Produce review - Rena auto feeder LG100

[bossteck]

Got the above couple of months back, decided to write a short review on it for anyone who's interested.

Product: Rena LG 100
Price: around $100
Dimension: approximately 150mm by 70mm
Power: AC, 3W
Cord length: approximately 2 meters
Warranty: 2 years

Mounting the feeder:

The auto feeder comes with a mounting clip and a small strip of Velcro. As my tank has euro-bracing, I couldn't use the mounting clips. So I opted for the velcro strip. It is pretty stable as long as you make sure the surfaces on which the velcro strips are attached to are properly cleaned.

Programming the feeder:

Programming the feeder is pretty easy. One button sets the time interval (in hours) between each feed. You can toggle between 6 preset intervals of once every 48, 24, 12, 8, 4 or 3 hours. So, say you set the time interval to be 12, the feeder will dispense food twice a day.

Another button sets the number of rotation the feeding drum will turn during each feeding. Same thing, pressing the button will toggle between 3 preset values of 1, 2 or 3 rotations.

Your setting is clearly displayed on a LCD display.

There's also a 'feed now' button which you can use to get the unit to dispense food on an ad-hoc basis.


Image: (From left) Time interval, Feed now, Number of rotation buttons.

The amount of food to dispense is controlled by setting the size of the gap on the feeding drum. Nothing electronic here, it is a low-tech method, you basically slide a cover to control how big a gap to open, food will fall through the gap whenever the drum is rotated.

Features worth mentioning:

This feeder comes with the "Life Guard" system, which is basically a fanciful name for a built-in heater. The low grade heating is said to reduce / eliminate moisture in the feeding drum, this prevents the food from going bad and allows for more food to be stored in the feeder. It also means you don't need to top up the feeder that often.

The feeder is also equipped with a light sensor which you can enable or disable. When enabled, the light sensor will override the feeder's program when no ambient light is detected.

This means the feeder will not dispense food in the middle of the night when everyone (including your fishes) are asleep.

I must say some thought has been put into the design of this feature because unlike the other 3 buttons, the switch to control the light sensor is one which is analog.

This means if the light sensor is activated (switch depressed) it would remained activated even if power is cut and subsequently restored, a great feature for folks who are depending on the feeder during holidays.


Image: The light sensor

The feeding drum slides off the unit completely for refilling, you don't need to unmount the entire unit just to top it up.

The unit will be reset to default 12 hourly feed with 1 rotation of the drum if power is cut off and subsequently restored. So if you plan to use the unit while you're away on a long trip you can rest assure that your fishes won't starve, even if there's a power trip. (I only found out about this recently)

The cons:

The unit is quite noisy when the drum is rotated. I guess you can think of it as a sort of conditioning for your fishes, they 'hear' the sound and knows there's food.
Update: I have since gotten another unit (2nd hand) and confirm that the noisy unit was due to my bad luck in getting a faulty one rather than poor design by Rena. The second unit I got was totally silent.

It is not possible to pre-program the feeder. Say it is 8am now and you want the feeder to dispense food at 9am and 9pm. You can't. You will have to wait till 9am and program the unit then. Once programmed, the unit will dispense food only at the next schedule feeding time, that is, 9pm that day. Some folks simply go crazy over this problem because they absolutely want the feeder to dispense food at specific time and found themselves having to sit around waiting to program the feeder.

Verdict

Easy to mount and use.
Stores a decent amount of food (I put about 1.5 month's worth with no problem).
Light sensor is a good feature and sort of, off-set the inability to pre-program the unit.