We techie types are quite often much more comfortable in front of a keyboard knocking out code, than out in the yard splitting logs for winter, and even the little jobs like cutting the grass are sometimes just too much like hard manual labour for our liking. The obvious solution is a robot mower, but they’re kinda boring, with their low-tech spinning metal blades. What we need is a big frickin’ laser. YouTuber [rctestflight] has been experimenting with using a 40W blue diode laser module to cut the weeds, (Video, embedded below) and it sort of works, albeit in a rather dangerous fashion.
The first test used a fixed assembly, mounting the laser to a camera lens, upon a rotating gear driven by a small stepper motor. An Arduino controls the beam scanning, very slowly, burning the grass in its sights. But with a range limited to around eight feet best case, sitting in one spot just isn’t going to cut it. (sorry) The obvious next step was to mount one of the tested laser modules onto a moveable platform. After tweaking one of his earlier projects — a tracked rover — with a new gearbox design, it could now drive slow enough to be useful for this slow task. The laser was mounted to a simple linear rail slider, with an attempt at a vacuum pickup system to suck up the clippings, removing them from the beam path, and stopping them impeding the cutting efficiency of the laser.
Obviously this vacuum idea didn’t work, and since the contraption takes the best part of a week to cut just one small area, we reckon it would likely be growing faster than that! Still, it must have been fun to build it anyway. It just goes to show that despite the march of technological progress, maybe the boring old spinning blades of old are still the best way to get the job done.
Lawnmowing is clearly one of those jobs we love to hate, and do so with hacks. Here’s a way to prevent your mower sucking up foreign bodies and hurling them at you at ballistic speeds, and for those who really want to be hands off, add RTK-GPS to a robot mower, and just leave it to do the dirty work.
Thanks to [Måns], [electronoob] and [Ostracus] for the tip!
“You’ll shoot your eye out kid!’
At some point genetically engineering grass to grows an inch high starts to sound like the easier option, but props for ingenuity! In the meantime, has anyone seen the dog?
They have seen the dog but for some reason the dog now seems to have trouble seeing them.
If you geneticaly engineer short grass, it will get killed by regular long grass which grows over it and deprives it of sunlight…
Scotts has already engineered grass that grows much slower so it’s only a matter of time!
It’s called Clover
Great! Now genetically engineer clover not to make a person with pollen allergies basically feel like they have a medium case of Covid every time it blooms or is cut.
Or genetically engineer people not to have pollen allergies. But if you go that route can you also come up with a gene therapy for those of us unfortunate enough to have been born too early to otherwise benfit?
I am sorry that my comment neglected the effect on folks who have these allergies. I do apologize. As I do not, I find clover to be one of the best drought resistant ground covers and a great sustainer for pollinators, such as bees. I will try to be sensitive to any health related burdens I may cause for my neighbors.
What could possibly go wrong?
With things getting dry, this could start a fire
You must be fun at arson parties
Attach the laser to a goat.
The goat can cut the grass. The laser is for your pesky neighbor who keeps asking why you have a goat in your backyard.
“It wasn’t me, officer. There are lasergoats on the loose.” That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
All fun and games till the cat catches the blue dot.
“At some point in history, cats revolved to be completely transparent to 450nm light. The reason for this remains a complete mystery to biologists, along with why physicists quietly giggle whenever this fact is mentioned”
even Bart Simpson is smarter than that :
“As soon as they’re gone, I’m stretched on the lawn
Lookin’ at the sky WITH MY SUNSHADES ON”.
And here I was, worrying about my HaD inspired neighbor shooting knifes over the fence
Just get artificial grass and be done with it. Doesn’t need watering either.
There was a family in Deer Park, Long Island, New York that did that to their front lawn. All the peeps around them went crazy, but the town could do nothing about it. Cost of the house around them dropped like lead balloons. The family who bought the place and took out the concrete and sh*t fake grass (real cheap stuff) saw the price increase to almost double on their new place. We need greens to make oxygen and so on. Love the Lazer!!!!! Death to artificial grass!!!!!!!!!!
Cutting grass with lasers has been on my wishlist for uh ~25 years and though I am absolutely going to watch this whole video because of that, it seems likely it’ll still be on my wishlist in another 25 years. Which is ok, as kick-ass of an idea as it is, probably is the wrong tool for the job.
What if you used a push and pull method. Push the solid beam forward, pull back to let the grass fall and then push forward again. It could be done on the front or rear.
needs to mounted on a land shark
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_NS2H55dxI
No don’t mount a laser on a beer “land shark” catch ya lip fuz on fire
Clearly thr laser is not powerful enough but I would gake a regular mower design and put the laser underneath instead of the spinning blades. much safer.
Why not put the laser on the back so it doesn’t need to handle the cut grass.
If i would do this i will leave in classic design of cutter remove blade put in side mirrors so laser can bounce from every different angles like net in chamber in middle put laser with rotation like classic cutter in high speed maybe little blades for lifting grass and cooling laser and also pick up grass in basket. So result be fast cutting safety no one’s getting hurt and design will be familiar to others cutting grass machines. Then ivana 10% from profit thanks
Safe? This laser will permanently blind you faster than you can blink. With just a stray reflection.
Yea, I feel like a lot of people are completely missing the fact that it’s a 40W laser