I’m soliciting information from experienced users on how best to map my 2.9 acres for mowing.
Specifically looking for “lessons learned” type of info.
When should I choose to create smaller areas versus larger areas?
Please pass along your experiences and suggestions.
If there is a doc or other thread on this topic please point me in that direction.
Here is a property for discussion.
Thanks for sharing your knowledge.
I would break that up into at least 3 different areas. Front left, front right, back yard. Maybe the strips along the gravel driveway a separate area if you want that mowed too. Drop no go zones around the trees and any other obstacles. You don’t have a lot so I wouldn’t mess with vision unless you have a lot of random stuff show up in the yard. Just use Gentle contact mode (bumper only) for the best performance. Obviously you will have to figure out the fence/gate issue or map a pathway around it into the back or front depending on where you place your dock. You may want to ensure the rover is supervised if it’s going to go on the driveway(s) and there may be random vehicles. In gentle contact, it won’t trigger the bumper on the rover before driving under a vehicle. With vision, it probably won’t see the car or any low hanging objects either. It’s focused on the ground looking for sticks, rocks, etc. Yard seems flat and open so I think you will have a great experience overall.
Thank you sir for your advice.
The gates will be a concern, but at this point I can just leave them open as there are no animals contained within.
What Bryan said.
Maybe cut that large fenced-in section into two parts - one area that is immediately around the house with the green grass, and one area for the rest.
Then you can cut that green area with a slower, quality cut, since it’s around the house, and cut the rest of that field with a fast higher cut. You’d also be able to mow them at different intervals.
Remember that driveways and parked cars are the bane of all mower-bots, lol.
Only other “learned info” is to protect the antennae from anything that’d rip them off, usually under / near brush or on perimeters. Or near cars and trailers.
Cheers!
Thank you Steve for your insights.
My take:
“As I was puttering around on my riding mower for the last decade, how did I think of the sections of my lawn and mow them as separate Areas?”
It was a piece of cake mirroring that with Yarbo. That gave me the Big Chunks I turned into Areas.
Additional thoughts:
So it’s mostly what I’ve done for 10 years, but also looking at how I can Work Smarter, Not Harder(
) by taking advantage of Yarbo’s push mower persona.
Thank you Ken for your “methodology of how did I mow it on the rider”.
This is new to me property (closing today) and new to me Yarbo. It’s delivered and still boxed up in a friends garage.
I’ve mowed my share of lawns but I hadn’t really put that kind of thought into this property. I was “deep in the weeds” of how is it best to mow with Yarbo.
I would image there are possibly some optimizations around the Yarbo though. Things like mow/recharge times. Is it more efficient to drain the battery to 5% for a larger area or do smaller areas with shorter recharge times?
Great insights. Thank you for the reply.
CONGRATS on your new property, @ken.w.gregory! Suh-weet!
So you’re starting tabla rasa. Wow, yeah, OK, hmmm…
Ya know, and speaking just for me, I wouldn’t worry about recharging. I’d be more concerned about how you want the lawn to look to the neighborhood as the neighbors drive by, and I’d give those sections of the lawn priority.
After spending the winter with the snowblower, heh, recharge is all that thing does! LOL! Thankfully the mower lasts way…way…way longer. If I were concerned about recharging, I think I’d just do a priority scheme, skewing toward larger, more visible Areas first, then the smaller, less visible Areas. The rover will go back, charge up, and then continue work, so it’ll all get done. I have a right and left lawn at the road, and those are my priorities. Everything else comes after. I typically “schedule” it for now by walking around and seeing what “needs mowed,” and I create a Work Plan for it and do it. Eventually I’ll get it to a couple of Work Plans and into the Scheduler and do everything once or twice a week or so.
In the end I will likely do the frontage in a Work Plan, then a left lower priority and a right lower priority, then a bottom basement priority (a second driveway and an old paddock built on fill have that designation), finally an “only when I feel like it really needs it because it’s mostly moss anyway” priority.
Just one strategy anyway.
Honestly, I’d do multiple smaller areas, and then use workplans to bunch them together so that you can mix and match dependent on the growth and/or significant other’s desires. Ignore what the neighbors say… 
At 3 acres, you’ve got lots of options on that. You can’t schedule the recharge to go lower than 15%, and as with all lithium batteries, you want to play in the middle of the bathtub… stay away from <10%, and while cutting, you don’t need more than 80%.
Place your charging deck well. Ideally central, but realize that the yarbo is going to follow the EXACT same path each time. You will have track marks, and near the charging station that will magnify as it’s included in every cut. Pavers or concrete. I’ve got a hilariously wobbly pathway that leads through the middle of the yard. More efficient, but most ugly.
I’m dealing with a much larger property, but have really liked having the ability to tell the mower: “go do THIS THIS and THAT”. I do that more than 3 times, it becomes a permanent named workplan. Otherwise, I’ve got lots of workplan 8, workplan 15, etc where I’m mixing and matching based on my mood or if someone is going to be onsite.
Thanks for the suggestions.
I’m planning a paver area for the charging station. I’ve seen many videos of the “takeoff and landing area” with no grass due to the turns and backing at the charging station.
And as far as significant others desires…
Happy wife happy life.
