Cat Flaps and battery problems.

I recently have experienced trouble with our cat flap, it was not operating consistently.

I could use the front door, unfortunately I could not trust the cat with a door key, plus he is to short to reach the lock.

The cat had battered the mechanism of the cat flap, to such an extent that I had to dismantle the flap to get at the mechanism, which I did by removing the whole assembly from the wall, quite a big job. I replaced a crank to the motor and found that the Infra Red key did not operate the lock consistently.

I decided to replace the batteries in both the cats key and the door flap itself.

Seemed to be working better after this, though not perfect.

A few nights back, I could hear the cat battering his way back in, in the morning I noted he had once again disengaged the crank mechanism.

I decided that the Infra Red key was opaque and perhaps a new key was perhaps the solution. So I ordered a new key. When it arrived, it had a set of batteries as part of the package. I decided to leave these in the package and use the batteries from the cats collar as these were newish, barely a week old. The new key was no better. In desperation I fitted the new batteries from the new collar package. Suddenly, happiness, just approach the cat flap and the mechanism de-latched.

The issue turned out to be the collar batteries. I have been buying these from a large Super market, on the basis that the turn over will be high, the batteries not being on the shelf for any length of time. Yet this appears not to be the case.

So the question now is, where can you buy batteries which have not been in stock for months or years. The brand by the way Duracell LR44.

Component-Shop sell such cells at low prices and cheap postage too. .99 for LR44 and lots of other connector items you might need.

Thought this was a thread about the new aircraft carrier(s) and the F-35's - if and when...........

Pete

If your cat can just push his way through, then so can other cats, so why not just leave it unlatched?

We had two catflaps destroyed by the neighbours cat. Until I went into the kitchen with a water spray, then it didn't come back again.

When I was given the cat to temporary look after for a fortnight, I was told he had the intelligence of Einstein. Now Einstein must have been pretty thick, as this cat uses a hell of a lot of repeated brute strength to batter the operating crank off.

To date, we have not had an issue, yet, with other cats.

Oh, he is still here, 3 years later.

His vet bills would have bought me some pretty fine models. I am tempted to resent this expenditure, having no affinity to cats. Yet, I would be sad to see him go, even my mother, who dislikes cats, likes him. He has gone from a cat that though he was a Tiger and I was his pray, taking a swipe at me at every opportunity to a pussy cat.

It is battery life that concerns me now, where to buy them, as Asda does not seem to be the place.

Well actually the Component-Shop LR44 are .99 for a card of ten. All similar watch batteries, car alarm batteries etc seem equally cheap but I have not used them yet so dont know the quality. That is much, much cheaper than high street stores (evn with postage! ) Possibly they have higher turnover of these than your local shops. Worth a try?

Are you sure that the originals were not SR44 - rather than LR44?

LR44 = Alkaline.

SR44 = Silver Oxide.

Silver oxide SR44 not only have greater capacity, they keep their voltage higher and longer when discharging than the LR44's.

I had this problem with my Vernier Calipers, where the cheap LR44 only last a couple of weeks, while the SR44 last for months and months. I got my last set of SR44's from eBay - took a lot of searching as sellers try and say their LR44 are a direct swap when they're not.

Someone appears to have a made a website all about this here: http://www.lr44batteryequivalent.org/

Cheers,
Si.

Certainly it was LR44 that I purchased.

I have looked at the manual and its seems I can use these " Place 2 x LR44 (A76, SR44, D357/303)"

So if SR44 last longer I will be buying those in future.

Our cat was a similar story, we looked after it for a girl across the road for a while in 2007, and it's still here.

Our own cat was chased away by asbocat from next door.

If you don't have problems with other cats, why worry about the lock?

We tried the IR one, then went to the stone age magnetic collar,which was much more reliable.

At the moment, there is no lock, just the magnetic centring to stop the wind blowing it open.

Fortunately at present he does just about hold his own, with respect to other cats in the neighbourhood.

Not being a cat lover I had little time for cats. In fact, experience with this cat has re-enforced my opinion that natural life is hard. Although I joked he thought he was a Tiger, when he was younger, the attitude was one of total aggression towards anything which was in his territory (as he perceived it). Even now, at 14 years of age, he gives no ground, unless forced to, even with his back against the wall, he fights, there is no retreat.

