When we think of lawn mowers, our first thought is of heavy, rusty old machines that take the best part of an afternoon to get started. Of course, there’s always another way, as [Mark] ably demonstrates with his own build.
Beginning from an unconventional starting point, [Mark] chose a remote control car, of the type that can flip and drive in both orientations. Having lost the controller, he started by ripping out the original electronics. In its place, an ESP32 receives signals from a FlySky RC receiver, and runs the drive motors with a Sparkfun Monster Motor Shield. Another channel on the receiver is hooked up directly to a drone speed controller driving a brushless motor, outfitted with a sawblade to cut the grass.
It’s a small platform, and one that ordinarily you might doubt could do the job. However, for [Mark]’s purposes, the rig works just fine, and has been doing good work for the last two years! We’ve seen mowers hacked before too, like this autonomous rig out in the wild. Video after break.
That looks like a neat little trimmer. Also incredibly dangerous. Certainly don’t get a finger too near the bottom of that thing unless you intend to sacrifice your digits to your lawn. Really cool way to get close trimming done.
Good point! Also make sure you also don’t get your finger too near knives, skil saw, bandsaws, nail guns, etc
Stick one of those plastic handles off a large TV box or similar on it, so you don’t have put your hand under it to pick it up. Or a nice ornate brass one from the re-store, whatever floats your goat.
Yes! Next: recharge it trough the handles.
ugh I don’t have time for another project this month, the Voron is taking up all my spre time
as for a warning with the handheld lawn mower, if you see someone working with that, it is far better if you keep your distance and protect your eyes, because that little sucker can launch a little pebble into your eyes or into your skull
This or something like it, is going to be my next battlebot for Vegas Combat Robotics when we start up again
Well it looks super fun, but I also think you could cut the grass better and faster with a pair of scissors. XD Admittedly the car requires less crawling around on hands and knees.
This is for cutting grass at the corner of your property where all the wasps nest.
make sure your kid doesn’t find his missing toy!
That’s hell of a little blade that makes my battery weed whacker feel inadequate. Great use for small lawns and tight tool storage.
My 4 year old keeps wanting to fit a cutting attachement under his electric car so he can mow the lawn – if he sees this he’ll be trying to do that as well
Man, take the front wheels off it and put a stick handle on it and you would almost have a practical weed whacker thing.
I know I know HACK points lost by making a “practical” weed whacker.
I love the idea of this simple build, also by controlling it with a remote, there is much more fun in moving the lawn. I guess since it uses an ESP32, you could possible ditch the flysky receiver and remote and control it from your smartphone.
Has anyone on HaD experienced an Ardumower? It looks like a lovely open hackable system. If anyone has built or used one, I’d live to hear your experience.
https://www.ardumower.de/index.php/en/
Thanks :-)