> > At 04:06 PM 16/9/96 -0400, Byron A Jeff <byron nospam at gemini.cc.gatech.edu> wrote:
>
> > I have a hedge-trimmer, and I tried it out for this idea a few months
> > ago,
> > unfortunately it is hopeless on grass, all it did was bend it back and
> > forth. It's really designed for something stronger that it can snap.
>
> What if the blades are sharper? It might be something that we will have
> to really search for but something like that (hedge clipper) should
> work.
I tried that, but still no good, the blades do not meet tightly, so
there
is always a gap between them.
One thing I did discover with conventional mowers, is that the high
speed
blades tend to make the grass stand upright and I believe this helps
cutting (and obviously is how the grass gets sucked toward the catcher
in a normal mower) as a slightly bend blade will tend to fold when hit.
The LawnRanger had 2 blades and 2 blade motors and I think this was a
good
scheme. The robot needs to be as square (or circular) as possible to
make
manuevering as easy as possible. This means that the middle portion of
the robot (where the blades are) will be fairly narrow. If you were to
make the largest blade that could comfortably fit in this region, it
would
not extend to the edges and would require more passes by the mower. By
using
2 blades side by side you get a wider cut while maintaining the short
length of
the robot vehicle.
> Some pretty good discussion so far, let's keep it up!
Dave Everett.
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