I guess that for all cats and all or most other animals that is how it is, if they want to survive.

Yet, he does recognise his name, he will come, if he thinks it is to his advantage, certainly not stupid.

I put the cat flap into the porch wall, because he would wake me at about 04:00hrs, by swiping me with his claw. In fact this was his approach to everything, until I anticipated the swipe and grabbed him about the shoulders a number of times, and just held him there. Thereafter there was a little respect.

Now he is like an alarm clock, each morning at 08:00 hrs he comes up the stairs, and barks like a Sea Lion, for his tablets and breakfast.

Although not a lover of cats, I do find him fascinating, with respect to behaviour and why.

I also feel sad, that I can see the effects of ageing and his struggle to survive (cats do what they must and is in their interests).

In some ways it is sad, my wife likes cats less than me, yet he comes up and sits on my wifes lap, apparently not wanting anything, other than company, to be shoed away.

As the cat says with his eyes and demeanour, some think I am a God to be worshipped, I know I am one.

A few batteries and pills seem a small price to pay on reflection. Although I have promised myself a Parkzone Albatross, when they become available.

Don't forget you do not own a cat, the cat owns you and if you behave and feed them, provide a few comfy beds and a bit of fuss, they'll let you live with them.

Apparently Churchill said that man looks down on a dog, up at a cat, and straight across to a pig.

(I don't think he was selling insurance at the time)

I should certainly take out pet insurance though, and choose a vet that is more interested in animals than their bank balance.

To late in our case, had him about six months, to discover he had thyroid problem. His favourite vet does seem to like animals and the cat seems to get on with him, however the vet works for a business as an employee.

Then there are the flea injections ( to avoid them) and of course his worming injection.

Plus treatment for a fight in which he was injured (about £250).

It is ironic that his owners have taken a rabbit hutch I had, for Guinea pigs. When offered their cat back, I was told he was happier with us and he is used to the area.

Perhaps I should have mentioned he is a Scottish cat originally from Glasgow, then Edinburgh onto Inverness, later Aberdeen before arriving in England and us. He does not travel well, apparently!

Sounds like your cat is proclaiming his affection with a Glasgow kiss?

Insurance wont cover the thyroid problem but would cover the other problms you'll get. Having said that, a friend used up £2K on insurance to be told they would need to cough up for another op (£900) to correct the problem the vet didn't solve on the previous one, or have the cat put down. After heated discussion it was sorted by the cat's back leg being amputated. I wouldn't have thought a 3 legged cat could jump a 6 ft fence but it does easily.

We already had one cat when our Persian decended on us, talk about thick he watched Eva go out of the catflap then walked over to investigate, went around into the sitting room and sat on the window sill watching Eva outside and you could see the question running through his head 'how did you do that then?'.

It took him three weeks of watching Eva go in and out of the house through the cat flap before the little light dawned, he belts the daylights out of the catflap now to start it swinging then pulls himself through, he is about two years old now and big, he weighs about 5 kilo now and built like a tank so I suppose we will need a new cat flap before long.

Biggest laugh I had concerning a cat was when our big old Ginger tom (now deceased) lost an eye, he had to have it removed because of injury and while he was at the vets they also neutered him which he found particularly embarassing.

After he had healed up and was up and about again he went out for a wander, when he returned he decided to use his usual route, up onto next doors fence, over our shed roof and along the side fence onto the greenhouse then jump down onto a potting bench then home.

I watched him get as far as the greenhouse then jump for the bench, just at the side of the bench was a 45 gallom water butt open at the top and with only one eye he got it all wrong and jumped too far to one side, it was a very bedraggled Kitten that I dragged out of the water butt and in an evil temper to boot, he didnt do it again....

We just have an "ordinary" cat flap - no key on the cat. We used to have a key one with our previous cat - but if any other cat tried to get in ours used to go a sit by the cat flap - thus opening it and letting them in! The visitor would then proceed to eat all the food then leave. Ours never did figure it out!

The current cat is simply too hostile and territorial - there isn't a cat in the neigbourhood with the guts to try! So no key needed!

BEB

Thanks for this, I have electronic vernier gauge and have been surprised at the battery consumption, I was not aware of the difference between SR and LR ... now I know better .. Cheers for the info!