My autonomous lawn mower thread/blog

Atkins Cork are also selling the 435 X AWD https://www.atkins.ie/husqvarna-automower-550-8868.html rated for a maximum incline 70% / 35°

Helpful & friendly staff, recommended.

muckyba wrote:

A friend is experiencing alot of issues with water ingress to the psu of his 450x, he has just purchased his 3rd power unit in 18 months. Has tried protecting it in drybox

A better drybox that stays dry ðŸ˜
Or move it indoors and cable out

Satellite robotic lawn mowing by Husqvarna – This is how it works

See how easily you create and change virtual boundaries for work areas and stay-out zones with Husqvarna EPOS Technology – a satellite-based solution for professional robotic mowing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMTf4ecOvKE

Yea, it looks like the professional range alright. Hopefully it wont take long to come down to the commercial models. I know a few people who cannot lay down a boundary cable and/or have large distances between garden plots that this could suit better.

morgana wrote: »

I am wondering about winter storage. The manual just details what to do but not when and what in particular the charging station can withstand.

Once the grass stops growing, bring it in. It will be better for the battery to have it at room temp and reduce the risk of it being robbed. Nothing to gain by leaving it out in bad weather.

Fair enough. In she will come

I only have it up and running for about 3 weeks, no issues except for little tweaks. Rain sensor works, it goes out and does its job. Cut area is about 200 sqm, I am planning to enlarge it a bit next year. The grass now looks better than ever and I only have it on the highest setting (6 cm) to give the wire a chance to bed in before cutting it shorter.

It takes a fair bit of rain to send it back. It will then wait for 2 hours before it goes out again (and if its still raining it stays in (or in my case, it goes out and comes back as it sits in its own house) providing it is still in an active mowing window (preset mowing time).

quick question ? - when do people put them away for the winter ? - Im debating cleaning mine and putting it away now (doesnt seem to be much growth - and the lawn is getting a bit muddy)

bobbyss wrote: »

How do you clean blades in petrol mower? Too heavy to lift up.

Easy,

You sell your petrol mower, and buy a robot mower.

whippet wrote: »

I've my automower now for three seasons but this summer it has just stopped a couple of times with the 'low battery' warning and I had to pop it back in to the base station - it happened about 3 or 4 times and I can't think of why .. the guide and loops signals are fine and it wasn't stuck anywhere !

If it cant find its way back to the docking station in a timely manner that will happen.

So a few possibilities....

- battery isnt in good condition and is on the way out. Its a bit like a phone where it could be at 10% and then all of a sudden its 0% and it shuts down.... that could be happening to the mower and its then not getting back to the docking station in time.... you'd have to get the battery tested at a dealer.

- another possibility is that the find charging station settings are wrong. They are in the menus where you get to decide how many minutes it spends looking for the charging station.

It has 3 ways that it uses to find the docking station and it cycles through those.
1) Random pattern for X mins
2) If random doesnt work it looks for a guide wire for Y mins
3) If it cant find a guide wire it follows the boundary wire which can take a long time in a large lawn so could easily shutdown in that case.

What settings do you have for those items in the menu and where did it shutdown.... is it randomly in the middle of the lawn or is it at a boundary each time or is it on the guide wire. That might give some clues as to whats up.


Also, is it still under warranty. If it is I'd be getting the battery checked before the warranty expires. The battery is €150+ I think.

NurseBridie wrote: »

I had this problem, changed battery and everything fine for a few months, then recently it stopped and the motherboard is gone in the mower, also there was a lot of damp in mower as if somebody washed it which did not happen. Currently with dealer who can't understand why the water has got into it.

My guess on that is that the dealer didnt seal it up properly when they changed the battery... i'd say he knows it but is slow to put his hand up!

I would do it for the first year to get the latest software and let them run diagnostics on it.
After that, not so much, as long as its not having issues doing the job.

Hi All,

I purchased a Husqvarna 315X automower at the start of this cutting season (March/April I think) and had it installed by the dealer.

It's a fairly average sized lawn around a bungalow house.
The largest section is at the front, there's another section at the back and a narrow section at the side.
They're all interconnected.

I've been going back and forth with the dealer since about a month after it was installed because it wasn't cutting all the sections.
They have been back to my garden about 4 times trying different setups including moving the charging station to a different location.

Once they moved the charging station it went from only cutting the narrow section once maybe every 15 cuts to only cutting the main lawn once every 10-15 cuts.

I've also been on the phone to them countless times trying different settings.

They tried changing the motherboard on the lawnmower.
This did nothing.

Then they changed the mower for another 315X.
Again, this made no difference.

