I have this tricky area that is a small strip next to my road. There is a belgian block curb to the left side, the right side is a steep hillside with creeping juniper. The strip is roughly 2-2.5 yarbo widths wide. It does ok with it set as parallel pattern but it makes a lot of weird turns. This is actually a perfect example of where a one way deadend would work great or I think something like a contour parallel pattern, so i could select the curb side and just have it mow 3 stripes based on that contour.
Anyone have any suggestions for how to best handle this?
In testing different things I had issues with it driving off the curb. Also setting it to spiral it would only go clockwise even though I mapped it counter clockwise.
I was thinking of trying to make a “pad” area where the path comes in and then dead end the right side, then make a path to the next area along the curb and have it mow the path, I assume it would mow it on the way back too. But I don’t want to do all that if there is a better way. Im trying to get it so I only mow the curb side once, I hate taking my chances with a slip. I forgot to mention there is a slight slope to the strip to the curbside.
I do not have the trimmer, I want to get it eventually though. The next area in my image to the left actually has a retaining wall on the right which would be perfect for the trimmer.
My latest idea is to do a dead end down the middle when i go to that area, then make stubby dead end on the right side and a pathway to my next area. Then when the next area is done, do a stubby dead end and pathway back along the curb edge.
Do you think that will work?
I have had issues with stubby dead ends not coaxing the yarbo to take the nearest pathway.
Dead ends are generally what would be recommended but you have to be careful with the start points for them. The entrances will get worn down a bit and if they are close together it could actually end up backing down one instead of going forward if the rear of the core is close to the start of the dead end when it starts.
I have 2 long narrow areas, I use adaptive, it seems to cut the areas the fastest, but it does leave a few uncut small pieces that are always in the same spots.
It may not be the most crazy layout, but a lot of it not straight or large open areas. Much of it is under trees. In fact, there are a lot of areas I would like to add to this, but I can’t even begin to get signal in. But at least the operations complete… And this is almost 3 acres of area covered.
So originally I was running it as spiral but then I remapped it to make a bigger turn area at the ends that is just off the lawn on one side and now it will not mow the same direction I mapped it not matter what I set the clockwise/counter clockwise setting to. When it runs it opposite how it was mapped the mower has trouble with the curb side and slipped/drove off a few times. This does not trigger any kind of error condition, it just keeps trying to drive and that was bad.
I do want it to look good like when I mowed it manually because this is the entrance to our street and right before our driveway. I am going to try my idea of the deadend up the middle then stubby DE to pathway on the high side and stubby DE to pathway on the curbside on the way back. Hopefully that works.
I did some testing with stubbies for another hillside that needs to be mowed with no turning on the hill and that didn’t go well. It would take the same pathway for stubbies that should lead to discrete pathways.
We really need some other pattern options for these situations.
Also, does anyone else wish we could set the rotation to values in between 10,20,30 etc.?
Yes and Yes. It has been previously suggested that they bring the snow blower slope mode implementation to the mower. Basically map an area, set the direction of the “slope” (even if one doesn’t exist) and then have it do automatic dead ends across the mapped area. No perimeter laps, just up and down, move over, rinse and repeat.
