remote control lawn mower

4 Articles

Dalek-Berry-Pi Mower

November 2, 2015 by 8 Comments

There’s something about lawn mowers and hackers. A desire to make them into smart, independent robots. Probably in preparation for the day when Skynet becomes self-aware or the Borg collective comes along to assimilate them into the hive. [Ostafichuk] wanted his to be ready when that happens, so he’s building a Raspberry-Pi powered, Dalek costumed Lawn Mower that is still a work in progress since starting on it in 2014. According to him,  “commercial robot lawn mowers are too expensive and not nearly terrifying enough to be any fun, so I guess I will just have to build something myself…”

His first report describes the basic skeletal structure he built using scrap pieces of wood. Two large lawn tractor wheels and a third pivot wheel help with locomotion. The two large wheels are driven by geared motors originally meant for car seat height adjustments. A deep cycle 12V battery, and solar panels for charging would take care of power. A raspberry-pi provides the brain power for the Dalek-Mower and L298N based drivers help drive the motors. The body was built from some more planks of scrap wood that he had lying around. While waiting around for several parts to arrive – ultrasonic sensors, accelerometer, 5V power supply modules – he started to paint and decorate the wood work. Generous amounts of water repellent paint and duct tape were used to make it weather proof. His initial plan was to use python for the code, but he later switched to programming in c along with wiringPi library. Code for the project is available from his bitbucket git repository. Load testing revealed that the L298N drivers were not suitable for the high current drawn by the motors, so he changed over to relays to drive them.

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RC Lawn Mower

Electric Lawn Mower Converted To RC Control

June 28, 2015 by 39 Comments

Not too many people like pushing a lawn mower around the yard, but unfortunately, it is a necessary chore. Anti-push-mower advocate [imadethis2014] decided to (as his moniker suggests) make a solution to his pushing-problem. He was a fan of radio controlled devices so it made sense to convert his mower to RC!

The mower itself is powered by an off the shelf battery and has a 21-inch deck. The stock wheels and handle were removed and replaced with a new extruded aluminum frame. Out back are a pair of used electric wheelchair motors sourced from eBay. These drive motors are mounted to the new frame via a pair of aluminum brackets that [imadethis2014] designed and cut out on his Shakepoko CNC machine. Since both rear drive wheels work independent of each other, a pair of swiveling casters up front allow the mower to turn.

A large car-sized battery box houses the two smaller wheel chair batteries as well as the motor control and RC electronics. Check out the video after the break, the mower seems to do fairly well. [imadethis2014] admits he needs some new wheels as the current ones don’t get a lot of traction on the grass. He’s also thinking of adding GPS for automated mowing but isn’t quite there yet.

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Remote Controlled Lawn Mower Lets You Sit Back And Enjoy The Show

February 22, 2014 by 39 Comments

“Its hard to find people that actually WANT to mow their lawn.” A more true statement has never been made. [Kurt’s] project turns an old lawn mower into a remote control lawn mower.

The first step of this build is to replace the front drive wheels with mini-bike tires which have built-in gear tooth sprockets. The rear wheels were then replaced with large caster wheels. The 12-24V DC motors and gear boxes used come from National Power Chair. While we have seen more complicated RC lawn mowers before, this project is a great way to get started. All that [Kurt] wanted was to make lawn mowing more fun, we believe that he has succeeded. This thing is very mobile and can turn on a dime. Check out the demo video after the break.

What’s next? Add a GPS, a Raspberry Pi, and a few other odds and ends. Tie it together with some clever programming and you will have your own autonomous lawn mower. Have you already created a completely autonomous lawn mower? Let us know!
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Remote Control Lawn Mower

February 11, 2007 by 28 Comments


[Terry] sent in the first of his projects that he’s posted on his site. Having grown up in the midwestern US, I can’t even express how badly I wanted to build one of these puppies when I was a kid. His remote control lawnmower is essentially the bastard child of a three way between a R/C car, a wheelchair and the lawnmower. The radio is interfaced with the control box from a wheelchair, otherwise it’s a good welding project.

Nice work. I’ve one suggestion – a safety circuit that disables the mower if radio control is lost. There are a few devices designed just for R/C projects that’ll do the trick. (Update: ok, there’s a failsafe in the design but I wouldn’t call it optional!)