Following their instructions over the past 4 months, the mower has been on 24 hours a day, 7 days a week as they always recommend leaving the mower cut away for 2-3 weeks and see how it goes.

I have been extremely patient.

About 3 weeks ago they told me they were talking to one of the main Husqvarna guys in Dublin about the issues.
I have had an extension cable bring power to the shed in the garden for the mower.
This had been running along the ground where the mower drove over.
He told them that this could be causing a conflict with the Automower and to raise the cable off the ground or when I would be bringing permanent power to the shed to keep the cable buried 2 feet under ground.
They also told me that if this wouldn't work then the only other option would be to upgrade to a 430X as it has 2 guide wires, whereas the 315X only has 1.
I've been holding off on bringing permanent power to the shed until after the mower issue had been resolved.

I raised the cable 2.4m off the ground and again this made no difference.

They have told me that the difference in cost between the 315X and the 430X is €600.
Even though I feel that I should not have to pay extra for something that should work, I told them that I would meet them half way.
They have now come back to me saying that they'll give me the 430X for €500, a 420 with the Automower Connect module added for €100 or give me my money back and take back the 315X.

I don't want to go with the older 420 model.
I don't know if I can stretch to €500 for the 430X and also feel that I should not have to as the first time I was ever told that the 315X might not be suitable for my garden and that a 430X might be needed was about 3 weeks ago.

I have gone 6-7 months of having a Husqvarna mower installed without it working properly and have been extremely patient and reasonable.
I have also refrained from posting here about my experience as I wanted to give the dealer a fair crack at sorting out the issue as they probably keep an eye on this site.
It still seems to me that it is an installation issue.

Sorry for the long post.
Just looking for some advice.

If it was me I'd be getting a cat scanner and I'd scan the ground the mower isn't passing over to see if there is a buried cable causing the interference.

Thanks for the responses. I do want to stick with an Automower because the areas it has been cutting regularly look great. It’s just that depending on where the charging station was located it wasn’t getting to some areas as frequently as required and seemed to just go over the same areas again and again.

How would buried services cause an issue and would it be more likely that the mower wouldn’t get to areas beyond this interference at all rather than just go there once in a while.
If I did find some cables what should I do?

I will need to bring permanent power to my shed and was going to use an SWA cable. Could this cause issues even if the cable is carried in a duct.
I have put a duct in about 10” below ground and it is running beside one of the boundary wires.
No cable ran yet but I’d rather not have to dig this duct up and start again.

As for the width of the passages, they’re about 900mm to 1000mm

It is passing over all areas but it seems like the GPS doesn't work properly. There's always a section that the mower just doesn't spend the required time cutting. And that's with it on 24/7

When it was originally installed (see the red square in the image) it would cut sections 1, 2 and 3 no problems but had issues cutting section 4 to the extent that I had to cut it all with a strimmer as it had become unmanageable.
Even if I picked the mower up and brought it to this section it would just drive around without cutting and then go back to the charging station.

Then when the installers moved the station to a new location (see the blue square in the image) it would cut sections 2, 3 and 4 no problem but very rarely go to section 1. Pretty much the reverse of the first charging station set up.

the section highlighted in yellow on the attached image is tarmac. I had dropped kerbs at this area to allow the mower to pass between section 2 and 3.
I had an extension lead running along the ground from the house to the shed (between the original and second charging station locations....hard to see on the attached image).
I have since raised this from the roof of the house to the roof of the shed and it has made no difference.

There is a fence at either side of the house (shown in light blue on the image). I have "cat flaps" made in the fence to allow the mower to run through. I manually put these down when the kids are out and the mower was scheduled to be off (as the mower has been out 24/7 for the last few months they haven't been put down).
This was all agreed with the installer/dealer before they installed.

KCross wrote: »

So, the docking station is currently at the blue square location?

Where is the guide wire? Looking at that pic it would have to be going through section 2, under your cat flap and then on out to the far reaches of section 1.... is that where it is? If its not I cant see how the mower would navigate properly otherwise.

yes it's currently at the blue square.
Originally the charging station was at the red square and the guide wire was just going to the middle of the lawn in section 1.

They then changed the location to the blue square and changed the guide wire so that it was going to section 4 (about 2/3 of the way to the main road) looping back up through section 3, crossing the tarmac, into section 2 and continuing along to the middle of section 1

KCross wrote: »

That sounds odd.

So, the guide wire goes out through the cat flap into section 4 and then loops back on itself under the cat flap again at the same location?

I dont think that will work. The guide wire is not supposed to loop back on itself as the signal across the two strands will interfere with each other AFAIK.

