Remote Controlled 60" Zero Turn Lawn Mower

I've really got more projects going than I'll ever complete but I was thinking of add one more to the list. Maybe at the top.

I hate mowing the grass. I recently bought a new 60 inch zero turn mower and that has made it a little better, but I still hate it. Anyway, I got to thinking. To make this thing go and mow you just pull or push two levers. Not a lot going on here. I would think it wouldn't be too hard to hook up some servos to these levers and remote enable this thing. I could manually start it, turn on the blades and set the throttle. Then use a model airplane type remote setup to control it's movement. For safety I could hook a remote kill switch to the seat sensor that I could use to kill it if it became self-aware.

I live in the country so the chances of running over a neighbor is pretty low.

I think I could rig the servo arms so they could be disconnected easily so I could manually trim around trees and the like.

Any opinion on effort, money involved, etc?

Looks like I could even get parts used on a commercial version.....

http://www.summitmowers.com/residential.php

That's only an intermediate step towards the logical conclusion. And the conclusion has already been done:

http://www.robomow.com

Oh yea, those are pretty cool. But seeing I have about 6 acres to mow that won't quite do the job. Maybe by the time I need a new mower they will have one monster sized.

I'm hoping I can just "Fun up" the one I have.

Gotcha.

This is a riding mower, correct?

Have you ever watched Mythbusters? They are commonly tasked with rigging up a car or truck with model-airplane-style remote controls. Whenever they do it, it looks like they need to do it in a very heavy-duty fashion to make it work reliably. For example, the actuators look like they have to use either hydraulics or linear drives, and they've always got the top-of-the-line high-power radio controllers. Make sure that whatever you use is up to the task and isn't too weak to get the job done.

Good point. This is a 700 lb mower and not a 2 lb RC airplane. The linear actuators they use on Mythbusters look very expensive. I looked on ebay and found a few 12v actuators for around $100. I'm not sure if those will work I'll need to do some more research. I have several controllers that I might be able to use laying around and even an older receiver.

If I can keep this under $500 I might try to give it s go. I'm not sure is $500 would cover it all.

You only need the heavy duty actuators iff you need a lot of force to drive the unit. For instance the brake pedal of a car still needs a reasonable amount of pressure (even with power brakes) to adequately stop. Similarly steering can require a bit of effort too.

If the controls are light to use then the servos/actuators can be accordingly lower duty. You won't be used model plane servos of course though.

How are you going to manage the navigation of the rigged mower?

Observing and remote controlling from any distance it might be difficult to drive in straight rows and follow a parallel pattern.

I'm sure it would be hilariously fun learning how.

If someone can remotely control this from a distance, a pokey little lawn mower should be quite easy by comparison.

I am so not a lawn guy. I don't care if I have a "grid pattern" on my lawn. So if I zig back and forth a few times at least I'm having fun. This guy seems to be having fun while mowing about everything twice....

http://hackaday.com/2011/08/25/how-not-to-build-a-robotic-lawnmower/

If will definitely take a learning curve. hopefully I will not mow down the house.

I think what I'll need is probably a combination of speed and force. I'm thinking 35 lb's max with a 10" stroke as fast as ~$75 a piece will buy.