RoboCut, BASIC Stamp powered autonomous lawnmover

robocut · 2005-02-14 11:10

I have built an autonomous STAMP powered LawnMover, The ROBOCUT.

Welcome to the RoboCut site to learn more. Schematics, videos, design tips etc:

Some information available in english here http://www.robotshop.se/micro/wwwrc_us/indext.htm

Swedish site here· http://www.robotshop.se/micro/wwwrc/indext.htm

The RoboCut is now available as a complete kit. http://www.robotshop.se/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=33&products_id=44

The RoboCut Controller PCB ( all you need for your own project, with 24-pin socket for any 24-pin STAMP)
Available here http://www.robotshop.se/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=26&products_id=54

PDF manual for the controller PCB available in english here http://www.robotshop.se/micro/wwwrc_us/robocut_pcb_manual.pdf

Post Edited (robocut) : 2/14/2005 11:34:18 AM GMT

Ken Gracey · 2005-02-14 16:20

Hello all,

I can attest that RoboCut is a fantastic robot. In fact, I had to build a lawn just to use the robot. The buried wire fence and object avoidance system works well. What's amazing, though is the range of activities that you can put this robot through compared to the off-the-shelf robotic lawnmowers. With the Stamp's programming abilities·and additional I/Os, you could mow at night, follow the perimeter of the yard, mow randomly, find the charging station, use GPS?, etc etc. Many people have been interested in RoboCut as a general purpose robotics platform.

As far as the actual lawnmowing goes, it does the job unless your grass is too high. But this isn't about mowing lawns. If you really don't want to mow a lawn hire a kid. This is about robotics.·And I think it mulches better than other mowers, too. But keep in mind it's a hobby robot and you could slice your fingers off with the Stanley blades if you are in the wrong place at the wrong time.

RoboCut·had the effect of drawing the neighbors over to take a look. Kids will sit on the porch and watch it, but keep them out of the way when they want to test the object avoidance system. In fact, I keep all people away from the parallel·plane·of the spinning blades in case they come detached.

I haven't had such a problem yet, but·all it takes is an unknowing victim and an enterprising attorney. What's cool about this, though, is that Hans' RoboCut shop is in Sweden. This prevents the ambulance-chasing attorneys from·finding legal fault with the supplier due to impracticalities of filing a lawsuit.

But this robot is a heck of a lot·of fun and I look forward to seeing my lawn again so I can·put it to use. Right now it's waiting for snow to melt. We have two RoboCuts at Parallax. One is an early prototype and one is the production model. We bring these to trade shows and show-and-tell events.

It's one of the best robots I've used. And to see it perform a practical project is truly amazing. It has utility and actually does the job.

Ken Gracey
Parallax, Inc.

bishop · 2005-02-25 08:01

maybe its me Ken, but the grass behind your bot seems to be the same length as the grass in front of the bot.
are you sure you didnt buy the "RoboGroomer?"
:P

dandreae · 2005-02-26 20:05

I have actually found that the RoboCut is very easy to put together.· It takes about 1 to·3 hours to complete.· The motors that are included in this kit are very durable and powerful.· The completed mower is very durable and fun to use.· I highly recommend it.

Dave

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Dave Andreae

Tech Support
dandreae@parallax.com
www.parallax.com

Post Edited (Dave Andreae (Parallax)) : 4/25/2005 8:04:36 PM GMT

bishop · 2005-02-26 23:44

what about buying a gas-powered mulching mower thats self propelled and modifying it to use the dc motors on a controller thats linked to bs2?
surely somebody has done that.
the robotcut doesnt look like its gonna really save me from mowing the yard. but like you said above, its not really about the mowing as it is about the bot.
parallax needs to make a "BoeMower"
but i get royalties on the name, cause i said it first. [noparse]:)[/noparse]

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**************

daniel woolston
Teksystems Inc.
www.danwoolston.com
**************

KenM · 2005-03-04 05:51

Ken,

Are those pictures from your house?

VERY jealous!

K

robocut · 2005-03-09 08:39

Hi again.

I't might be hard to believe that the Robocut acually can keep your lawn nice, but, really, it does.
The random moving results in a nice lawn surprisingly fast. I havent used my "5 hP honda mower" for over two years. There are a few keys to understand this.

First, moving the lawn isent the same thing as "painting a white wall black", it's more that your lawn might have different "hights" on some spots, differences in a few millimeters. This is visible first when you lay down on the grass and look horisontally.

Second, it's a question of time...there is so much time available for this work to be don, and if you use your garden very much, there are still several hours during the night available for the robocut...the robocut runs about three hours on a "charge"...by building a selfcharge station, you could get many hours moving.

The commercial lawnmovers available today, like the automover from Electrolux, are using similar strategies...

