Alternatives to green mowing
Perhaps a section can be made called "green mowing" in which several green mowers are described. Besides making a pv electric mower, a regular mower on a electric battery is a better possibility (the PV panel is expensive, and can only catch sun when mower is outdoors). A PV panel on the roof of the house catches sun all the time and can also power the mower aswell as the house itself (if connected to a battery bank or other energy storage system).
also, another possibility is a conversion to a hydrogen internal combustion mower (by using hydrogen or oxyhydrogen as a fuel). I suggest making the article/project "Automated, emissionless lawnmower". It is basically a regular lawn mower engine using a emissionless fuel (see http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Open-source_domestic_robots#Lawn_mowing_robot)
Finally, I would propose to change this article to a autonomous pv mower (perhaps with mulching). A small hurdle to overcome would however be the wheel propulsion; perhaps that oversizing the electric engine somwhat and tapping some power from this engine to power the wheels via a drive axis (wheels directly mounted on the axis, so that they cannot rotate without rotating the axis) could be a possibility. Also, a automatic recharging station should be foreseen; especially as the mower could be initially of steel and thus heavy; this would limit extension of a mowing run substantially. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robotic_lawn_mower I am guessing that (quasi-)duplicating the electronic guidance system of one of these robots could be a possibility to reduce the work needed. A open-sourced robomower program could potentially be made; open-sourcing the project would also attract volunteers (that may have studied robotics)
Also perhaps an extra section may describe on how electric mowers with cord can be converted to a battery-powered (robotic?) lawnmower. This could be done by a sort of retrofit kit. The article should describe the kit's components and how to install them. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 81.246.163.201, 2 May 2009
- Good point about where to put the panels. Really, this is not a practical project for most people and most cases - it just makes an exercise for engineering student.
- I wonder if there's a way of indicating that on the page, without "taking over" the page from the person who did the project. Comments are one option (meaning we need a way to bring good comments to the top, like many sites do to a degree). Or we could have a "committee" that gives their assessment - more problematic, less democratic, though it wouldn't preclude others making their comments below as well.
- Category:Lawnmowers has some other brief notes on this topic. --Chriswaterguy 18:21, 2 May 2009 (UTC)