{"id":457,"date":"2009-11-15T12:07:20","date_gmt":"2009-11-15T19:07:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mikesenese.com\/DOIT\/?p=457"},"modified":"2026-03-08T21:04:36","modified_gmt":"2026-03-09T04:04:36","slug":"arduino-rc-controlled-lawnmower-project","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mikesenese.com\/DOIT\/2009\/11\/arduino-rc-controlled-lawnmower-project\/","title":{"rendered":"Arduino RC Controlled Lawnmower Project"},"content":{"rendered":"

Using the guts from a push-mower, two wheelchair motors and a custom carriage, and some hand-built electronics, Instructables user Johndavid400 has created a radio-controlled lawnmower dubbed the Lawnbot4000. His detailed writeup is available here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"lawnbot4000\"
\n<\/a>\"lawnbot <\/a>\"lawnbot<\/a> \"lawnbot<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n
Background:<\/span><\/p>\n

Most R\/C equipment comes packaged for a single specific use, which makes it easy to use but is very limited in what you can do with it. So using the Arduino<\/a> as an interpreter between the R\/C system and the motor driver, I\u00a0can use any motor controller that I\u00a0want (depending on the size of the motor and power required), reprogramming the Arduino to supply the required signals.<\/span><\/p>\n

What I\u00a0ended up with:<\/span><\/p>\n

After successfully hacking a few R\/C cars from the thrift store, I\u00a0got bored driving them around the driveway and I was having a hard time convincing my wife that there was any usefulness in the revived toy car. So I decided it was time to make my biggest chore at home, a whole lot easier and actually put my Arduino to work, and thats how I\u00a0ended up building an R\/C lawnmower.<\/span><\/p>\n

While designing the lawnmower, I\u00a0thought it would be cool to learn about the electronics that made it move, so I designed and built my own motor speed controller (or H-bridge) to power the lawnmower. I looked around at every H-bridge design I\u00a0could find before deciding to go with a Mosfet h-bridge that uses both N-channel and P-channel Mosfets.<\/span><\/p>\n

I built several different motor driver boards for this project, the first two were on Radio-Shack perf-board and the next 4 were designed using EagleCad and etched to a piece of copper-clad PCB, using the toner-transfer method.\u00a0The most recent board is the one I\u00a0use to mow the lawn as it has the ability to stay cool even while operating for long periods of time\u00a0(30-40 mins straight) at 10-20amps and 24vdc. FWIW, I had to burn up a lot of Mosfets to find this out. If you want to see any of my other motor controllers, go to www.rediculouslygoodlooking.com and check out the Mosfet shield.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Here is what I\u00a0bought already assembled:<\/span>
\n– FM R\/C transmitter and receiver pair from ebay = $40
\n– Arduino = $30
\n– I\u00a0already had a used push-mower = $60<\/p>\n

Here is what I\u00a0bought and assembled into the Lawnbot400 (as I call it):<\/span>
\n– (2) electric-wheelchair motors from ebay = $40 ea
\n– (2) 12v marine deep cycle batteries – Walmart – $60 ea new (used batteries might work)
\n– 36″ pieces of 2″ angle-iron (2) and 1″ square-tubing (2) from Home Depot = $8 ea
\n– 36″ pieces of 1″ angle-iron (2) and 1″ flat steel bar (2) from Home Depot = $5 ea
\n– (a lot) of nuts, bolts, washers, lock washers 3\/8″ or 1\/2″ with drill bit = $20
\n– (2) caster wheels from Harbor Freight Tools = $14 ea
\n– (2) drive wheels from Harbor Freight Tools = $8 ea
\n– (36″) 5\/8″ threaded rod with several 5\/8″ nuts and washers from Home Depot = $8
\n– (2) sprockets from Allelectronics = $5 ea
\n– #25 roller chain and a few universal links from Allelectronics = $10 for 3′
\n– sprockets from Electronics Goldmine = $1.50 ea
\n– (24) mosfets from Digikey = $1 ea
\n– (there were quite a few small parts for building the H-bridge, they are listed later on)<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

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Using the guts from a push-mower, two wheelchair motors and a custom carriage, and some hand-built electronics, Instructables user Johndavid400 has created a radio-controlled lawnmower dubbed the Lawnbot4000. His detailed writeup is available here. Background: Most R\/C equipment comes packaged for a single specific…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-457","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-diy","category-gadget"],"yoast_head":"\nArduino RC Controlled Lawnmower Project — DO IT: Projects, Plans, and How-tos<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Build a remote-controlled lawnmower using wheelchair motors and custom electronics. 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