Third, by running the robocut very intense, you will end up with a lawn you'll never had before, it looks almost strange, since there are no traces from the mover. AND, we soon found out that the quality of the lawn increses a lot. After discussing this with a greenkeeper at the local golfcourse, i understodd that frequently moving is the key to high quality lawn. The major mistake we normal house-owners does is that we wait to long before we starts our briggs&strattons, the we think, let give a close shave and lowers the machine.

The garss is at this moment "long" and most of the productive·"clorophyl" ( what do you call that green stuff in english) is in the upper parts seeking the sun...this is what we romoves, leaving only the pale parts (like the bottom white parts of a spring onion). The grass has to start all over and is now an weak target for the sun, weed, moss etc... But by moving only a few millimeters often, nothong can compete with modern grass-types.
A golfgreen is moved daily and sometimes twice a day, then there is a lot of water and fertilizer (wrong word ?) too...
Security is of course important, the RoboCut is designed with a doble cutter-disk, with the knifes "hanging loos" between the two disks. This means that the operating free area of the knives are a few millimeters, still this would cause ´damage on a hand or foot, but the "wounds" wount be particualry deep. An interseting·idea i tested late last summer is replacing the knives with thin piano-wire, still "loose hanging" this·seems to work surprisingly well, and getting to close with your hand will hurt, but leave your skin more or less intact. I will continu theese experiment this summer, to find the perfect match of thickness-movingmass-length to·able to just move the grass, but not much more...

However, Ken is still right, the RoboCut is maybe first a interesting experiment in autonomous robotics, but the fact that it actually has a "quest" and it works, has fascinated me more than any other robotics projects i worked with...

The RoboCut electronics, mainboard with all sensors + a second PCB with the transmitter for the perimeterwire and a charger circuit is for sale separately, a popular controller for several types of robots, including your homebrew lawnmoverprojects.

Welcome with questions and ideas!

Hans Forsberg
www.robotshop.se /catalog/·· SWEDEN

Jim McCorison · 2005-03-09 18:31

Robocut said...
An interseting idea i tested late last summer is replacing the knives with thin piano-wire, still "loose hanging" this seems to work surprisingly well

So does that mean that instead of sharpening your blades you'll have to call in the piano tuner instead?

Jim

Paul Baker · 2005-03-09 18:51

Some fellow students at the University of Florida created a company to sell robotic lawnmowers when I was there in the mid 90's, they employed the mono-fillament used in lawn edgers as the cutting instrument since you have to be fairly determined to get cut by it.

Thier system didn't use the buried cable technique, you remote control cutted once around the perimeter then around each tree and other obstacle, then set it in automatic. It had a row of IR leds and detectors under the front lip, the robot would steer itself by keeping the center of itself lined up so the long grass would periodically interupt the sensors on half of its array and having the other half uninterrupted by the already cut grass.

It also had a feedback mechanism detecting the strain on the cutting motor if you went too long between cuttings and the grass was really long, that it would move over so that it was cutting a smaller swath of grass each pass. They implemented this feature after experimenting with thier prototype because long bermuda grass is very hard to cut (the grass most used for Florida lawns).

Post Edited (Paul Baker) : 3/9/2005 6:54:19 PM GMT

bishop · 2005-03-10 05:23

pretty cool idea.
now i wanna make a mowerbot.
and maybe some powered supersoaker turrets on top to entertain the kids while its mowing.

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**************

daniel woolston
Teksystems Inc.
www.danwoolston.com
**************

fcraves · 2005-04-25 04:29

Hello Hans, Ken, or anyone that has used the RoboCut,

Since it's cutting navigation is random, I would like to know if:

1) it redundantly travels a path it has already covered?
2) what is the time it takes to cover all the ground (that it is supposed to cover) in a specified area (or perimeter)...as an example say 100 sqft? And is this time factor linear? ie, if it takes 20 minutes for 100 sqft then it'll take 40 minutes for 200 sqft? Or is the time dependent both on the area as well as the shape of the area? ie, time to cover a 100 sqft circle may differ from time to cover a 100 sqft rectangle?

Hope to receive some accurate answers. Thanks in advance.

Fred

Manuel · 2005-08-03 18:56

The pictures of the robot are very cool and professional.

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Best Regards

Manuel C. Reinhard

Guenther Daubach · 2005-08-03 21:47

Hey all RoboCutters,

too bad that Hans could not sell me a RoboCut kit. Therefore, I have decided to build one of my own now.

In the meantime, I have acquired some nice DC motors with gearboxes for the wheels, and a high-speed one for the cutter.

Today, I went to a DIY store and bought one self-steering suspension wheel. The cashier asked me "What do you do with just one wheel - usually, people buy four of them?". This made me aware, that I seemed a bit crazy to her - no wonder

. So I told her what this "one-and-only" wheel is intended for. She liked the idea - maybe, I have my first customer.

For controlling the motors, I'll use one of the SX-based triple PWM motor control boards, I have designed for another commercial application. As "master controller", I'll either use a BS, or one of my SX Multi-Boards with another SX controller.

