Pressure Switch

Our oldest cat is pretty spoiled around here.  More then anything, he hates being cold.  He will huddle down into a little ball and cry and cry until someone makes him warm.  He told me one time that his best friend is sunshine.  He loves to roll around on the warm patio and stretch out in the sunshine.

Now that our mornings and nights have turned so cold, he's not very happy.  About once a week or so, we'll let them (the cats) into the house (they live in the garage and basement) so that he can sleep by the fireplace.

A few years ago, back when we only had one cat, he found Firefly's heating pad she was using for her back and he has been addicted every since.  We now leave the heating pad (on a timer) in his basket for him during the cold months.  The timer was nice but I didn't like seeing the blanket on and him not using it. 

I fixed that problem last night.  A few days back I read about someone building a pressure switch under their cats bed that would turn on a light when the cat was indeed in the bed...why? I don't know :)  I took this same idea but tied it into the heating pad.  Now when our cat climbs into his bed, the heating pad turns on.  Once he gets to warm (if that's possible) he simply climbs out of bed and the pad turns off.


I know we are using power on the heating pad that is not really necessary, but he enjoys it and now with the pressure switch it uses only a faction of the power.



I went to instructables.com and just did a search for "pressure switch"

I just looked through a few and then build one the way I wanted it to be.  If you need help making one, just leave a comment and explain how I built mine.