After reading a ton about remote control lawnmowers, I decided to build my own all purpose remote control vehicle for general yard use and lawnmowing etc. I started with a track set from an old snowblower. I reconfigured the track mounts as I wanted everything to be made out of stainless steel. I then built the pan within the tracksets so that everything would sit low enough to give it a good center of gravity while still having enough clearance to get over rocks etc.

I purchased the wheelchair motors from ebay and also bought a sabretooth motor driver to connect to the remote control receiver.

My first attempt used only a single wheelchair battery which didn't have enough speed for me so I added a second which greatly improves both torque and speed.

My plan next is to start adding accessories to it. I am planning of attaching a standard lawnmower to the front of it with a swivel wheelset. Next on the list is a small yard wagon to assist in gardening and then finally a snow plow or snowblower. The idea of the design is that I can add whatever attachment I want later on.

Step 1: Some More Details

I have been getting a bunch of feedback so I figured I would go into a slight bit more detail.

The tracks are made from an original Sears Tracdrive snowblower. I bought the original sets from kijiji and modified the mounts and made them out of stainless. Once I had the trac drive system figured out I next purchased some motors off kijiji. The motors are direct drive to the tracksets. The only chains are within the tracksets to link main shaft to the drive gear.

Step 2: Motor Types.

Pride Jazzy Z11 Left & Right Motors & Gearboxes. These were the type of motors I purchased. Just type them in Google and you should find them. They were good in that they were a good size.

Step 3:

I then looked into motor controllers which would work with the design. I choose a Sabertooth dual 25A motor driver. This is a self contained unit that already is programmed to do a multitude of things. After looking at the costs of building my own amplifier and writing code for it, I decided this was a proven design that worked well.

https://www.dimensionengineering.com/products/sabertooth2x25

Step 4: Chassis

Next was the chassis design out of stainless. I did it on Autocad. I purchased two wheelchair batteries to give me the torque and speed I needed. The above designs show the sketchup and autocad designs. The final top cover I haven't made yet, but the plan is shown in the attached pics. this is the reason for the change in chassis elevation.

The amplifier and controller are mounted over the motors on a small platform.

Thanks.

Be the First to Share

Recommendations

Rubik's Cube Solver by aaedmusa in Gadgets

22 2.9K

Rock Paper Scissors Using Tinkercad Circuits and Arduino by CrazyScience in Arduino

1 71 8.8K

Basics of Arduino (TINKERCAD) by Mukesh_Sankhla in Grades 6-8

211 13K

Laser-Cut Infinity Dodecahedron (Fusion 360) by thomasj152 in LEDs

145 12K

Game Design: Student Design Challenge
Big and Small Contest
For the Home Contest

28 Comments

cpclass1

Question 4 months ago on Step 4

Great Project!!!... How did you connect wheelchair motor to the track drive assembly? thanks!!!

UnKommonWealth

6 years ago

Can you help me? I have an idea in mind, but its a little ridiculous. But, if it works it could change the world. If you wanna help me build it please let me know :)