DIY Electric Lawnmower

[SVOboy]

http://www.builditsolar.com/Projects/Vehicles/LeeMower.htm

Be sure to check out the update with the solar charger as well.

[zpiloto]

Man, mine just died after 20 years. i wish I would of kept the shell I would of loved to try this.

[SVOboy]

The guy who did it picked up a shell for 25 bucks, you can still do it!

[repete86]

You can probably dumpster a shell pretty easily. I see them by mailboxes all of the time on garbage day.

[Silveredwings]

Man, mine just died after 20 years. i wish I would of kept the shell I would of loved to try this.
Hey, I think I caught sight of your old mower...
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1380642903108144015

:D

[Belloc]

If you were really green wouldn't you let your lawn just grow? :)

[MetroMPG]

Push mowers ftw!

http://www.reelmowerguide.com/images/smallbrill.gif

(OK, I know some of you have big lawns...)

[Matt Timion]

Push mowers ftw!

http://www.reelmowerguide.com/images/smallbrill.gif

(OK, I know some of you have big lawns...)

x2!

[kickflipjr]

Push mowers ftw!

http://www.reelmowerguide.com/images/smallbrill.gif

(OK, I know some of you have big lawns...)

When ever I get my own place I plan on moving to the city. Hopefully it will be small enough yard to use a push mower.

Because mowing the lawn is not an enjoyable activity to me.

[jwxr7]

Because mowing the lawn is not an enjoyable activity to me. I'll second that.

[Hockey4mnhs]

yeah even with the ride on it STILL sucks!

[Silveredwings]

Because mowing the lawn is not an enjoyable activity to me.
That's funny, my wife says the same thing. :D

[DaX]

Hey, I think I caught sight of your old mower...
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1380642903108144015

:D

All lawnmowers go to heaven. :D

[SVOboy]

Guy across the street was throwing out his lawnmower and someone already came and snagged it, damnit! Drat the luck!

[VetteOwner]

lol
i snagged a perfectly good 42" cut riding mower. all it needed was a new battery and a good carb cleaning.

ive picked pushmowers out of the trash before fixed em and sell em again for $40. more if i have to replace a specialty costly part...

i have one thats about ready to explode on me cuz the deck is so rusted out that if you push hard enough it flexes and duffs the ground.

[Silveredwings]

My neighbor gave me his old mower last fall. The trouble is it still works. :(

[SVOboy]

"Working" is such a loose word though...some might say using gasoline would count as broken...just pull out the spark plug and throw some sand in there.

[MetroMPG]

Hey - the ForkenSwift's ICE was working when we bought it. ;)

[Silveredwings]

True enough. Sand it is.

It's not the $140 for the motor and whatever for controller and batteries...it's the competing with too many other mouths-to-feed.

But a solar charger sounds like a great way to go since it would only see use about once a week.

[VetteOwner]

why not go out and buy an electric mower and then get a solar charger?

[SVOboy]

It's not as fun? My dad actually has one...he just recently mowed the cord...too annoying for a cord I think, especially with trees an things. I would rather recycle the old mower deck anyway. Just satisfies the need to tinker, *shrug*

How much is an electric mower?

[Silveredwings]

why not go out and buy an electric mower and then get a solar charger?
See now? There you go thinking again. :)

[SVOboy]

It would be sweet if we could get the government to chip in on electric mowers, think of the emissions that would be saved!

Matt...letter writing plug-in!

[Snax]

Push mowers ftw!

http://www.reelmowerguide.com/images/smallbrill.gif

(OK, I know some of you have big lawns...)
Brille actually makes a push-electric cordless reel mower. It doesn't weigh any more than the typical reel mower, but it has the electric motor to spin the blade. But the best part is that it still functions as a regular reel mower without the electric motor running.

For less than $400 including shipping, that gets you a mower that weighs half as much as a converted deck mower, a charger, and NiCads with similar capacity as other mowers.

I'm not saying don't recycle a dead deck mower, but if you are buying a new electric motor, batteries, switch, breaker, AND spending your time to build it, you won't be saving any money. On the other hand, following the Forkenswift build philosophy of recycling as much as possible, project "Mowin'swift" could be built for far less.

[rh77]

Man, I haven't seen one of those in a LONG time. When I was a wee lad, my Pops had one of those for a small yard. I used it later on and the worst was just getting it started (and the grass flew all over if you really got it movin')...It was an old Scott's -- it may have had a bag attachment too.

It would probably take me a good part of 6-hours and a case of heat exhaustion with one of those today :)

So how about this -- would a good-sized Marine or Deep-Cycle battery have enough energy for the torque of a mower? May need to have a self-propulsion mechanism with the added weight too...

RH77

EDIT: I second the motion for a letter-writing plug-in. :thumbup:

[Snax]

The weight issue is why I pointed out the Brille reel mower. They claim it's only 38 lbs, vs. the 75-100 lbs of the typical gas deck mower. Then again, as crappy as my grass is in the back yard, I want powered wheels too.

[DaX]

No sense in cutting grass here - the drought has kept it short and brown for me all summer long.

[Snax]

If you were really green wouldn't you let your lawn just grow? :)
Actually, the most environmentally responsible thing to do for most people would be to not grow grass at all, but rather a garden. Grass and lawns, although nice little oxygen producers, were originally cultivated by nobles and the wealthy in Europe as way to express their wealth. The idea that they simply did not need to grow their own food at their residence was a form of pretentiousness which has carried over strongy to today in the United States.

The reality is that the average suburbian home built these days doesn't have a large enough lot to provide an adequate food supply for the families that live there. Moreover, many home owner associations outright forbid gardens in front yards, cutting half of what useable land there is in half. Regardless, vegtable gardens still remain viable options for many people - who continue to allow and even cultivate a bunch of relatively useless grass to waste energy and water on.

Ok, I'm not really as 'enviro' as that might seem however. While we have dedicated about 60' sq. of our yard to as much basil, tomatoes, and snap peas as we can stand throughout the growing season, the other 600 square feet of managed yard is mostly grass that I currently cut with a gas mower. :rolleyes:

So does that make me 10% less pretentious??

[VetteOwner]

i know lowes and home depo have the reel push mowers.

but i hate mowing my own grass so ill just get a truckload of sand and make a desert out of my yard....maybe grow some cacti