LitterMaid Multi-Cat Self-Cleaning Litter Box

This gets 5 stars for the two reason I do not give up & I am a good DIYer.My cats adore the littermaid as well. The second I put litter in it they claimed it.It was a lot of messy trial & error but I won in the end & the setup is a dream.Details:Cats = x2 7 lbers, x2 12 lbersX1 8 month male, x3 1+ year femalesApprox 2 months of useOnly litterbox in houseMy cats are very... spoiled & would refuse to use the litter boxes if there was waste. So I wanted a self cleaning litterbox for that sole reason. I got a cabinet, mat, fine holed scoop, hand brush, dog kennel pan, 4 gallon wet/dry vac w/ bags, & motion battery light to go along with the littermaid.What I have done/learned:Mods:I put this in a white litter cabinet from Amazon, I cut a mesh litter mat to fit inside the cabinet. I also got a dog kennel tray that fit inside the cabinet & put it under the mat & littermaid in case of spills. I used sticky cable hooks to secure the cord & put the littermaid as close to the wall opposite the cut door as possible. I put 2 sticky hooks above the litter pan to hang the hand broom & the battery operated motion light. I put the scoop leaning in the corner behind against the back wall of cabinet behind the cat door. I put a large honeycomb double layer litter mat in front of the cat door. I also took the ramp off the littermaid. (If my bot starts spraying I will be adding waterproof shelf contact paper to the walls, back of doors, & floor for protection & easy cleanup.)The disposable containers:I knew my cats would go through the disposable boxes very quickly so I line them with "thank you" bags & replace the containers roughly every 2 weeks or if they get messy. I also do not use the disposable lids since they kept messing up the hinged top & making horrid messes. Instead I just save it for the disposal day & put the charcoal stickies right on the blue lid. I then empty it every other day or daily since they fill so quickly. I gently remove the blue hinged lid from it's holes instead of trying to slide out the container. It is a much cleaner & easier process that way.Litter sticking:There are pancakes the rakes cannot reach. I use the fine holed metal scoop to scrape them up & let the rake put them in the bag, then use it to sift out the small bits the rake could not get. I do this every time I change the bag. The rake also needs to be scraped with the scoop if messes get stuck to it. I do so every change. (I am going to be trying some weather seal to see if this helps the problem soon)Cleaning:I store a bottle of Clorox wipes & box of tissues above the cabinet for spot cleaning. I brush loose litter from the tracks when emptying & wipe down the blue hinged lid if needed as well as the curve on the pan leading to the disposable container & the rake. I vacuum the scattered litter every second emptying & vacuum out the tracks for the rake at the same time. As well as lifting the front of the littermaid & sucking up the litter that slips between the crack of the pan & disposable container. Once a month I empty, take apart, & clean the pan + all parts with bleach wipes. NEVER SUCK UP ANY CLUMPS LARGER THAN A PENCIL ERASER INTO YOUR WET/DRY VAC IT IS A DISASTER THAT TAKES DAYS TO CLEAN UP.Litter:We are currently using tidy cats light weight & it is not the best. I am running down our stock before switching to a mix of arm & hammer double duty + tidy cat multi + maybe baking soda. I will update with how that works out. The lightweight was just too... light weight. It tracks badly & just doesn't work well with the taken I suspect it is a good chunk of the cause of the pee cakes. I also add a few cups of clean litter every time I empty the container because the litter can run out surprisingly quickly overnight & that makes a big mess.Conclusion:All in all it is the best thing every once I "modded" it up. I will be getting a second one later in the year to hopefully push out empty day to twice a week or less. But straight out of the box this thing sucks for a multi cat house. Maybe it works with one cat. But it in no way works with multi.Edit 4/28/19 : A lot of the trouble was from the tidy cat lightweight litter. We do an arm & hammer + tidy cat instant + tidy cat glade + tidy cat maintenance + baking soda + litter attractant herb now. It is awesome. No more "cakes". 90% less tracking. Less smell. Everything is better.One horrible thing we have finally mastered. You have to keep it right below the max line. Too much & the rake cannot go back down or into its "hole" at the end. Too little & it gets gross.We empty every day now too since our boy is bigger now.We also got a second one now for our Kitty Jail (huge nodded rabbit hutch) that is accessible to all as long as no one is serving jail time.Still love this thing despite any headaches it may cause. Makes life much easier.

So we bought 2 of these pieces of junk originally. They never worked right, but we assumed that it was just operator error on our part. The cleaning part never actually cleaned without us having to tinker with it to get it to function. The "track" that it operates in never seemed to be aligned properly and it made weird noises and would get stuck even when there was nothing for it to get stuck on. One of them broke entirely after three days. We'd seen a lot of positive reviews so our assumption was that we did something wrong. So we ordered one to replace the broken one. When it arrived we took it out of the box, plugged it in and tested it without any litter to make sure it would work (seeing if the little mechanical rake would go down and back like it's supposed to), and imagine our surprise when the overpriced paperweight didn't work. The rake that cleans went down once, got stuck, and then wouldn't return. So after paying almost 150 dollars a piece after taxes I'm now out almost 450 dollars and I had to go get new litter boxes on top of that. Don't buy this product. I felt pretty dumb after spending all that money and getting terrible results. Oh and by the way...I didn't even get a refund. So now I feel angry and dumb for having bought these plastic turdcatchers (that don't catch turds at all). I guess it was a life lesson to never spend an exorbitant amount of money on something that's going to get pooped on anyway. So if I have any recommendation it is that you should spend your money on a cheap litterbox, a cat litterbox liner, and pocket the savings. Or if you just want to spoil your kitty then buy them a bunch of toys with half the money you'll save and keep the rest of the money. You'll be far better off for it, and your cat will enjoy their toys between poops...or perhaps during a poop. I'm not going to judge your cat for what they do on their kitty toilet. Maybe this product was once made with more care and of a higher quality, or maybe I just somehow defied the odds and got three broken ones in a row. I suspect I'm not the only one that got plastic junk that was impersonating a litter box. I only wish I lived somewhere that I could give these litter boxes a Viking funeral instead of just tossing them out in the trash. Then I'd at least have the cathartic release of watching them burn as I sent them to litter box hell where they belong. It would make the loss of $450 bucks a little less painful.