Robot mowers

Author
Discussion

Frimley111R

15,720 posts

236 months

Monday 15th July 2019
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Great shout on the £399! Thanks

WTF, it went back to £599!

Edited by Frimley111R on Monday 15th July 21:36

justin220

5,363 posts

206 months

Thursday 18th July 2019
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I've been considering one for a while and the Amazon prime day gave me no excuse!

Not looking forward to the hassle of setting it up.

Is there a clever way of getting it to do two parts of the garden that are separated by a fence? My back garden is totally enclosed, and I have two patches at the front.

Has anyone cut a passage in their fence?

Are the flymos ok sitting exposed to the elements? Or should I be looking at a shelter?

Podie

46,632 posts

277 months

Thursday 18th July 2019
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justin220 said:
I've been considering one for a while and the Amazon prime day gave me no excuse!

Not looking forward to the hassle of setting it up.

Is there a clever way of getting it to do two parts of the garden that are separated by a fence? My back garden is totally enclosed, and I have two patches at the front.

Has anyone cut a passage in their fence?

Are the flymos ok sitting exposed to the elements? Or should I be looking at a shelter?
It took 2 of us about 6 hours to set it all up - but since then I haven't needed to get involved in grass cutting.

Read the manual and plan it out. The videos are worth watching. You could also do a sketch and get feedback from people on here.

They're fine open to the elements, but I bought the Gardena "garage" for ours and it fits perfectly.

biggiles

1,750 posts

227 months

Thursday 18th July 2019
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justin220 said:
I've been considering one for a while and the Amazon prime day gave me no excuse!

Not looking forward to the hassle of setting it up.

Is there a clever way of getting it to do two parts of the garden that are separated by a fence? My back garden is totally enclosed, and I have two patches at the front.

Has anyone cut a passage in their fence?

Are the flymos ok sitting exposed to the elements? Or should I be looking at a shelter?
They're fairly quick & simple to set up. Use a marked piece of wood to set the wire a consistent distance from the boundary, then go around with the pegs and fix the wires in place. A child helper saves lots of time by keeping the wire taut in front of you. As Podie says, reading the manual (twice) will save a lot of time.

If you can cut a small hole in the fence for it to go between gardens then that would save you a lot of future effort.

Amateurish

7,782 posts

224 months

Thursday 18th July 2019
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justin220 said:
I've been considering one for a while and the Amazon prime day gave me no excuse!

Not looking forward to the hassle of setting it up.

Is there a clever way of getting it to do two parts of the garden that are separated by a fence? My back garden is totally enclosed, and I have two patches at the front.

Has anyone cut a passage in their fence?

Are the flymos ok sitting exposed to the elements? Or should I be looking at a shelter?
I think any hole in the fence would need to be quite wide since the guide wire needs to pass through it and that needs clearance.

wjwren

4,484 posts

137 months

Thursday 18th July 2019
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My Bosch sits outside until winter where it goes in the shed. Been fine.

Podie

46,632 posts

277 months

Thursday 18th July 2019
quotequote all
biggiles said:
They're fairly quick & simple to set up. Use a marked piece of wood to set the wire a consistent distance from the boundary, then go around with the pegs and fix the wires in place. A child helper saves lots of time by keeping the wire taut in front of you. As Podie says, reading the manual (twice) will save a lot of time.

If you can cut a small hole in the fence for it to go between gardens then that would save you a lot of future effort.
We used one of those semi-circular turf cutters to do the edge - quicker than tapping in the pegs

prand

5,925 posts

198 months

Thursday 18th July 2019
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Frimley111R said:
Great shout on the £399! Thanks

WTF, it went back to £599!

Edited by Frimley111R on Monday 15th July 21:36

Shame, I guess the rest of PH beat you to it smile

I did note a month or so ago it was available on Amazon for about £549 but went up to £599 just before Prime day so if you can't wait for another year then I'd expect you may get a bit of a discount soon.

Regarding the other poster, I'm just in the process of setting my Dad's flymo up. Stupidly I thought 90 mins would be ok the other evening!

I thought it was going to be quick, but once you realise you need to decide on a permanent position for the base unit and charger near a safe power outlet, then mark out the whole boundary wire and guide wire into final position, then run cable around shrubs and permanent osbtacles before anything works, it needs a fair bit of thought and laying out. I'm planning a few hours over the weekend to get it all ready.

Also, I didn't realise the guide wire (which is the same type of cable as the boundary wire) needs to connect through the front of base unit across to join a point on the boundary wire too, and if its a vaguely complex lawn area like my dad's you need to make sure the mower can find it easily from a more remote part, which means quite a long run of cable.

