My autonomous lawn mower thread/blog

whippet wrote: »

i've bitten the bullet and ordered the Husqvarna 420 .. being installed on saturday .. will take a final cut off the lawn this evening with the walk behind mower.

I have about 1600m2 of grass to be cut .. down a good bit from last year when I paved quite a bit of grass. The decision came about when I took the first cut off the lawn this year and between tatch, moss & weeds I realised I didn't have a lawn but a controlled meadow.

With family and work pressures I can't maintain the lawn .... its russian roulette at the weekends with rain and family commitments to find the 3+ hours to cut the grass and more often than not the grass is too high and I end up butchering it and leaving far too much clippings lying around.

I got the lawn scarified and it looks like the dried out grasslands in Africa at the moment .... was going to fork out for a new ride on but decided to give the automower a chance .. hoping that I haven't made the wrong choice!

As long as its all connected with no steps and you dont have ongoing plans to keep redesigning the lawn, which would require moving perimeter wire, then you have made the right choice.

I bought the automower for the exact reasons you bought.... I dont want to be at the mercy of the weather and then finding its 2 weeks between cuts and then its out of control and you cant mulch it and it just takes too much time on a Saturday when Im busy with other things.

Best of luck, its a joy to watch it in action once its up and running!

whippet wrote: »

i've bitten the bullet and ordered the Husqvarna 420 .. being installed on saturday

How much was it and where did you buy? Online or at a Husqvarna dealer?

and its installed ... has been happily bopping around the garden since saturday lunch time.

It took about 3 hours from start to finish by the dealer to install, and this confirmed my theory on getting someone who has experience in doing to to the install.

It only took a matter of minutes for him to decide on the best path for the guide wire and boundary wire and where to position the base. He had to cut through a small bit of fencing to give the mower access to the front.

When it was set up and ready to go he did the initial installation tests with me to make sure I knew how it was set up and what the theory behind it was. After that .. it went out cutting and has been ever since.

My grass is in a mess at the moment ... yellow, straw and some bare patches .. it has been scarified and I cut it to the bone last week in preparation. So at the moment the mower is set to relatively high to allow the grass to grow.

It is a bit weird but i'm constantly looking out to see where it is ... worried about it being caught somewhere or not going to some parts of the garden .. but so far .. it has been concentrating as per the set parameters.

The dogs initially were curious; lasted about 5 minutes and have since ignored it.

for the record; the dealer was greenfeet.ie

Shefwedfan wrote: »

Thanks, did he run the wire for you? I know I keep asking but I have a large garden and running the wire myself would take too long so would like someone to come it......

Did he have the tool with just runs outside and auto pushs in wire?

He did .. we have about 1600sqm and he used a tool for running the wire. As i said three hours start to finish ... I'd say if I tried it myself I'd still be at it a week later and would have made a balls of it. Well worth paying for someone who knows what they are at and who has done it hundreds of times

[Apologies, havent read the entire thread]


Whats the story with security? Are there any mitigations for some hi-ace rolling by the gate and deciding "we'll have that"?


The suggestion I'd make (based on old info in the initial few pages of the thread) is if you find yourself checking it regularly to ensure its still going ok you could add an IP camera with motion detection to the area with the base station. That way ever time it took off and returned you could receive an email so even on holidays you'd know if it were in the green.

cornet wrote: »

If it's a really complicated installation then perhaps it's better getting a professional.

While I wouldn't consider my garden to be overly complicated .. it needed to be routed from front to back through two narrow gaps and we have some awkward flowerbeds etc.

And its up and running:D:D:D
Started the install at 5.15 and set the automower on its way at 6.55. Cut for an hour and 5 min and back in for a charge. As said before by everyone, it is surprisingly quite.
The went crazy for the first 15 mins but got bored after that. Now if only the midges would clear off so i can watch the next run!

jod1983 wrote: »

And its up and running:D:D:D
Started the install at 5.15 and set the automower on its way at 6.55. Cut for an hour and 5 min and back in for a charge. As said before by everyone, it is surprisingly quite.
The dogs went crazy for the first 15 mins but got bored after that. Now if only the midges would clear off so i can watch the next run!

Feckin midges are bad this evening. No wind.

Best of luck with the automower, ya won't look back!

Sysmod wrote: »

My question on GPS (Husqvarna 430X) was me wondering if it would stop working if removed offsite. I guess not then.

If removed offsite the alarm will go off and it won't work anywhere until the PIN is entered. If you enter a wrong PIN it starts to lock you out in ever increasing times so you cant just keep trying every possible PIN.

Sysmod wrote: »

Might be cheaper to just include it in the insurance.

Im not sure an insurance company will cover it. Its not locked up in the house or a garage so I don't think they will cover it from theft. I asked my insurance company at the time and they said no. I didn't try since and maybe others are different but I wouldn't assume you can cover it by house insurance.

The hope is that it's not readily sellable so they won't look at it.

And if they do, the alarm will go off when they lift it so that should slow them down.

There is a sticker on it with PIN Protected written on it

And I've CCTV on mine.

Not ideal but I haven't heard of one being stolen, but of course possible. Ride-ons can be robbed too and much more sellable!

