow at the conveyor entrance.

The idea for the design is a pretty clever one. The rotation speed of the tray isn't fast enough for the cat to notice, but it is fast enough to ensure the box will be cleaned in 30 minutes or less. The implementation of the box still has bugs.

I'm probably going to get a Litter-Robot to see how well that does.

Now that you mention it I had noticed that the conveyor didn't seem to transport the fecal clumps very well when I was watching it, but they have always ended up being taken care of, and I don't seem to have a flaking problem. What I think happens is the urine clumps sort of carry them along.

Now I am using a timer with my unit, so it only runs 30 minutes every 2 hours. Which tends to result in there likely being a urine clump when the unit runs, which takes care of the fecal clumps without just grinding on them for hours, which is what I think would happen without the timer.

I would be curious if a similar solution would work for you. Possibly change the interval depending on the number of cats using the box.

It also ends up reducing the amount of time the unit runs, and the wear on the parts.

I like your idea of the graphite, I will try that, or non-stick spray if the squeek returns.

Just my idle musing,
Bill

This last week has been great.

Emptied the container once or twice, added some litter. One of the cats managed to pee on top of the conveyor cover, but that was easy to wash off.

After do a very rough cost estimate for water/electricity for the CatGenie (which I posted in that forum) I decided to try and figure out how much in electricty this would end up costing me. It uses about 6 Watts when it is running.
With the timer I am using, it looks like it will be about $0.10 a month ($1.22 a year).
Without using a timer it is about $0.41 a month ($4.87 a year).

Still looks prety clean, so I am going to be lazy and not do any cleaning yet. Figure I will try and wait at least 2 more weeks. I will proabaly also stop posting weekly updates unless something happens.

Happy Holidays
Bill

I'm glad to hear about other people's experiences with this unit. I wanted to report on a problem I had recently. The unit just stopped working. I checked everything that might cause it to shut off. The conveyer lid was on correctly and the waste bucket was also. Still there was no green light when I plugged in the power. Concerned that it was burnt motor, I tried calling customer service. But they were closed due to the holidays. But I was eager to get it working again since I've enjoyed having a clean litter for this long. And my cat has been very good about using it (He will not tolerate a dirty box and will go elsewhere). Since I haven't done very much to clean the unit in four months, I thought that might be a good place to start. I removed the center screw and pulled up the bowl to see what was going on underneath. There were little pieces of litter in the gears below the bowl. I cleared those out and any out-of-place pieces of litter around the unit. After putting it back together, it was working once again. This is a great little machine.

Newbie here who will also jump on the Simply Clean bandwagon. Over the years I have gone through 1 Littermaid (gift) and 2 Littersweeps (purchased). All three worked fairly well at first, but over time suffered from various ailments, even with constant cleaning per tips found here. The Littersweeps were my latest attempt at automatic litter cleaning and seemed to last the longest, but they too eventually started having issues. In post warranty repair efforts, I disassembled the LS' and found a very complicated gearing system that had much gear damage (broken teeth). I think poor quality gears and an overly complex mechanical system created too many 'breakdown points' in the LS powertrain and sweep systems.

When I first started hearing about the Simply Clean, I found its design comcept fairly straightforward. When I finally bought one (about 6 months ago), it worked like a charm right out of the box. I followed the timer method that many others used (something PetSafe needs to consider, a built in timer) for both energy conservation purposes and to keep from spooking one of our cats, whose is a Nervous Nellie. It worked fine, but after a couple months it would make an occasional grinding noise. In contacting PetSafe by email, they said that sounded like cat litter possibly clogging up gears and instrusted me to remove the pan and check the gearing between the pan motor and the pan. Sure enough, some litter had built up under the main gear, and a quick tip of the base cleaned it out and fixed the noise.

However, being the boy genius I thought I was, I decided to spray some white lithium grease into the gearing area for the pan and on the gear teeth under the pan. BIG MISTAKE. That stuff was like a litter magnet and quickly gummed up the works. I now had to break down the entire pan, base, gearing and motor system to get the grease/litter covered parts out and clean them. What I found truly amazing was how simply put together the SC is. Very few gears, simple motor mounts, and seperate motors for the pan and conveyor system. there is only one stand alone gear on the pan dive (between the gear teeth on the pan and the gear on the pan motor) and it is a very heavy duty design and hardy plastic material. The gear on the motor is a metal one, and the pan gear teeth are quite large and molded into the pan. None of them appear to be likely to break anytime soon. The pan motor also appears to be fairly 'generic' and there is lots of info on it for tracking down a replacement if it is ever needed. Once I cleaned the grease out of this assembly, I used dry graphite powder, and that has worked like a charm. It appears that the graphite not only helps to lubricate the pan gears/drive mechanism, is makes it easier for any loose litter to work its way out instead of hanging up in the works. During this 'disassembly', I took the time to look at the electronics and the drive system for the conveyor ramp. The electronics appear very simple (several physical switches and some very small boards), mainly to control power to the motors, on/off, and auto shutoff if the motors show too much resistance from jams. All of it is fairly easy to get to and dismount/remount. The ramp is direct driven by its motor and I did nothing to try to pull the motor from the crank that drives the ramp. As others have described, the ramp is similar to a sewing machine fabric advance track, and while complicated looking, is actually a very simple mechanism.

