LOL! That looks hella sketchy!
That’s pretty arrogant to come right out and say that to a customer, even if it’s true. So, that sounds like a great business opportunity.
Indeed! though I am in no position to take advantage or I would have done so ten years ago. I was calling the business to explain why I was not a customer and suggest that it would not be that hard to do so. His is an attitude that is running like a spring tide these days.
1 Like
“brush cutter”
The first look at that and I am thinking “just what I need to make 3/16” wood from 8/4 planks" 
1 Like
Sofa King awesome! Tinkering skillz for realz.
1 Like
Impressive
1 Like
I don’t know how chaotic you want, but in one of the videos Mark puts together a bot that draws randomly using some markers, a cup, a DC motor with an offset load to create wobble, and a battery.
Prototype:
I think the battery was inside the cup. When it’s turned on, the whole thing vibrates and “walks” around the paper leaving colored trails as it goes.
I could see doing that with little reservoirs of paint at the base of the legs that get constantly replenished by a tube down the leg. Then the vibration would cause splashes and splatters.
6 Likes
Yes, that is chaotic alright!! Though something like that idea, or a slightly wonky wheel might do the trick. I’d really like to use brushes to apply paint, because then you’d get the randomness of the brushes, but maybe combined with a more accurate vehicle. After all, you can always randomise the vehicle in code.
1 Like
So I have one, previously on a small lawn and now a much larger one. Firstly, you can buy extra wire for $10-$15 dollars, don’t fall for the overpriced machine con. However, they might be like GF and the Pro having “superior components”.
As for the random walk, after your lawn is cut, you really wouldn’t know. Does it get every blade every time - no idea - but it the lawn looks great.
But from an engineering problem I think there are a bunch of issues.
(1) It’s really difficult making things drive in straight lines over bumpy ground
(2) The positioning would have to be very precise, an inch off could result in mowing your border plants
(3) you don’t want stripes that are not perfect left in your lawn
(4) if you have a very irregular lawn (ours is) then you don’t want anything that looks like stripes.
(5) It needs to have built in avoidance of objects, so it would need to cope with random changes to the plan (small child or garden implement left in lawn),
Of all of them, I think that (1) and (2) are the really difficult engineering bits to resolve. But at the end, a random walk does a terrific job.
However, what would be great is to be able to setup zones, so on starting/finishing it could get from the charging point to a zone, randomly walk that zone, then return to charging again. That way you could handle split lawns, or front and rear lawns.
Mowing right to the edge of our flower border here,.
7 Likes
Cool, I actually came up with an idea of something I could build today if doing the course. I’ll probably give it a go sometime soon!
1 Like
That all makes sense.
Those mowers are for people with smaller areas to mow than mine. With 7 acres to mow, it would be great to turn a device loose on one portion, while I mow another, even if I need to do a couple of trim passes myself. GPS would probably do well enough for me.
Still not sure I’d use it. Not often, but occasionally when I’m mowing, I deviate from my normal course to avoid a turtle, a snake or a baby bunny. So I’m still leaning toward RC only.
3 Likes
A short range object detector would be easy enough. GPS is easy but a direction finder with 3 (or more) sending(or receiving )units could be far more accurate. Burying a wire is more than I could do right now, much less burying it in the driveway.