pet porte catflap

tux900

MrsE wrote: »

I'm puzzled now.

Do the wall ones have two flaps?

Just the one (on the inside).

According to the Pet Porte FAQ the only difference between the door and wall versions is the length of the scanner cable (8cm vs 38cm). It strikes me that if this the only difference then why not just make (and sell) one version with 38cm of cable? The excess could be coiled up inside the unit. It would save a whole load of confusion, manufacturing costs, limitations of fitment etc.

Indeed, the new Smart Flap (the FAQ above is for the old version - I don't know how relevent each issue is for the new one) has a battery backup facility however this is not usable on the wall version. Hence, presumably the wall version knows it is a wall version and disables it, if you see what I mean? Or perhaps the wall version uses a different circuit board (and no battery connections).

That said, when it says the battery backup is not usable on the wall version what I think they're referring to is this: The unit normally scans many times a second and were this to occur on batteries they'd be dead in no time. So, in battery mode it actually only starts scanning when your cat pushes at the flap (you can here it activate a microswitch). In 'conventional' wall mode with the scanner porch on the outside of the wall it would only start scanning once your cat was inside the wall tunnel pushing at the flap - too late for the scanner to detect it. Make sense?!

I think you might have just hit on the perfect fitting style to avoid some drawbacks.

Maybe, but I don't blame them for not adopting this fitting method as the 'official' way... Cutting a neat hole through a wall is not the easiest of tasks at the best of times, and this would be further compounded by having to accommodate the scanner coil by increasing the height inside the tunnel but not on the inside/outside! I certainly wouldn't want to write the installation instructions for that one!

My walls are quite thick & I would need a few liners.

Most likely. Our house is quite old and whilst it does have double-skinned walls there's no cavity hence nothing to bridge. Handy in that sense, but on the other side of the coin we've got the world's hardest bricks to contend with!

Mathew

tux900

Follow-up:

I queried the differences in door/wall versions of the new Smart Flap with Pet Porte and they confirmed it really is just down to the varying connecting cable length.

They also confirmed that the lack of battery backup for the wall version is not down to the inherent design of the unit itself but, as we discussed, merely a consequence of the conventional wall fitting method of having the porch on the outside and it being too late to start scanning once the cat is pushing at the flap.

In fact, without prompting, they even suggested that a door version could be fitted in a wall with the scanner coil removed from the porch and mounted inside the wall tunnel/section. What a great idea!

Mathew

MrsE_2

I wrote to Pet Porte because I was worried about placing an order after reading the delay problems above
I got this reply...........

Thank you for your email and for the information that is on the forum.

I have read with GREAT interest the information on that forum and can confirm that we do NOT have a supply problem and that most orders are dispatched within one working day of ordering if placed on our website www.petporte.com and arrive with the customer within a few days of dispatch (this does depend on the Royal Mail at the time of delivery and can take longer)

The person they are refering to on that forum is a separate company called www.microchipcatflaps.co.uk and they are just one of many retailors of the product. It has been brought to our attention recently that some deliveries from him have been slow and that he has been indicating that there is a supply problem. This is not the case and he only needs to order more each month to meet his orders to prevent this from happening.

The new product that is out now is the Smart Flap. This has superceeded the origional model as it has an number of advantages like a draught excluder, battery back up (although in wall installations this may not be applicable) improved lock design, it is easier to fit it to a wall, and it fits the same shape hole as the more traditional Staywell type cat flaps. The disadvantage is that the new one is a slightly smaller opening than the origional one and therefore may not be suitable for small dogs etc. The new model also will accept the shortly comming selective exit kit that will allow you to choose which cats can go out and when as well as accept the PC control kit that allows you to connect the cat flap to the PC to control and monitor your cat's movements through the cat flap.

The cat flap will work with most 15 digit microchips (the normal ones used throughout the UK) but there are two that we advise against with our cat flap and these are the BioTherm and the AVID chip numbers starting 985140 and 977200. This is because our scanner can have a reduced read range with these chips. There are many chips which work absolutely fine with the cat flap but we can recommend the Bayer / Tracer microchip as we know this one works very well with the cat flap and has a long and fast read range.

Unfortunately I am not able to advise as to dleivery timescales from other retailors but directly from us www.petporte.com is usually in the timescales mentioned earlier.

So it seems it might be best to order direct, need to investigate price differences.

tux900

MrsE wrote: »

So it seems it might be best to order direct, need to investigate price differences.

Or from Pet Planet. £99 including shipping and I got mine in two days (online tracking too so once it is dispatched you can monitor its progress). Note: They don't appear to stock the 'wall' version if that's what you require.

I had a personal preference to order from within the UK as this way I get an extra year's warranty if I purchase it on my credit card (Shell Citi Card).

Mathew

shelly

Totally agree with MJNewtons recommendation. We bought ours from PetPlanet because they were priced better than buying direct from petporte.com.

MrsE_2

shelly wrote: »

Totally agree with MJNewtons recommendation. We bought ours from PetPlanet because they were priced better than buying direct from petporte.com.

How can they sell them cheaper than the makers

tux900

MrsE wrote: »

How can they sell them cheaper than the makers

That's the difference between wholesale and retail.

The price paid covers more than just the cost of manufacture (and profit) - other costs such as support, distribution, returns, wages, tax, rent and other overheads etc must be covered.

Pet Planet, as an example, can buy in bulk from Pet Porte and hence many of these additional costs for the manufacturer are minimised thus they can get them at a discounted price.

This gives Pet Planet some margin to play with which, when combined with lower per-item overheads (as a large retail outfit), means they can sell to the customer at a good price whilst still making a profit.

Everyone's a winner!

Another way of looking at it is that Pet Porte (like any other manufacturer) can be considered to be a business comprising two separate parts - manufacturing and retail. Pet Planet can perform the retail bit for less money hence can sell the product cheaper.

It's not always like this - take Dell computers - their retail arm is as big as their manufacturing arm (both huge) with very close ties between the two. Hence you don't find many places selling Dell (for less) because there's very little room to cut costs and make any money.

Mathew

tux900

I've had a number of people asking for more photos so I've created a new page with them along with some additional details of how it was fitted:

http://www.newtonnet.co.uk/house/catflap/

Mathew

spookylukey

I think you should get an award for 'most helpful newbie' MJNewton :T

tux900

That's very kind of you Spookylukey, but I think an award for 'having too much spare time on his hands' would be more appropriate!