I'm pretty close to getting it moving (not yet mowing) - if you like, I'll keep you posted.

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Greetings from Germany,

G

PLJack · 2005-08-03 22:16

Guenther Daubach said...
if you like, I'll keep you posted.

Yes, please.

You might want to start another thread though.

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- - - PLJack - - -

Perfection in design is not achieved when there is nothing left to add.
It is achieved when there is nothing left to take away.

Ken Gracey · 2005-08-15 18:06

It is truly unfortunate that RoboCut isn't making it to the market. There's truly an audience for this kind of kit and they're not just lazy people who want to watch a robot mow a lawn but rather developers, creators, enthusiasts, or whatever you want to call us. If Parallax sells as many HexCrawlers as we do - and this grass-cutting robot actually serves a purpose - then it should be available to the hobbyist and experimental masses.

Sorry guys, I've tried to get Hans to move on this one along with Guenther but it's not looking very promising at the moment.

Our RoboCut will never make its way to eBay because it's going to be part of the Parallax museum if I can ever clean the grass of the belly.

Ken Gracey
Parallax, Inc.

Guenther Daubach · 2005-08-15 18:47

Ken,

yes I too was really disappointed when I could not get one from Hans but I had to accept his reasons, and understand them. Not only that I like this type of robot because it is a fine gizmo - as you said - it serves a purpose, and I could really use it on my relatively small lawn (my wife would be happy too, as she does this job so far, although she does not really believe me that she could be replaced by a robot - at least for that purpose).

As mentioned before, I'm going to build something similar one on my own. I'm using plywood for the first prototype. The frame is already finished with the two wheel motors and the wheels attached plus the self-steering suspension wheel. I simply use one of those with ball-bearings that you can buy at DIY stores. I have ordered some high-capacity NiMH batteries which hopefully will arrive this week, so that I could test if it is moving (not mowing yet

) over the weekend. I'm not too good in mechanics and I don't have the best tools around here, so I hope it will not break down right away.

For the first version of the cutter, I'll use two standard cutter blades attached to the motor with a wooden disk. This will definitely also cut off your finger tips if you're not careful enough but also guillotine the mole that used to live on our property, should it ever poke out of the ground. Hopefully, it will be chased away by the robot's rumble and move to the neighbor's estate before that happens.

After I have mastered the mechanics, I'll continue with the fun part - installing the electronics and programming the controller for that beast. Maybe, I can have it ready to mow our lawn next year.

PLJack: Yes, as soon as I see a real chance that I can build this beast, I'll start another thread.

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Greetings from Germany,

G

Agent Cobalt · 2005-08-16 15:57

I've looked all over the RoboCut website trying to look for any code for the Basic Stamp. Is there any available or do you have to write your own?

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Truth can be dangerous... Trust can be deadly.

Guenther Daubach · 2005-08-16 17:57

I assume, you'll have to write it on your own. At least I will do because I'm going to use another motor controller, and most liekly will use an SX controller programmed in Assembly.

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Greetings from Germany,

G

FireHorse · 2005-10-13 21:31

Dear G

Jim Richey · 2005-11-22 01:24

OK Bring it out! My mower will chew up your little muncher.It also gets great gas mileage,hybrid.I can also cut the lawn while watching the TV inside the house.

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Thanks, Parallax!

steve_b · 2005-11-22 03:14

HAha....Jim, love the steering mechanism!!

Looks like it'd be fun to ride!

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·

Steve

"Inside each and every one of us is our one, true authentic swing. Something we was born with. Something that's ours and ours alone. Something that can't be learned... something that's got to be remembered."

Dave Paton · 2005-11-22 18:09

Ken-

Any chance Hans has moved his position any? The lawn at my new house is crying out for this kind of constant, automated attention, and I'm going to be muuuuch too busy over the winter to try and build one. I'd gladly pay the currently listed price on the page....

-dave

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This is not a sig. This is a duck. Quack.

Steve Rennells · 2005-12-09 15:46

We're under about a foot of snow here (PA) - I'd like to make a RoboBlower for my driveway!

Billericay-Boy · 2007-09-04 11:56

Hi Gunther and all,

How are the lawn mowers comming on ?

I am stuck on the burried wire fence / containment system - how did you get round this ?

I look forward to hearing of your sucesses.

ryan1985 · 2008-09-07 07:01

Hi someone can help me; I also is building a lawn mower project . I will be using the parallax motor mount kit for the drive system. Are the robocut schematics given above the final one?

How many sensors and what type does it have? What motor is suitable for the grass cutting? For those who have the robocut please guide me. I have tried to contact the builder himself but in vain.

Thanks

Post Edited (ryan1985) : 9/17/2008 3:20:39 PM GMT

RoboCut, BASIC Stamp powered autonomous lawnmover

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