Toppets Large Automatic Pet Feeder Electronic Programmable Portion Control Dog Cat Feeder W/ Lcd Display

I am surprised that nobody has mentioned this. My situation is that I am away from home randomly for a few days at a time. So I wanted a feeder that I could turn on when I leave, and off when I am back. I prefer feeding the cats myself when I am home, more accurate portion sizing and also wet food at times. Either way, once you turn the unit off, it loses all information. Time, feeding times and portion size. I am by no means a newbie to technology and can program even a radio scanner from Radio Shack (that means something if you know what I am talking about), but this feeder is pretty tough to program. So this is my point - every time I turn this feeder back on, I have to reprogram the time, the feeding schedule and the portion size. I guess if I do this often enough, I will learn the programming steps, but it's a huge hassle. I realize that I can program it to run for only so many days, but I sometimes don't make it home on the day I hope to, but the next day etc...I guess if you use this feeder 24/7, it does the job, but for someone who is in and out and wants to turn the unit off frequently, it's really not the perfect machine.Also, when I received it, one of the flaps on the bottom which are spring activated didn't seem to want to move. I discovered it had some extra plastic from the manufacturing process and was sticking. Had to use a knife to trim it down to the correct size. Now it works fine.Update:I have had this feeder for about 4 months now. I just changed the rating from 3 stars to 4 stars. I have to say, it really is a reliable feeder. The batteries are still going strong, they are the original ones. It has never failed to dispense food and even though I have never measured it scientifically, it seems to dispense more or less the same amount every time. I do have to say that I usually keep it fairly full though. I still hate the fact that I can't turn it off without reprogramming, if they were to fix that issue, this would be a wonderful machine.My concoction for feeding two cats is still holding up too, I did post a picture on this page of what that looks like. I used two pieces of rain gutter downspout and a pedestal I made. Both cats have lost some weight thanks to not having a never ending supply of dry food while I'm gone.Update:I made myself a little cheat sheet for the programming process, printed it out and stuck it on the fridge. Maybe it will help someone. I use two feeding times. Also I use the default "smallest" feeding portion, so I don't have to change that:1) Turn feeder on.2) Within 90 seconds, set time:3) Press "Clock" to set hour / press "Timer" to set minute4) Press "Set" to confirm.5) Press "Clock" to toggle between 12/24 hours.6) Press "Start" to confirm clock settings.7) Display now shows "1 07" (first feeding at 0700)8) Press "Set" for two seconds until display flashes.9) Press "Timer" to set desired feeding time.10) Press "Set" to program second feeding time.11) Press "Timer" to set desired feeding time.12) Press "Start" to save and exit.[To change portion size:]14) Push VOL key to display portion size.15) Press and hold the SET key until the digit blinks.16) Press the VOL key to set the portion size. [ 1 = 1/4 cup, 2 = 1/2 cup etc... ]17) Press the START key to confirm.Another update:Had the feeder for 15 months now. Still works perfectly. I've gotten used to its few quirks and am very happy with it. Yeah, still could use a better user interface, but hey... The four D cell batteries are finally getting low. They have been in the feeder for 15 months now and it has been on every day. Not shabby.One more Update:Had the unit for nearly exactly two years now. Still working perfectly twice a day without a break. Still on the second set of D cell batteries. I'm changing the rating to five stars. I really can't complain. Yeah, I still would love to be able to turn it off and not lose all the settings. I also wish that you could control the dispensing amount a little more accurately, but that wouldn't be easy seeing the way this machine is built. But for the money, you do get a good value. Still recommended, a little more highly now.We just took our two cats to the vet, our "bigger" cat went from 18 pounds to 12 pounds. The vet praised us telling us that most people don't manage to bring their cats back down to a healthy weight. We told her that the feeder did it... Now we have to make a little extra manual feeding when we are home so they don't lose more weight. This is where a smaller incremental increase in portion size would come in handy. Going from 1/4 cup to 1/2 cup is just too much.Six Years Later:Wow, our feeder is still working. It has been running every day since I bought it in July 2011. It is now September of 2017. About a year ago I took the whole thing apart and cleaned it out. There was a lot of food dust stuck in the gears and such. I'm thinking about buying another unit, because at this point I can't imagine not having this feeder and I'm afraid that if this one were to break I might not be able to find another one. Also, any other feeder model would not work with my dual dispensing downspout. I see a lot of terrible reviews and wonder if we got super lucky with ours or why others are having such bad luck. I would still recommend it, how could I not after six years!Seven Years Later:It is now June 2018. I bought the feeder nearly exactly seven years ago and it has been running every single day. It just stopped working today. I tried several sets of new batteries and nothing helped. The display shows weird symbols and then fades away. The voice recording still works. So something inside finally gave up. Honestly, I'm ok with that. I would consider looking at other feeders, but since I still have the concoction made for two cats, I will just reorder this again and hope it lasts another 7 years. Plus, I kind of know how to program it now.No, it's still not the perfect feeder. Changing batteries is a pain as they are on the bottom and the flap opens towards the bottom. We all know now that programming is less than intuitive. But it does work pretty reliably, and that's what counts.

