Solar Powered Lawnmower


Our post about what it takes to convert your home to solar power probably put you in a green mood, but if you want to start with something smaller, check out this guide on how to add a solar panel to your lawnmower.

You will need a battery-powered lawnmower for this, as well as a 12-volt solar charger with a car lighter jack. This easy hack mainly involves a small amount of work with the wiring; the car lighter jack must be removed from the solar panel so that the wires can be attached to the batteries. Yeah, that’s it. We’d love to see a more elegant solution since the way it is now you have switch the wiring from parallel to series everytime you want to mow.

For a more complete lawnmower hack, check out this remote control lawnmower.

7 thoughts on “Solar Powered Lawnmower

  1. This is crap. That cheap amorphous panel is most likely rated at 5 watts. There is —no–possible–way— that solar panel is going to charge those batteries in 4 to 6 hours. Try more like 2 weeks.

    This material really should be reviewed by someone before it gets posted.

  2. I agree with previous comments. That panel likely produces about 0.3 amps at full capacity.

    The motor would need to be at least 1HP to cut grass. 1HP = 746 watts. 746w/24v = 31a Not that a 5w panel could even reach the amperage to get any decent amp hour battery up to charge, but if it could then it would take about 104 hours to replace 1 hour of usage if there was 100% conversion efficiency. You can guess the chance of 100% conversion efficiency.

    At best that panel would keep the batteries in float in between uses after they had been charged.

  3. I can see this idea finding its way to mass market. Most people cut the grass once per week or so. I could see having a panel on the roof of the garage and a sinple cable connection to the mower (parked in the garage)

  4. instead of removing the lighter plug, he could have used a lighter socket kit. I have one on my riding mower, and use a panel like this to keep the battery topped off. It’s mounted on the top of the shed and routed down.

  5. This is an old thread, but wanted to say, I have connected 2 5watt similar panels in parallel and get about 650mA charge at about 20 volts open circuit which I connect into my 12v black and decker ‘4hp’ mower. It has a 26 Ah battery and seems to be happily run after a week of charging (this spring).

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