We were at least we were able to create a smaller dummy run area just to see the thing working which was pretty cool. Using a lawn edge trimmer we created a small 5-10cm trench in the turf to bury the cable which it seemed to be able to sense with no issues even buried. I reckon is preferable to pegging out on the surface.

I ordered some extra connectors from Amazon (£6 for 25) as the mower only came with 3 or 4 and it means I won't be wasting cable if I need to make more cable cuts during the layout process. Plus i ordered an extra 25m of cable as I don't think the 150m I was provided with will be enough to cover the area I'm trying to create (this also needs to include the long guide wire).

Frimley111R

15,720 posts

236 months

Thursday 18th July 2019
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Good feedback, I'll keep searching ...

RichTT

3,107 posts

173 months

Thursday 18th July 2019
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Appears my Mcculloch is having some issues. I'm away from home for another week but it's been playing up for a couple of weeks now. Working flawlessly before. Now it's giving 'charging station blocked' error messages. If the missus kicks him out to mow he goes fine, and seems to charge fine.

Anyone else had this issue?

JackReacher

2,135 posts

217 months

Thursday 18th July 2019
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Annoyed that I missed the Flymo deal, will need to pay attention come November and hope it's on offer again!

justin220

5,363 posts

206 months

Thursday 18th July 2019
quotequote all
biggiles said:
They're fairly quick & simple to set up. Use a marked piece of wood to set the wire a consistent distance from the boundary, then go around with the pegs and fix the wires in place. A child helper saves lots of time by keeping the wire taut in front of you. As Podie says, reading the manual (twice) will save a lot of time.

If you can cut a small hole in the fence for it to go between gardens then that would save you a lot of future effort.
Thanks chaps. I've read the manual. I think I'll maybe just do the front manually, either with the Flymo or my old mower. I'll have a go setting up next week and report back

snake_oil

2,039 posts

77 months

Thursday 18th July 2019
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RichTT said:
Appears my Mcculloch is having some issues. I'm away from home for another week but it's been playing up for a couple of weeks now. Working flawlessly before. Now it's giving 'charging station blocked' error messages. If the missus kicks him out to mow he goes fine, and seems to charge fine.

Anyone else had this issue?
No idea but check out troubleshooting guide in the manual. Page 40.

https://www.manualslib.com/manual/1361170/Mcculloc...


RichTT

3,107 posts

173 months

Friday 19th July 2019
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snake_oil said:
No idea but check out troubleshooting guide in the manual. Page 40.

https://www.manualslib.com/manual/1361170/Mcculloc...
Thanks, I'll have a look once I'm home next week. Hope the grass doesn't grow too long in that time that I have to do a manual mow!

Frimley111R

15,720 posts

236 months

Friday 19th July 2019
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JackReacher said:
Annoyed that I missed the Flymo deal, will need to pay attention come November and hope it's on offer again!
Bloody thing seems even more pricey than before the sale!

snake_oil

2,039 posts

77 months

Friday 19th July 2019
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RichTT said:
I have to do a manual mow!
A...a....a what now? wobble

prand

5,925 posts

198 months

Friday 19th July 2019
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Frimley111R said:
Bloody thing seems even more pricey than before the sale!
Yes, up by £50 from a month or so before when I was looking at them in May/June on Amazon. The price went up to 599 so they could claim a "saving" of £200.

£150 off wasn't too bad, but it's this blatant dishonesty which is pretty distasteful.

Zoon

6,727 posts

123 months

Friday 19th July 2019
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prand said:
Frimley111R said:
Bloody thing seems even more pricey than before the sale!
Yes, up by £50 from a month or so before when I was looking at them in May/June on Amazon. The price went up to 599 so they could claim a "saving" of £200.

£150 off wasn't too bad, but it's this blatant dishonesty which is pretty distasteful.
Well it's not dishonest, retailers run offers at different prices.

prand

5,925 posts

198 months

Friday 19th July 2019
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Zoon said:
Well it's not dishonest, retailers run offers at different prices.
So it's not dishonest, just good "price management" is that what you mean?

Why are there laws about minimum periods of time goods need to be priced at before discounting then, because retailers were playing fast and loose with pricing strategies for goods and luring customers in with false discounts then?



Frimley111R

15,720 posts

236 months

Friday 19th July 2019
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£480 here if you can collect from Bolton https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/372716883434?ViewItem=&...