The guide wire also has to be 30cm or so from the boundary wire.... how wide is the cat flap and how far apart are the loops of the guide wire under it?

And that long loop of guide wire might be too long for the mower as well. There is a max distance that the guide wire can do from the point it leaves the docking station out to where it connects to the boundary and then back to the docking station (walking anti-clockwise).... you should walk that route and see how far it is.... I think it needs to be less than 400m or something like that.


There is a "Test Guide wire" option in the menu that tests the "Following in" and "Following out". Have you run those to see that the mower is able to follow the guide wire in and out to the full length of the guide wire?

Sorry, should have made it a bit clearer on the cat flaps....there's actually 2 cat flaps in the fence between section 3 and 4.
The guide wire goes to section 4 through one and back to section 3 through another, then continues on to section 2 and 1.

The cat flaps are about 900mm-1000mm.
there's a good 1500mm between the 2 cat flaps at section 3/4.
If the guide wire is going through the middle of the cat flaps (i would imagine they are) then there should be at least 600-700mm between the guide wire and the boundary wire.

I went through the settings with the dealer over the phone and set up 3 different distances to go to along the guide wire to try to get the mower going to section 1 more often (from the blue square).
I think from memory it was about 130m following the guide wire down to section 4, back through 3, 2 and then 1.
We set the mower to spend 75% of it's time in section 1, 10% in section 2, 10% in section 4 and the remainder around the charging station at section 3.
Left it like this for about 3 weeks, going 24/7 and it spent 85% of it's time in section 4, 10% between sections 3 and 2 and the rest in section 1.

The lawn in section 1 looked like I let my 2 year old cut my hair with an electric trimmer. A few patches scalped here and there and then lost interest after a couple of minutes!!

KCross wrote: »

ok, that's better!



That means they are not using GPS anymore. They are using a % based system which disables the GPS AFAIK. Thats less than ideal. Why did they do that?




That to me sounds like the guide wire is not working. If you told it to spend 75% of its time in section 1 you should see it travelling the full length of the guide wire 7/10 times that it leaves the docking station. Clearly it's not doing that if you then say section 1 is not getting cut.

Did you try the "Following Out" test? I'd do that several time and see what happens. It should go the full length of the guide wire consistently to the point where it meets the boundary wire in section 1. If it balks at any stage then thats your problem spot.

They told me that following a set distance on the guide wire would be turning off the GPS.
They tried this to see if it would get to the areas it was supposed to but this didn't work either.
After this failed, they replaced the mother board on the mower.
Then they cycle started again with try this for 2 weeks, try that for 2 weeks, try the next thing for 2 weeks.
After this didn't sort anything they changed it for a new mower and we went through the "try this" dance again for 6-8 weeks.

During this time where they changed the motherboard and then a new mower, I'm pretty sure they didn't alter any wiring.
I don't know much about the mower set up but to me it sounds like an installation issue.
That seems to be what Husqvarna are telling the dealer/installer too as the dealer told me that they wouldn't offer any discount on changing to a 430X.

Tails142 wrote: »

Electric cables buried underground could be causing electromagnetic inference that the mower is interpreting as the guide wire. It's unlikely but possible. If there was less current going down the wire at some time, the interference could be less and this is when the mower passes over it intermittently. I don't think anyone is saying for definite this is your problem but it's worth investigating as you've ruled out a lot of other problems.

Getting the next mower up on a trial basis and seeing if this has the same issue seems like a good idea

I'll see if I can get a cable detector.
Is there a way of shielding cables to stop any possible interference?
Also, if I install an SWA cable to my shed for permanent power, could this cause interference and again, is there any way I could prevent this?

KCross wrote: »

Start with the “Following out” test in the menus. Go from there.

Thanks, I'll check that and see how it goes.

With the very little knowledge you have of my situation, what would be your gut feeling.
I would imagine that the few times they've been out to try and get it working that they've gone through all the steps including the "following out" but can't seem to find the problem.

Do you think the 430X would solve the issue or should the 315X be able to do the job?

They seem to want to wash their hands of it now and give me my money back unless I fork out €500 for a step up to the 430X

KCross wrote: »

It sounds like the guide wire is not setup right to me.

I wouldn’t assume they tested following out at all. They might be new to it.

430x will be better as it has 2 guide wires but it’s overkill. I wouldn’t pay more until they prove it working.

Thanks.
I don't think my garden is overly complicated and like I said in an earlier post, they never said anything to me about the 315X not being suitable.
The first I heard about the 315X only having 1 guide wire and the 430X having 2 was about 3 weeks ago when they suggested this might be the next step.

When going through the "Follow Out" sequence, does it just basically send it out to the end of the guide wire and back again?