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Mowing the lawn in the 21st century

Sidecar Bob

Dec 19, 2021
211
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Dec 19, 2021
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211
I was mowing the lawn this afternoon and it occurred to me that some of you might be interested in how I do that.

In 2012 my neighbour Lee built this using the wheels & motors from an old electric wheelchair, a Honda gas mower and radio control electronics to control it.

In 2019 he bought a Hitachi robot mower and gave me the R/C one to play with. He never developed it past the proof of concept stage but used it for several years so to say it needed a bit of work would be an understatement. I won't go into all the gory details here (unless someone asks me to) but the short version is that I fixed the holes in the mower deck from steering forces pulled things apart, attached the plate that the motors bolt to properly and built a proper support for the new deep cycle AGM batteries and even mounted the electronics in a box (Lee had them taped to a piece of wood jammed in so it stood upright.

I managed to use it a few times at the end of the season but the first time I used it the next spring the controls died after about 20 minutes. I learned a lot from corresponding with the manufacturer so when the replacement controller arrived I redesigned its mount completely.
 
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