Run Time

[shep874]

My Billie is in Billie Goat reform school at KA.  At one time I was told to program for 24 hour run time, as I have a large lawn.  In a conversation today with John Tarvin, he thinks I am over running him.  Has any one seen or know how much mowing time is needed per sq ft for a well maintained lawn.  My back yard is about the size of a football field,  the front yard is small with a lot of mulch beds to mow around and two ditches about 100 feet by 25 feet. A 27 % rise about 6feet wide is in both ditches for the full 100 feet..the other side of the ditch is about a 7 % rise.  Any one got any info or suggestions....

[AGR]

I traded in Gomer (a 3210) for Froggie (3510) for my 1.1 acre lawn. It made all the difference. I am very happy with it now. I used to want to run the 3210 27hrs per day, but it was too loud for the kids and sometimes woke them up. Now the 3510 runs from post-dew (10am) to bed time (9pm) and that's all it needs.

[toolbelt]

One thing you may try if you haven't already is to cut your football field up into sections.  The bot will do a spiral when it hits high grass then run until it hits the perimeter wire.  If it does that on the 10yard line it may go 90 yards before it hits the wire.  If the 'wire' was at the 33 yard line it could do more spirals in the same amount of time. The more spirals the faster the lawn is cut.  So, area one is 1 yard line to the 33 yard line, area two from 33-66, area three 66-100.  You do the dividing with the 'boot setup'.  Now all of this assumes you won't go over the wire length limit. (I know about the assume...LOL) Area four would be the front and ditch (you do have a 3500, right).  Too bad we can't have more areas.  Of course you could set everything up with a couple of throw switches that switches everything from one wire setup to another one.  Then all you would have to do is throw the switches for what ever area you wanted to mow.

If the above doesn't make sense I can draw it up for you.

[shep874]

Toolbelt, I would like to see what you have in mind for switches...  Question I think you are indicating that once it hits tall grass it will spiral until it hits the primate wire. Mine will only spiral for up to about a 10 or 12 ft diameter.  If it would do as you say would be great and more efficient.   Do you have any suggestions as to how many hours you think I need to set Billie to mow?   When he would mow for 4.5 hours at a time I had to run him for at least 3 cycles in a 24 hour period to get a good maintained lawn.

[toolbelt]

  Question I think you are indicating that once it hits tall grass it will spiral until it hits the primate wire.

No, what I am suggesting is that you cause the spirals to occur sooner.  Billie is wasting a lot of time running to the wire (which could be 90 yards away) after doing a spiral.  After hitting the wire he can then do another spiral so I'm suggesting you break the big lawn up into smaller lawns.  That could require more than 4 areas in your case.  By using separate wire runs for each area and a switch(s) at the charger to control which one is active you could cut the mowing time down.  You could mow one area each day of the week.
You could use knife switches or a multiple contact switch.  You would need two, one for the inbound wires and one for the outbound wires.  Then all you do is select which area wires and set the switches.  From each switch you would run a single wire to the connector in the charger.  If you set the witches at the front of the charger they would be out of the way. 
Like this:

[toolbelt]

In the above drawing I show 4 areas but you could have as many as you want.  The only limit would be the number of switch positions on the switch you can get. They make Multi-ganged switches so both the in and out bound wires can be controlled by one switch.

[jzawacki]

Along with that, you can always daisy chain them.. so there really is not limit.. as long as everything is labeled well, it shouldn't be hard to keep track of which switch needs to be turned to which location.

The only drawback is that the bot is supposed to "keep track" of the different areas.  With us switching it's area without it knowing, it loses the ability to adjust it's schedule.. because every time it goes out, it's going get a lot of resistance and think your grass is growing like crazy.

[toolbelt]

The only drawback is that the bot is supposed to "keep track" of the different areas.  With us switching it's area without it knowing, it loses the ability to adjust it's schedule.. because every time it goes out, it's going get a lot of resistance and think your grass is growing like crazy.

Don't turn that feature on.  Just use the feature whereby you set the time it goes out and the amount of time the bot spends mowing.  Make sure all of the areas are the same in size. When the time is up it returns.  It will also return should the battery run low.