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Hello from Calgary. So a couple of years ago I made an RC Lawnmower based on the design and mower brand sold on this site. I just bought the mower in Calgary and the wheelchair motors and wheels from SDR. It has a few extra features such as an Arduino pressure sensor for collisions, but the principles are the same. I did design the chassis so that I can drop other mowers into it, and tried to design it such that a linear actuator could raise and lower the deck remotely. As much as I loved this feature the geometry was all wrong and made the wheel base far to large…which brings me to my question.
Does anyone have any suggestions for design changes to this style of mower? While it works better than expected, its short comings are the large wheel base and the casters on the front. These are OK for flat lawns but horrible on hills that you can’t tackle up and down. Going sideways on a hill with this kind of steering is almost impossible. The other issue I want to address is the clearance issue on the sides that prevents me from mowing close to a fence due to the large wheel size.
I’m considering a second build, maybe 4WD or different steering. The batteries may be overkill for my small yard, so maybe I could get away with smaller motors, wheels and batteries and find a mower with a deck that gets closer to the fence?
Any thoughts appreciated. Here the finished product…two years and going strong! https://youtu.be/4ytSFDyP6J8
Hi Peter. Nice mower! It looks like its done well for you. The 2WD design does have its limitations. For hills a 4WD is the way to go. Here is a prototype 4WD that we built recently that is cutting on slopes up to 38 degrees.
As for being able to cut close to a fence, there are some tradeoffs to consider. We’re basically replacing the small, narrow wheels on a push mower with a bigger wheel that can be driven by a motor and get some traction. If you put the wheel in the same place its going to stick out past the deck. You could try putting the wheel behind the mower but in doing so you’ll have to make the robot quite a bit longer and you’ll lose some maneuverability.
Anyway, hope this helps and good luck on your next build.
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