earlier this year Husqvarna launched a campaign looking for 100 bloggers to test out their Automower robotic lawnmower range.
Now who doesn’t want their own little R2D2 running round their garden, so of course I applied and in the end was lucky enough to be shortlisted to receive one of the bots.
Husqvarna have kindly used the recipients the chance to keep their machines at the end of the trial, in return for committing to producing a series of video reviews over the summer. As you’d expect though they are trying to find our sincere feedback and have asked us to share our experience “openly and frankly”.
Our local dealer arrived a few days ago with the maker in this big box that was surprisingly light. This battery powered maker is not your fathers lawn mower.
Our local Husqvarna dealer Reggie arrives to install our new Automower
After unpacking the bot the first task was to hook it up to the mains and get it charging. We sited the base deck and connected it to the outside mains socket that we had installed back when we were building the Automated Home.
Next our dealer set about laying the boundary wire around our garden. This carries a signal that the Automower detects and stays within.
Laying the guide wire can be done manually, pegging it to the ground as you go. but I’d highly recommend you get your dealer to do this with one of their cord laying machines. This service costs around £300, is much faster, tidier and (as the cords are buried under ground), safer too as there’s no way for the mower to inadvertently cut the wire.
Although this takes several hours to do it’s a one time only job (thanks to Moore Horticulture equipment for all their hard work, knowledge and recommendations with our setup).
Reggie used around 450 metres of boundary cord plus about 200 metres for the guide wire that takes a central path across the lawn. The bot uses the guide wire to navigate back to the charger swiftly and it can also return following the boundary wire (the long way) or via a radio signal from the charger.
The boundary wire has to come across the lawn to go around obstacles to keep the mower away from them too, before returning to the perimeter. Cleverly in areas where the cord runs out and back side-by-side the signal gets cancelled out the and mower can safely cross (represented by the green line above).
The boundary wires and guide wires are joined with a crimp terminal block. Presumably the system is able to send some sort of digital signal along the cords that allow the Automower to distinguish the boundary wire from the guide wire.
Finally the cords are terminated back at the charging deck. once Reggie connected everything up we got the green light to tell us all was working correctly.
So here’s the first of around ten or so short videos you are going to see across this mowing season on the Husqvarna 430X Automower, starting with its arrival and setup at the Automated home a few days ago…
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Preview
Product
Rating
Price
1
ISE® Replacement 50m boundary wire for Husqvarna Automower 450X / 450XH
2 Reviews
£21.00
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2
Husqvarna Automower Messerscheibe Trennschreibe 420 430x 440 450 x 520 550
36 Reviews
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3Husqvarna Flymo Automower Robotic Replacement heavy task Blades 9 pack
6 Reviews
£25.00
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4
Husqvarna Automower Skids, Gleitteller for lawn Mower 420 430x 440 450x
34 Reviews
£32.00
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5
Automower G2 Battery,POWERAXIS 18V 3000mAh NIMH Battery replace for Husqvarna Automower G2 SH Solar…
72 Reviews
£41.99
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www.automowerchallenge.co.uk : available from Amazon
Make sure to check out all 8 parts in this video review series…
Part 1 – The Robots are Coming
Part 2 – The 1st cut is the Deepest
Part 3 – best Timing
Part 4 – connect Control
Part 5 – rain or Shine
Part 6 – Stolen?
Part 7 – I Messed Up
Part 8 – A Tesla for your Garden
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Last update on 2021-10-04 / affiliate links / images from Amazon product advertising API