[mowbot] Mowbot

Ron Woodward (RWoodward nospam at gnn.com)
Wed, 25 Sep 1996 00:28:48

>All my previous research has shown that the best way is with a high
>speed blade. The grass blades are very flexible, and they just bend over
>unless struck with enough force. I also believe that the grass tends to
>stand up due to the sucking of air past the mower blades, this greatly
>improves the effect.

Spinning a blade like this seems very power hungry and waistful moving
a lot of air and not cutting much grass. We would also have to worry about
continuously advancing the cutter line. Most of the ones I have sceen
require you to bounce them on the ground. Not too hard but an added problem.

How about the reciprcating blade out of a hedge trimmer or a reel mower?
Golf courses use gangs of reel mowers towed behind carts to mow the corse.
Highway departments and farmers use sicle bar mowers for trimming realy
badly overgrown areas. These both seem less power hungry than a highspeed
blade. Less likly to fling a rock in some kids eye too. The earlier
estimates for mowtime would have to be adjusted if we have to stop every
couple of hours to charge up the battery for the blade.

My neighbor has one of those electric mowers that runs on a battery. I'll
have to ask him how long it will run before it needs to be recharged.

Does anyone know what the power requirement is for one of those electric
weedwackers?

Once we have that we should be able to do some battery capacity calculations
to see what kind of battery we would need.

Ron