Building a remote control mower

"Nick Huckaby" wrote in message news:1110034205.a2af8d4aea092dde8fa9095747643f2a@bubbanews... | We are building a robot mower so we don't have to bear the cold | winter. I have a 120V AC mower and a gas powered mower that cuts | a leveled 20'x40' grass field perfectly fine. I have a remote control | and a receiver capable of a hundred meters that can switch a relay to | get a DC motor to go in forward or reverse. I also have two 8-Amps DC | motors and two indrustrial drill AC motors. | | We've never built a mower like this before so we don't know if we should go | with AC or DC motors or know the best way to transfer power to the | wheels. How should we begin building a robot grass cutting mower? | | Thanks

1. How can you get AC power to the mower without it being wireless? If you plan on using a wireless system and AC motors, then you have a lot of electronics learning to do first. 2. What happens if the batteries in the receiver go dead? Will it just mow right over your neighbors cats? 3. A receiver that can switch a relay for a DC motor is highly unlikely strong enough for a high current DC motor from a cordless mower. You will need a second, more powerful relay/contactor for that job. 4. Get on some robotics forums and groups and learn a lot more. RC groups are good, but in this case, there's a lot of crossover and more basic robotics than RC. 5. RC servos can be modified to run as motors with proportional control. A pair are popular for robots, but if you go for motors big enough for your robot you need to go with purpose built designs. Visit surpluscenter.com for a couple useful drivetrains.

In message , carl mciver writes

Sound's like an ideal selling point for me, maybe you could upgrade it to seek and destroy? Especially for evil faced black and white cats that

You can cut grass in your "cold" winter?

A seek and destroy for those pesky moles that leave hills all over my yard would be idea. I'd buy it.

He already has the remote control snowblower.

right over your neighbors cats?

In electric RC cars, the same battery that spins the wheels powers the receiver, and the wheels stop spinning long before the battery is to low to power the receiver. The real question is, what happens if it goes out of range or there is some kind of radio interference?

for completely wireless i'd suggest you use the gas mower and an alternator. you pull the starter cord off and you can usually bolt a spool to the top, add a pulley under the spool and you have a place for the alternator to go, which of course means you'll use dc(though not necessarily).

RC receivers have a failsafe mode that they go into if the transmission is interupted. For example my plane's receiver is preprogrammed to idle the engine and circle left until it gets further instructions (or it hits the ground)

Remote Control Mower?

Like this one?