About A year ago I purchased one of these feeders and fired it up at the lease. It uses 10 AA batteries for power and has a timer triger. The motor ran for six months on one set of batteries set to spin for 20 seconds twice daily. The poles are ok but the pully is kinda well is junk and I bought a real one for around $15 bucks. I cant speak highly enough about the feeder motor it works ten fold better than the others we have on the lease. I have a few junk feeders that seem to break down and require a lot of maintence but this ON Time Feeder overall I give a thumbs up.