Locomotion Revisited

First however, I decided to try the mower on the grass. A novel idea I know, but Mo has not actually been used on grass since our previous house. Much to my chargrin, I found the mower gets stuck on the grass and wheel-spins! This was rather confusing as Mo had never had a problem on grass previously and had been upgraded with more powerful motors. After a bit of investigation and measurement, I realized the new motors sat higher on the chassis (larger diameter) which meant the back of the mower was lower to the ground. There are a few solutions to this problem, but I think the easiest one will be to replace the wheels with those of a larger diameter. I have been thinking of doing this for a while as the grip on the bane-bot wheels is not really suitable for a mower on a steep slope. This will also have the benefit of increasing the mower speed as it is a little slow at the moment (for the default PWM setting of 200). This is not urgent as most of my testing will be on the deck or concrete but it would be good to actually be able to mow something when I'm done.

The new wheels arrived today. A bout of insomnia meant I spent the early hours putting them on. They came with a very secure fixing mechanism. They look like large scooter wheels so may have a grip issue, but they lift the back of the mower 1cm which makes things look a lot better. I am going to upgrade the casters to 50mm wheels from their current 40mm versions as this will work better over more uneven ground, and lift the front of the mower slightly. I should then be set for real 'field' tests!

Here are the new wheels, comparing them to the old ones:

And these are the new castors compared to the old ones:

Moana with her new shoes fitted:

May 2018