Hi RandyG, thanks for your suggestions and I am happy that your cat likes the feeder :)

1) Provide an AC adapter to allow a plug in option, keeping the batteries as a back up.

2) Install a small cooling unit to keep moist food fresh for up to 5 days.

3) Include legs that snap into the bottom of the unit, raising the feeder off the floor. My Manx cat has difficulty bending over to eat and drink from floor level so I ended up placing the unit on a couple of large books to fix the “giraffe syndrome.” Suddenly, no burping or vomiting after (and sometimes during) meals off the floor feeders.

DC to AC Conversion-
I purchased “2A AC Converter Adapter DC 6V 1.5A Power Supply Charger 5.5 x 2.1mm 1500mA US” for $10.10 and ” 6ft. DC Barrel Power 5.5mm x 2.1mm Extension Cable Male to Female” for $2.78 on ebay to give me up to a 10 ft extendable power cord. I cut off the male connector on the extension cord and prepped the cable to expose the positive and negative wires. I purchased a rubber bushing for $.69 3/32″ overall length 1/8″ I.D. 3/8″ major dia. 3/16″ min dia. 1/16″ Hd. Thickness & a nylon snap bushing that fits 3/8″ hole 1/4″ I.D. Shorty for $.35. Also, I purchased moldable glue and used one packet at $3.17 for the one packet. Unscrew the battery housing from the main unit, drill a 3/8″ hole into the outside of the back side plastic near where the wires from the circuit board go to the batteries. There are two plastic wall from the back side plastic on the battery housing to the place where you want to solder the positive and negative wires from the male side of the extension cable. I drilled a 1/4″ hole on the inside wall and fed the power cable through the snap bushing then the rubber bushing and then the plastic on the battery housing and tied a standard knot on the cable to keep it from pulling out of the 1/4″ hole. Snap the plastic bushing on the outside hole and the rubber bushing also catches on the plastic bushing when pulled. I soldered the red wire from the cable to where the red wire from the circuit board is soldered to the battery housing and the black wire from the cable to where the black wire from the circuit board is soldered to the battery housing. Then after reconnecting the battery housing, I added moldable glue to fill in the snap bushing from the outside of the case to help keep moisture from getting into the area with the circuit board. You could probably use silicone molding instead of the moldable glue – whatever is handy. Then I connected up the extension cord to the plug on the ac power supply and I went ahead and taped that connection together using gaffers tape to keep the connectors from coming apart accidentally. It works plugged into an AC outlet just as if it was running on the D cell batteries. You can actually still run it off of batteries if you want as long as you unplug it from the ac outlet and don’t combine the two. Just don’t plug it in and have batteries installed in the feeder at the same time. That would probably fry the circuit board. $17 in parts, a drill, wire strippers, a soldering iron and some silver solder, and about 15-20 minutes of time to put it together are all you need. Please use this info at your own risk and observe proper safety precautions when working with power. I would not convert these until after they have gone out of warranty since I’ve had one fail on me before the warranty period was up.

This will happen if the tray isn’t all the way down. When you set the tray in place, it will feel like it’s in place, but you need to push it a little more — about ¼ inch — until you feel it snap into the holder.

Hello Josephine, that’s unusual. Are you using Duracell batteries? Those should last at least for a couple of months.