Advertising page, contact form, visitor count and this blog
· Changes
The site gets a few doors to the outside: a page for patrons and advertising partners, a contact form, an honest visitor count. And the blog you are reading right now.
What I build, change and learn.
Workshop notes on the camera, the feeder and the site. Every change with a date, every build with its parts.
Live feeding for everyone, feed days, Hall of Fame and lucky wheel
· Changes
From today you can feed the hens yourself: one free click a day for everyone. If you want more, you buy feed days. Plus the Hall of Fame, passes and a lucky wheel.
First the grain, then the hen: our new logo
· News
The old ring with a grain becomes a hen in a green circle, with a honey comb and a grain in front of its beak. Plus a fixed colour world and typefaces for everything.
The auger feeder is in the run, and every feeding becomes a clip
· News
The new feeder now feeds automatically on a schedule, several times a day. Every feeding gets a 30-second clip, and in the evening a video with the day's highlights.
The new feeder with a feed auger
· Tech & builds
No more servo flap: a stepper motor turns an auger that pushes the grain out of the hopper. With its own firmware, home Wi-Fi and remote maintenance.
Around the clock on Twitch, YouTube and Kick
· Tech & builds
The stream now also runs on the platforms, 24 hours a day. At night with a notice card, during a camera outage with a pause picture, instead of cutting off.
Day 1: we are live
· News
As of today the chicken cam is public. For now just for watching, during opening hours. From here on we count the days.
From the camera to the web: a server, a stream and a small Lenovo
· Tech & builds
The live picture runs through a small computer in the house that reads the camera and sends a single stream to the server. The server distributes it to everyone.
The servo prototype: a flap, a display and an emergency feed button
· Tech & builds
The first feeder was a starter kit: a small servo opens a flap, a display keeps count, and a button feeds the hens even without Wi-Fi in an emergency.
How Peck & Click started: a few leftover ESP32 boards
· News
A few ESP32 boards were left over from another project. They became a prototype that lets you feed hens over the internet. That is how it all began.