World's first ROLT (electric lawn tractor)

Tommy

10 W
Joined
Jul 12, 2011
Messages
76
Location
Southeast Wisconsin
DIY ROLT
Remotely
Operated
Lawn
Tractor

It mows, plows, sweeps and hauls mostly from the comforts of my living room(remotely operated using cameras)

Tommy
 

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Just what I need, even with my tiny desert back lawn my post viral fatigue makes pushing a feather light electric mower a burden. Anything that's work that lasts longer than 30 min too much for me.

But if you have a remote control lawnmower, you simply must see this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7B49Jdlo7ns

Or at least the part between 5 and 5.30 min.
 
Nice, haven't had much chance to work on mine. Maybe this winter. What video setup are you using.
 
Cool machine. 8) Is it an adaptation of a shopping cart mule with an electric mower deck? Since I dont have a real grass lawn, all I would need is a used Roomba for vacuuming up the chihuahua droppings. :lol:
 
How much including shipping to Costa Rica? Our back yard includes a small soccer field, so you can imagine the grass growing with the tropical sun during rainy season.
 
Anything that's work that lasts longer than 30 min too much for me.
dogman, as is my ROLT has a five hour run time on the Mower attachment(42"), here in wisconsin each season bring
a new set of challenges, we are currently going from mowing to picking up dead leaves, the sweeper in picture below
is hours of entertainment.

But if you have a remote control lawnmower, you simply must see this.
because I plow snow and pick up dead leaves on public roads I have to take extra care with the Rolt's safety systems.

What video setup are you using.
kfong, I use five IP cameras, two are wired(because the DLink cameras suck bandwidth) and three are Wifi(Linksys cameras do a little better).
the router is mounted on the ROLT.

Our back yard includes a small soccer field
John in CR, it well be better when it's completed, it has a CNC mode, where you program the cut path, but until I get the beacons working
I have to start the program in the same spot each time, and finish around the boarders manually by FPV mode. I design it to mow a small
grass strip airport runway, should do a soccer field just fine.

Tommy
 
Tommy said:
as is my ROLT has a five hour run time on the Mower attachment(42"),
.. I design it to mow a small grass strip airport runway, should do a soccer field just fine.

Incredible ! :shock:
would you care to share a few basics?.. motor drive system, power consumption, battery system, voltage, capacity, type, etc.
Any thoughts of going commercial with this design ?
 
would you care to share a few basics?
Hillhater, I do like talking about this stuff.

The Motor drive system of the Rolt right now is two 24V 3000RPM 350Watt motors with electric brakes geared for a top
speed of 5MPH with the 18" turf safe tires, it has as an attachment two 1000Watt 3000RPM motors with 14" turf safe tires
that give it four wheel drive that I plan to use for plowing snow this season, with tire chains on all four wheels I should
have lots of fun this winter.

the mower deck that I designed for the airport has three 350Watt motors each motor drives a 20In. reel mower at 340RPM
with a cut path of 52In., the mower I use at home is two 1500Watt 24V rotary mowers and one 350Watt 14In. reel mower
to pick up the gap between the rotary mowers, next mowing season it'll be three 1500Watt 24V 17In. rotary mowers.

The batteries are in three groups, Rolt's drives and motors (24V, 2 150AH 12V batteries in series), Rolt's lights, cameras and computers (12V, 1 60AH deep cycle, there are currently three 100Watt inverters on the 12V group ), attachments like
Mowers and Sweeper (24V, four 55AH SLA currently).

Any thoughts of going commercial with this design ?
not ready for prime time yet, I'm still working on picking up dead leaves and the beacon system while it looked good on
paper, it's not giving me the results I need.


Tommy
 
Tommy said:
The Motor drive system of the Rolt right now is two 24V 3000RPM 350Watt motors with electric brakes geared for a top
speed of 5MPH with the 18" turf safe tires,

Interesting, thanks Tommy.

So would they be Disability chair/buggy drives with their own drive controllers ( brushed motors ?)
I assume you are running a fixed drive speed ?
 
Hi Tommy!

This is Tommy L..... Could you update your profile to give your location?

Thank you!

Tommy L sends......
mosh.gif
 
So would they be Disability chair/buggy drives with their own drive controllers ( brushed motors ?)
Hillhater, I'm currently using a Sabertooth 2X60 drive with analog input on the main axle, I have it set for mixing(differential steering)
so I have one analog voltage(0V= full reverse, 5V=full forwards with 2.5V = stop) for speed and one for direction, going to use the
roboclaw 2X60 for the rear attached axle because it has encoder inputs for better low speed velocity control on the direct drive wheels(14in).

Rear attached motors are 1000Watt four poled brushed, Main motors are 350Watt two poled brushed.

Tommy
 

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After three years, and exhausting all options I'v given up on the reel type mower.
while I'm sure there are environments that could accommodate the reel type, but
the environment my project has to deal with is not one of them. maybe a sod field
or golf coarse.

one apparent result is a sweet cut(first one ever). now using 3-20"(with 2" overlap)
24Vdc electric mowers which gives me a 54" cut path.

Tommy
 

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funny how projects change over the years.

today this project looks like

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[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=5&v=fMdravj3FDA&feature=emb_logo[/youtube]
 
Awesome work.

I've been thinking of building a mini skid steer (all electric of course).
 
Awesome! I'd add a loudspeaker and audio link so you can yell at people that get in the way. Shoveling snow from the living room couch is great.
 
I've been thinking of building a mini skid steer (all electric of course).
veloman, I find myself a little red faced(adding ICE engine). I added all wheel drive this year, but
didn't add more batteries, I'm going to add a 3.5hp ICE engine with electric start that powers a 100amp alternator
to charge the current 200Hr 24vdc battery setup. I got an arduino nano doing an auto start of the ICE engine so it
can be controlled from the remote, single on/off switch.

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I tested this setup on my standup mower that has a dc servo motor drive setup on it this mowing season,
and I loved it, no run time limit(sweet!)

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I'd add a loudspeaker and audio link so you can yell at people that get in the way.
fechter, if I did anything like that I'd use an old 1980's dos shareware program called tran (text to speech).
 
I admire your ingenuity , and amused that you have resorted to 1950s ICE tech (Briggs side valve motor) to enable your 2020s device to have extended functionality :bigthumb:
Maybe you can adapt one of these fully electric ,continuous operation, tractors to mowing duties ? :shock:
TCyfi4.jpg
 
amused that you have resorted to 1950s ICE tech
Hillhater, if I had john Deere's budget I could replace all my flooded Lead-acid batteries
with lithium polymer batteries, maybe then I wouldn't need the ICE for snow shoveling/plowing, for mowing
I think I would still need an ICE no matter what current battery tech I used.(mow 4 acres each week)

fall 2017 image with 50" snow plow attachment
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not once did I think to try corded electric for mowing :shock:

on a side note: if your into FPV the current 4k monitors are very sweet!, got a 43" 4k monitor for under $200usd(sweetest!)
3840x2160 resolution can display a lot of information.(I can now add a few more cameras)
IMG_0051.JPG
 
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