Discussion
skibum said:
Laying the wire down this afternoon so first mow today hopefully.
Skibum - thing I found when laying the wire is the need Robomow make to having no 90 degree bends for left hand turns - my layout meant that due to the size of the two 45 degree corners quite a bit of the grass was missed by the mower in the corner. I would make the two 45 degrees as close to each other as possible. Not sure if that makes sense, but if you look at the hand book I'm sure you'll figure it out!
skibum said:
Ah - thats a worry as mine is like corrugated roof in places!
Laying the wire down this afternoon so first mow today hopefully.
Re: the river, you'll find that it is advised not to run a guide wire along a slope (ie traverse) if possible, so I dont think you'll be able to find a robot mower that will mow to the water's edge.
I wasn't going to try and do that. Would stop a couple or 3 feet short of that. Will have to strim that bit. But, if like the chap above, it runs over the wire, not long after it will be rather wet.Laying the wire down this afternoon so first mow today hopefully.
Re: the river, you'll find that it is advised not to run a guide wire along a slope (ie traverse) if possible, so I dont think you'll be able to find a robot mower that will mow to the water's edge.
Im getting the impression that the tech involved here is not entirely flawless.
monkfish1 said:
I wasn't going to try and do that. Would stop a couple or 3 feet short of that. Will have to strim that bit. But, if like the chap above, it runs over the wire, not long after it will be rather wet.
Im getting the impression that the tech involved here is not entirely flawless.
Mine only seemed to run over the (low voltage) wire as a result of a mains cable - I thought it was deep enough not to confuse things, but it seems not. Guess it's not unreasonable that when looking for a wire with voltage, it gets confused when it finds another (probably stronger) one.Im getting the impression that the tech involved here is not entirely flawless.
mikelima said:
Hi - (very) long time lurker just joined up and finally have something to contribute!
Had a Robomow for about three months and from how it has operated so far - it has never strayed over the wire and I'd be comfortable that it was unlikely to. We had a power cut this week for 20mins whilst the mower (Shaun) was working away. It stopped instantly the power went off and then commenced mowing once the power was back on. Impressed so far, although it doesn't like undulating lawns - gets stuck easily, particularly when the ground is damp.
How undulating is your lawn and what model of robomow do you have? My garden is close to the 20 degree limit on places. Had a Robomow for about three months and from how it has operated so far - it has never strayed over the wire and I'd be comfortable that it was unlikely to. We had a power cut this week for 20mins whilst the mower (Shaun) was working away. It stopped instantly the power went off and then commenced mowing once the power was back on. Impressed so far, although it doesn't like undulating lawns - gets stuck easily, particularly when the ground is damp.
Well, after some challenges yesterday in getting Stephen to dock properly (he kept veering right and mounting the base station), I finally got things lined up properly this morning and sent him on his merry way to do his maiden cut. It's going well so far and the lawn looks quite funny with some cut streaks across it. I'm sure that it'll look great soon.
Given the speed at which the grass is growing at the moment, I'm hoping this will be the god send I am hoping for!
We're quite lucky in that we are new to the house and the old borders had overgrown, so lacked definition. I've laid out the perimeter wire such that it will hopefully define the boarders for us and we'll soon see where we have to cut the border in and keep the wire in place.
Agree on the 45 degree corners though, quite tricky in places, but hopefully we'll have no major issues.
Given the speed at which the grass is growing at the moment, I'm hoping this will be the god send I am hoping for!
We're quite lucky in that we are new to the house and the old borders had overgrown, so lacked definition. I've laid out the perimeter wire such that it will hopefully define the boarders for us and we'll soon see where we have to cut the border in and keep the wire in place.
Agree on the 45 degree corners though, quite tricky in places, but hopefully we'll have no major issues.
That's what I wish I could do lay the wire leave it going for a few weeks and then cut the borders on where the grass is still long. Trying to retrofit it to and existing perimeter where you have awkward shapes is nigh on impossible. I am impressed though the cut it gives is nice and I think long term it will be very good for the quality of lawn. Regarding the base station the wires have to go up the left side of the platform not in the middle as it shows in the manual, Robomow sent me a diagram showing this and don't leave any curled up wire behind the base it causes massive interference
Joe M said:
That's disappointing, the 304 is the one I am looking at just now. Is it grounding out or are the wheels just slipping? I understand you can get wider "power wheels" for them, might help.
The back wheels slip and start to dig into the lawn. This is usually caused by the front wheel getting stuck. It's not a major issue as the mower simply reverses and then diverts slightly around the area where it got stuck. But if you have a seriously undulating lawn, it will probably get stuck quite often...The mowers are fairly unlikely to go over the wire. It would be possible not to have the wire but the companies involved have been conservative with the first wave of robots, in particular one I spoke to accepted that wireless operation was possible but could not take the risk of something going wrong and driving itself into a pond.
Ben
Ben
Brilliant piece of kit, works like a dream. Landroid has an edge function where it runs around the perimeter wire from the back of the charging station to the front with the blades spinning and then docks.
It's also built like a tank, is the quietest mower on the market and can mow around 1/3rd of an acre in one session.
You can set the wire closer to the edge of the lawn than 30cm, but will need to fiddle with the precise location in some places to avoid problems.
Some robot owners lay astroturf around the edge of their lawn so the mower can cut to the edge of the grass fully.
Or you can run round the edges with a cordless strimmer.
Only robotic mower that cuts to the edges completely is the Robomow RS630, but that's designed for mowing fields up to 3/4 acre.
It's also built like a tank, is the quietest mower on the market and can mow around 1/3rd of an acre in one session.
You can set the wire closer to the edge of the lawn than 30cm, but will need to fiddle with the precise location in some places to avoid problems.
Some robot owners lay astroturf around the edge of their lawn so the mower can cut to the edge of the grass fully.
Or you can run round the edges with a cordless strimmer.
Only robotic mower that cuts to the edges completely is the Robomow RS630, but that's designed for mowing fields up to 3/4 acre.
The robomow's look good and I can see how the offset blade would be good for edges where there is a drop off. It wouldn't help when running along the fence and wall in my garden though. Strimmer isn't too much hassle, but kinda defeats the point of getting the robot so I dont have to do it. Some sort of edging, astroturf or otherwise is probably the way to go.
My mower is indirectly costing me a fortune. I posted a picture of it working earlier in the thread and the 'flower' bed which was totally weeds of several foot high was clearly visible.
But, spending that much on a mower made me think I should sort my garden out. Dug over both flower beds, and planted several variety of plants - including a few Acers, one of which is just over 6ft tall and is definitely my favourite thing in the garden.
I still have plenty to do but the garden is beginning to look great. Must be a sign of my age - never been remotely interested in gardening or gardens - but I'm loving the transformation and am really getting into the way it looks. I'm actually getting quite annoyed that it's not raining - the garden needs it - and I've never thought that in my life! My g/f is wondering if I've been replaced by an alien.
But, spending that much on a mower made me think I should sort my garden out. Dug over both flower beds, and planted several variety of plants - including a few Acers, one of which is just over 6ft tall and is definitely my favourite thing in the garden.
I still have plenty to do but the garden is beginning to look great. Must be a sign of my age - never been remotely interested in gardening or gardens - but I'm loving the transformation and am really getting into the way it looks. I'm actually getting quite annoyed that it's not raining - the garden needs it - and I've never thought that in my life! My g/f is wondering if I've been replaced by an alien.
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