Gravity fed cat water dish

thingiverse

I wanted to create a self-feeding water dish for our new cats that could hold a large amount of water. All the other ones I found online seemed to be built for 20oz or smaller bottles, so I decided to make one that could attach to a 32oz or 64oz Gatorade bottle, which have the same threads. This was not my first version, but it uses about half of the plastic the original did. It requires a build area of at least 175mm x 140mm, not huge, but not for smaller printers. For best feed rate, I've found that I need to tighten the full bottle all the way on, flip it over, then unscrew it about 1/4 turn. The bubbles flow freely then. The 32oz bottle lasted about two days with two cats drinking from it. So far, I've been the only one to knock the 64oz bottle one over; the cats have yet to knock either one over. I just revamped the dish to address a few things. The one ending in ver2 is my newest design at this point. It has a less pronounced lip and fewer sharp crevices, both of which are for easier cleaning. I found mold was able to grow in those hard-to-reach areas. Also, I beefed up the neck where the bottle attaches; I broke one on the old model, but it still functions, so I wanted to address it. Finally, it's a bit more low profile, which uses only about 80% of the plastic that the old one did and thus prints in 80% of the time. I also made the stabilizer bars a bit smaller; they work just as well, and unlike the older model, I haven't had them warp during printing on my non-heated bed.