In the end, I sprayed the area where the ramp crank rotates in the ramp with some silicon spray, and let it dry fully. I also did the afore mentioned dusting with graphite powder on the pan drive gearing and on the pan gear teeth (as the pan gear teeth support the pan on the base surface). A final lubricating is putting a small dollop of white lithim in every screw hole I removed a screw from. This helps in reassembly and does prevent cross threading with the plastic screw holes. Finally, I spray the inside of the pan with vegetable spray (per tips in manual) when I do a full litter change.

The SC works great if your cat will accept using it. Its design simplicity seems to lend itself to minimal breakdown (as long as you stay away from grease/oil based lubes for gearings). I suspect that motor replacement in the event of a motor breakdown will be fairly simple. The gears are very solid and have big teeth, which should lead to much longer life than seen previously on the LM and LS litterboxes. Also, the conveyor ramp seem very sturdy and simply designed, which should bode well for ongoing usage.

In the end, our two cats got a second SC for Christmas from Santa and the two dysfunctional LS' followed the LM to their final resting place in the local landfill.

Thanks for the description of how the Simply Clean is put together. It gives me even more hope that it will not suffer from the "it used to work great" syndrome I have suffered with all the other boxes I have used. Sorry you had to take your apart, but I am happy you have let me learn from your mistake.

I keep thinking of all the things they "should" have added to make it possibly work better. Timer so it could run intermitently. Weight or Optical sensor, so it would only run as needed, and stop if a cat climbs in. Battery backup, so it would run when the power goes out. Features that other boxes have. But really, in every box I have owned that have had any of these features, it is just one more thing to go wrong, that needs adjustment, that prevents me from getting the box to do what I want. Or might not be implemented the way I want it. In the end I am more than happy that they left off all these features, it gives me more flexibility.

I think it would be smart of PetSafe to just include a wall timer in the box, since most people I have seen post here have done that, and it wouldn't cause them to redesign anything.

Bill

Actually, I didn't mind taking the Simply Clean apart. I like to 'tinker' with things, which can be dangerous at times. Since we have several automated home devices (pet waterer, pet feeder, Roomba vacuum, multiple auto litter boxes), I get a number of opportunities to play with them . I really think Pet Safe did a good job on designing for simplicity. In all, I counted only 8 moving parts in the whole thing (2 motors, 1 independent gear, the pan, 3 switches, 1 section of the conveyor track). The Littersweep had at least that many moving gears in just the main gearbox in the base. I know that at the same period ot time in owning the LS and LM, I had already had several issues with moving parts breaking in both the other two litter boxes.

I agree with your point about not having a built in timer as it is quite easy to add an external timer.

Murphy must be reading this forum, since it isn't but a few hours after I post about how cool it is that the Simply Clean doesn't have any sensors to malfunction, than I have a malfunction due to one of the sensors it actually has. Somehow a clump managed to get positioned such that it lifted the conveyor cover just enough to turn the unit off.

Think I will have to disable both the sensors tomorrow, since I don't want to take the chance of having it not run because of the catch bucket being in just the right spot. Cats get cranky when the box is dirty

Where is the third switch? I know of two, one for the cover, and one for the bucket.

Bill

I should have been more clear on my third switch. Its not really a moving part, but an electronic switch (I just called it moving for simplicity sake). It appears that one of the small boards is a switch/sensor that detects motor resistance and probably turns off the SC if the SC jams up and puts too much stress on any motor. Something in the electronics shuts it down if there is a jam, as I had that happen when too much litter and lithium grease clogged up the pan gears.

ps. Possible solution to the conveyor cover pop off might be to use some mini bungy cords to hold it down, possibly acros the top. On my old LS, I ended up screwing the pan ring to the base as it kept shifting and causing its sensors to shut it down. I had already considered using mini bungy cords for the refuse bin, as the cats like to play with the bag edges and have pulled it out a couple of times.

