HangMower for alpine meadows?

o_lampe

Hi gents,
just want to pass another crazy idea I got when watching Swizz people mowing a meadow with a scythe.
There are many steep hills in the Alps, where machines can't mow.
Would it be possible to construct a hangmower to mow these uneven and steep meadows?

Phaedrux

Kind of like those vertical chain CNC routers that hang on a wall?

dc42

@o_lampe said in HangMower for alpine meadows?:

Would it be possible to construct a hangmower to mow these uneven and steep meadows?

I guess so, but you would need a very tall tower or tree at each corner of the meadow.

o_lampe

@dc42
we had a different thing in mind, when we talked about hangprinter.
I thought of a vertical surface where the effector (mower) is guided by two ropes building a triangle (from gravity) as I've seen on huge 2D wall plotters/painters.
In this special case the wall wouldn't be vertical, but a steep hill...

dc42

@o_lampe I see what you mean, it's essentially a 2D version of Hangprinter. I think you would still need to pass each rope through a pulley on a short tower or some other type of support at the top of the slope, to keep the ropes clear of the ground so that it doesn't snag on uneven ground. I guess the mower could be of the hover type, and the ropes could be cables that also supply power to it.

Alternatively, use goats.

CNCModeller

@dc42 does RRF support the Maslow CNC router style kinematics? It's essentially what's been discussed here.

Been thinking about DIY building one of these for quite a while. Future larger workshop means it's a practical proposal.

https://youtu.be/y60q6U7NjTQ

dc42

@cncmodeller said in HangMower for alpine meadows?:

does RRF support the Maslow CNC router style kinematics?

No, but I don't think it would be hard to add. https://github.com/Duet3D/RepRapFirmware/wiki/Adding-New-Kinematics

CNCModeller

@dc42 Thanks for the direction... I'll pick it up once I've moved workshop, I've always fancied looking into custom kinematics and my gut says this is an easy place to begin.

fma

@dc42 said in HangMower for alpine meadows?:

Alternatively, use goats.

Are they Duet3-compatible?

o_lampe

@fma said in HangMower for alpine meadows?:

@dc42 said in HangMower for alpine meadows?:

Alternatively, use goats.

Are they Duet3-compatible?

Well, they sort of work like an pellet extruder
But seriously, these people have to mow the meadows to feed their cows in winter.

dc42

@o_lampe said in HangMower for alpine meadows?:

But seriously, these people have to mow the meadows to feed their cows in winter.

So you need a mower that collects the grass too. I guess you could have a grass hopper on top of the hang mower, and periodically haul it to the top or drop it to the bottom to empty it.

I wonder if it would be possible to have two hang mowers using a single pair of motors, one mower for each half of the meadow, so that they balance each other and thus take less energy to move up and down the meadow.

o_lampe

@dc42
thanks for taking a deeper look into the subject. AFAIK, they let the grass dry and collect it a few days later.

I'm not sure if using another mower as counterweight would work, since (in my imagination) the whole line-stretching principle is based on gravity? But it would be a great idea, if not too expensive?
I'd like to setup a test rig, but I'm not sure if 'hangprinter kinematic' will work out as it's 2D only?

dc42

@o_lampe you would need to write a new kinematics class, however it would be quite a simple one.

o_lampe

@dc42 said in HangMower for alpine meadows?:

@o_lampe you would need to write a new kinematics class, however it would be quite a simple one.

It's the compiling, I'm afraid off and I never had to figure out inverse kinematics before. There also needs to be a correction for the changing spool diameter. (rope winding up in layers)