Shefwedfan wrote: »

People are targeting ride on's and there is a lot been stolen but a ride on can be covered under house insurance. I checked when I bought my ride on and once i had in shed with lock etc it would be covered

As we are seeing with electric cars, as automower become more popular you will start to see them been targeted

Husqvarna just posted on facebook "3 years ago this amount of Automowers would have represented a years worth of sales in Ireland. Today, it wont even fill 50% of the orders we have for May. It's exciting to see such a rapid growth as the benefits of Automower are being realised."

With that amount of Automower been sold there will be a market out there for second hand/stolen units

Second hand yes, where the seller can disclose the PIN code so the machine can actually be used, but buyers will not be able to use a stolen automower without the PIN, so there might not be that much of a market for thieves. Stolen automowers will also be registered on the dealer network, so they cannot be paired with a new charging station, even if they can crack the PIN. There's always a risk, but I don't think they will be stolen to order. It's the opportunistic thief who hops the wall and grabs one not knowing how useful it is I'm more worried about - might be no use to him but even if he dumps it it's still no use to you gone.

Sysmod wrote: »

What are typical charges for cabling and installation? I see 2900 for husqvarna 430x plus 300 for 500m cabling plus 300 installation.

mine was installed including the cabling for €300.

It is in almost two weeks now and already the grass is looking healthier. while there wasn't much growth due to the rare occurrence of sun for a week or so .. the lawn is slowly showing more green than orange.

my lawn was horrific before hand ... moss, thatch and weeds. After clearing as much thatch and moss as possible and giving it a feed before installing the mower.

so far the mower is doing what it says on the tin .. the installer seems to have done a good job in laying the wires routing it through some narrow channels to the three zones. I had it on 24h / 7 for the first week and now it is just doing 2x 6 hour stints daily.

The height is set to 6cm so when the grass recovers a bit i'll drop it a bit lower and fingers.

Its great to have the time now to finish off the grass each weekend .. edging, strimming and tying it up ... before after spending 3+ hours battling with the mower I just had no interest or time in looking after the edges and making it look nice.

While its only been a couple of weeks .. no regrets here and by all accounts on of my neighbours will be putting one in based on the amount of time he spends looking at mine!!

KCross wrote: »

Since you said you had it out 24/7 for a week I'd take a look at your blades after another week or two as they will obviously have been worked much harder on the initial runout to get the grass down to level.

After that one or two more changes during the summer should do it.

I will do .. plan of giving it a good clean this weekend.

The grass was cut to the bottom before I got it .. as it needed all the moss and thatch taken off so from the outset the automower was only keeping the grass down as opposed to cutting it down to level.

€3500. That's expensive.

What size lawn do you have?

For an average size lawn and install it yourself you should be able to do it for around €2-2.5k

cornet wrote: »

I think your problem is that it's out too often. Your machine is oversized for your area so does not need to be out 6/7 days per week.

From the manual "The factory setting is that the robotic lawnmower will operate around the clock seven days a week.
If the size of the working area allows it, the quality of the grass can be further improved if it is cut every other day instead of a few hours every day. In addition, the grass benefits from resting completely during at least a three- day period once a month."
I think you should try it at 4 days per week and see how it goes (it will also prolong your battery).

Thanks Cornet for the advice, have it set now for the same hours but on Sun,Mon,Weds,Fri.
Im also getting the Automower Connect fitted next Saturday by my dealer. More of a security thing than anything else but i am very interested in the GPS assisted mowing. Anyone got any experience of this?

KeRbDoG wrote: »

I'm looking into getting a Husqvarna Automower 430X - I need to connect one half of the garden to another but there is limited spec for a 'connecting path' across a driveway. Has anyone had to do this before?

What do you mean by "limited spec for a connecting path across a driveway"?


You can get the mower to drive across your driveway but you would need to put down perimeter and guide wire on the driveway for the mower to be able to follow.

So, perimeter wire would go across the driveway a few feet apart creating a "passage" that the mower would drive within and then a guide wire in between the two perimeter wires so that the mower can follow.

Are you in a position to bury wire on your driveway?
Once the wire is in and there are no steps the mower will traverse the driveway no problem.

EDIT: Just taking a random house on google maps, you'll see what I mean about the wires. Its not to scale on the driveway crossing. In reality you could have that passage down to about 4ft wide.

KeRbDoG wrote: »

Ah sorry, my concerns are that my driveway is loose stone and there is a step both sides.
Guidelines I'd be after would be the incline they can climb (to build a slope for it) and width needed of a pathway

It will climb a 45deg slope as long as it can get grip so I don't think that will be an issue.

The loose stone could be an issue. It depends on how much loose stone you have. It doesn't have much ground clearance and if there is a lot of stone it could end up just spinning its wheels into the stone. Opposite to that, if you have big stones it might have issues driving over those. It needs to be relatively flat and driveable.

If there are steps on and off a kerb it won't work. You would need to create a ramp on/off the kerb.

The min width required is about 3ft I think, would have to read the manual again on that but Im not far out.

Could you post a pic of the proposed crossing point?

KeRbDoG wrote: »

Might you know the whats the max depth the guide/perimeter wires can be? Guessing under a solid surface it might need to be closer to the surface

On grass, the max depth is 20cm.
Depending on your surface it will need to be less than that.