Mowing the lawn can be a tedious job. Tired of the effort involved, [i did a thing] decided to enlist the help of [Makers Muse] to build a radio controlled mower instead to make the backyard chore a little more interesting. (Video, embedded below.)
The mowing itself is done by a typical push-along garden mower with a gasoline engine. However, it’s fitted with twin DC gear motors harvested from a mobility scooter. The mowers original front wheels were also removed, replaced with casters from the same mobility scooter that donated the drive train. Off-the-shelf speed controllers were then used to run the motors, and hooked up to an RC receiver. The mower could then be steered via a radio controller set up with mixing to enable the twin-motor setup to steer and drive.
An FPV camera was then fitted on the front of the mower, sitting on a stack of kitchen sponges that act as a isolator to negate the effects of the engine vibrations on the camera. The result is a relatively smooth video feed, allowing the operator to sit at a comfortable distance and control the mower via radio and goggles.
It may not be the most effective way of trimming the lawn, but it does look like a fun project, and sometimes that’s all that matters. Of course, you could always upgrade to a fully autonomous mower instead.
I guess you could say they used an Inertial Dampener for image stabilization.
You can only call it that if the sponges are wet….
Tehe
Well it is definitely a hack but it’s really more of a humor piece than something that will ever be used more than once. That’s ok because it is a pretty funny video!
Seems like a few problems with the design that would make it more useful if you wanted to use this:
The wheels are so wide it can’t get to the edge of some obstacle. This means you have to spend more time trimming. The wheels are also too high to get a close mow and are not adjustable. Lastly it is really dangerous to not have a way to kill the engine from the remote.