Power usage...

[jzawacki]

So, I purchased a kill-a-watt meter to see how much power some of my servers were using with the idea that I may be able to take them off grid (yeah, right.. that's not going to happen, they suck way to much power).  Since I have it, I decided to see how much power the bott is using.. here is what I found:

Bott mowing (powering the transmitter): 17w
Bott charging: 89w
Bott idle in charger (charged, waiting to go out): 22w

So, in theory, if the transmitter is using 17w, the last line (idle in charger) could be reduced to only 5w if the transmitter was designed to be turned off when the bott was in the charger.  Just thought this might be interesting info for people.

EDIT: Corrected charging wattage.

[RobotLady]

A new Lawnbott charger has been designed that turns off when the robot mower is in the charger, but it is not available yet.  It also has two additional frequencies, but the receiver card has to be changed in the robot to use them. 

>> Off-topic comments - Robot Mowers and Invisible Dog Fence Compatibilty
 
The "off" feature could help with an invisible fence (i.e. you could let your dog out when the robot is charging); however it may not be a total solution.  If the dog fence wire is close to the robot wire, the robot wire can pick up the fence signal and then keep the dog out of the yard (oops - not desirable...).  3-20feet away could work, but it is unknown since only a little testing was done with one invisible fence brand (i.e. invisible fence brand 700 series). 

Call for info if you are interested in making an invisible fence work with a Lawnbott (847) 960-8520   PS, I have no info about Robomower but I assume it does not work.  Belrobotics was not designed to work with invisible fence (therefore it probably doesn't).

Robotlady