Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Solar powered lawn mower

Renew Magazine: Issue 105 October 2008, features an article by Shaun Williams on how he converted his lawn mower to solar power: "How I converted my carbon pumping grass-gasser into a thermo-nuclear turn trimmer". He approached this task in much the same way he converted his car to electric power. He removed the petrol motor from an old lawn mower, replaced it with an electric motor, added a battery in a metal toolbox and bolted a solar panel to the handle. The mower can be simply pointed towards the sun to recharge. Obviously this is not the most efficient use of a solar panel, it would be more efficient to put it on the roof so it could power more than a mower. But it is an interesting demonstration of how straightforward the engineering of the technology can be.

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