I received this feeder yesterday and immediately set it up for my Jack Russell.First of all, she is diabetic and is on a strict diet; we have to carefully monitor the amount of food she gets. She eats Science Diet prescription W/D dry and canned food. It took 6 months of adjusting and readjusting how much we were feeding her to get to a point where she was not losing or gaining too much weight. She also has Addison's disease and takes a small dose of Prednisone every day (as well as a monthly Percortan injection); of course this makes her appetite insane.I thought this feeder would be perfect if it worked well. Right now she eats a portion of canned food mixed with a 1/4 cup of dry around 6 am and 6 pm. She gets another cup of dry food spread out at different times throughout the rest of the day. The biggest problem is that we are not close enough to our home to come in the afternoon to feed her. Because she's diabetic, our vet wants us to make sure that she is able to access food during the day in case her blood glucose happens to get low and she starts searching for food to eat. Of course with her appetite, if we put food down when we leave and she knows it's there, she will eat it right away and have nothing for later. Too bad you can't reason with a dog...For the past couple months, I have had to put the food in a bowl earlier in the morning so she doesn't hear anything later when I put the food down and just before we leave, go over and VERY, VERY quietly sit the bowl down on the floor in the kitchen so she doesn't hear it and immediately go devour it. Sometimes she manages to find it before we get out the door. But I have found the only good thing about the fact that she is now blind as a result of the diabetes; if I can put it down quietly enough she wont hear or see it. I also try to put it in a different area so she won't find it until she goes looking for it when she's hungry.Anyway, you can see why a feeder that should be able to automatically dispense 1/4 cup of food 4 times per day would be perfect for us. We need to split her remaining cup of dry food out through the rest of the day and that should work perfectly. I set the feeder to dispense 1/4 cup at 9 am, 12 pm, 3 pm, and 10 pm. In the midst of that, she also gets fed around 6 am and 6 pm by us. So this sounded like exactly what we needed. Of course, it should also help the regulation of her diabetes if we can feed her more regularly with consistent amounts.What I noticed so far is that the amount coming out seems to be more like a 1/2 cup instead of a 1/4 cup. For us this is a pretty significant difference with all the reasons we need to control her food and when she eats it. I only tested it once last night, and unfortunately, I had it sitting on the floor where she immediately started inhaling the food as it came out. So I'm not certain what amount really came out. I just know that after a few bites it looked like there was still a 1/4 cup in there. I plan to check it out again tonight and measure the amount exactly to see what she's getting. I'll try to update if it's different. If it's not putting out 1/4 cup, I will have to send it back. If food size is the issue, there's nothing I can do because we absolutely cannot switch foods. The size of the food we use is pretty average I would think, and it's even bigger than what my dog was used to before changing to prescription W/D. I would say it's somewhere between 1/4 and 1/2 inch.As far as the programming, I didn't have any problems at all understanding the instructions or how to apply them. I even stuck the manual back in the box confident that I can remember the steps. Looking at them from the perspective of someone (me) who writes instructions for people at work all the time, they could have been a little better, but they were sufficient. When I write instructions though, I tend to overdo them with exact details and multiple images (in my case screen shots) just to be cautious and avoid questions.Even though I feel like the instructions were easy, it does irritate me that I will have to reprogram it when the batteries are changed (especially since I had to take batteries from a battery-draining toy to get it running last night after I realized we were out of D batteries). I'm sure the batteries I put in will need to be replaced very soon.I can't comment on the durability since it's only the first day of using it. I only pray that my dog doesn't find some way to open it up and eat everything in it though. That would be a disaster with all her issues. She was infatuated with it last night. I guess she could smell that there was a huge amount of food right in front of her, but couldn't figure out why she couldn't get to it. She also bumped her head on it a couple times since she was used to a regular bowl sitting in the same place for the past 5 years, instead of something that tall, but that happens anytime we change anything she was used to before she was blind.(Edit: I read the instructions a little better and figured out the first half of the next sentence was entirely possible)If I could add any feature to this thing it would be a button that would dispense an extra feeding without interfering with the scheduled feedings and a way to store the program when changing batteries. Aside from that, if it dispenses the correct amount of food and doesn't break, I will be happy with it for the price I paid. I will be watching the 30 day return mark closely though. If I have to return it, I'll just bite the bullet and get one of the feeders with better reviews priced around $150. That's still barely a dent in the total amount that our dog has cost us in the past 3 years, but for the same reason, I'm always trying to save any place I can.UPDATE:I decided to keep this feeder. The feeding amount isn't exactly what it says it should be, but I was able to adjust the times of day it feeds to compensate for the amount.The 1/4 cup setting releases about a 1/3 cup like most others have said previously. I am using food that is as close to the round, 1/2" size (that it says it works best with) as I can find.The bottom line - for the price and the fact that the food comes out as scheduled, it get's 4 stars. If the amount was more accurate, it would get 5.UPDATE (Jan 2013):Still have this feeder and it is still going on the original (used) batteries (that I took out of one of my daughter's toys) after feeding twice a day almost every day for an entire year. I may have had 3 jams, which isn't bad considering what other people say about it, but it is bad if it happens when I am not at home since my dogs blood glucose will drop too low with no food at the scheduled time. Luckily only 1 jam happened while I was at work and I was able to go home at lunch and feed her. (I have a camera in the kitchen where I am able to watch her and see if she went to the feeder to eat.) The other 2 happened when I was at home.I have had to turn it off a few times and reprogram it, and I don't really understand why everyone says it is so hard. I haven't got the instructions back out once since putting them away. A couple of times I hit "Set" instead of "start" and had to start over, but that was just because I got in a hurry and got button happy.I also found that you can change feeding times and change the clock time without turning it off and on as someone has said was necessary in another review.