This continues to be the easiest and quietest box I have ever dealt with. Add litter, switch bags twice a week.

I haven't had to do *any* manual raking, or cleaning of the litter so far.

As a note, I used 2 small strips of gaffers tape to disable the cover and bucket sensors.

Bill

I have been leaning towards the Cat Genie as my next must have litter box, but there have still been a lot of problems with that box and here I am reading how there are no problems with this box. I am really tempted by this box, but wonder how many cats are using yours that you change it twice a week? I have four cats now and want something I don't have to deal with daily. Right now the Scoop Free needs to be scooped out about 3 days after new litter is put in and totally changed after 6 or 7 and at that time it is a bit of work. The total change takes my husband and me about 15 minutes to wipe it all down and clean out the Plexiglass box he made. Also, have any of the cats using the box had very, very soft poo and if so how has the box handled it? The Scoop Free does very well until one of the cats has a super soft poo and than it becomes a horror of a mess when the rake tries to push that forward.

Dawn

With 4 cats you must have your hands full. I could see where SF or CatGenie would be attractive. I wish there were fewer "I just got my CatGenie today, and it works great" and "I called CatGenie and they are sending a replacement part" posts. It sounds like they have the best customer service, but I don't want to be without a cat box while stuff gets fixed. But I may just be jealous since I don't have anywhere I could put a CatGenie.

There are 2 cats using the box I have. The collection bucket is about 6.5" x 6.5" x 5", or about 200 cubic inches, and it fills pretty well. It looks like you had a LR, so you know it will depend really on how much they pee, and may have a feeling for how often you had to deal with that. I don't know how big the bucket was, or how well the LR filled it. But I suspect with 4 cats, you will probably have to change it somewhere between once a day and once every other day, which I know you are trying to avoid. I used to hate emptying my previous boxes because I am cheap, and would reuse the custom liners which made things a lot more messy. Being able to use the plastic bags from the supermarket has changed all that.

I have just purchased a second one (found it for $130, no tax, no shipping) in the hopes that I can just do weekly changes, but I suspect the cat's won't cooperate with me on that plan.

I haven't seen any evidence of either of them having had very soft poo, so I am not exactly sure what would happen. I would suspect that it would do well since it is never trying to push it through the litter using the thin tines of a rake. It is always trying to lift and the plastic parts of the conveyor are fairly wide. I would be happy to try an experiment if you have a suggestion of what I should dump into the litter.

I also find that what I really disliked about the previous automatic litterboxes was that it seemed like I was always having to monitor and correct for when something went wrong. Cat peed on the rake, now I have to clean the rake.
Litter stuck to the bottom of the pan, now I have to scrape the pan.
Clumps stacked too high in the bucket, now I have to manually scoop the box.
etc...
I would gladly have to switch bags more often for not having to do any of that.

If you do get one, I would recommend also picking up a timer, and a bottle or tube of graphite powder.

Bill

I just picked up a LitterSweep Ultra from PetSmart a few days ago and I'm not sure it's going to work out. I don't like how it dumps the clumps all in the same spot in the tray so that it really only uses half the available space, and sometimes the rake dumps waste back into the clean litter. Basically it's working, but only so-so.

I found this forum and I am considering getting the Simply Clean while I can still return the LitterSweep to PetSmart. I am concerned about the 12 pound weight limit listed on the website...my older cat is certainly a bit over the limit. What would happen if a heavier cat uses the box?

No idea why they have listed a 12lb weight limit. There doesn't seem to be anything that will break or be damaged if a heavier cat were to use it. There aren't any weight sensors in it like the LitterSweep has. Both my cats are either at the limit or a bit over it.

Personally I would return the LitterSweep while you still can, there are better boxes out there.

I am currently using the Petsafe Simply Clean and it works much better. As I mentioned in a previous post, if you do get it, I would recommend also getting a timer that will let you have it run for 30 minutes every 2 hours, and some graphite powder to use as a lubricant between the bowl and the base.

Bill

Thanks for the information. No real idea of what would simulate runny poo other than a big blob of instant oatmeal? I really haven't had much of a insure with the Scoop Free messing up, but the litter does get expensive and since I am not using the disposable box, I do need to wipe it out and clean the rake about every 3 days. I have been scooping and cleaning boxes for about 12 years now and I am just sooooooo to the point of paying whatever to get a box that is hassle free and doesn't require me to have to scoop, scrub it to get rid of the smears and smell, or leave my cats smelling of pee and poo. I didn't see one of these at our Petsmart when I went today, but I will check the other one I go to and check it out if they have it.

Dawn