Lawn mower

A lawn mower is a garden tool for mowing a lawn. Be distinguished:

• Reel mower with exact average but lower surface performance
• Sickle mower with imprecise cut but high area performance

• 6.1 exhaust
• 6.2 noise

History

In the 18th century spread from England coming a new form of garden design, landscape garden with intense pleasure landscaped grounds in the castle environment in all of Europe. In this huge park mowing with a scythe was an immense effort. At the beginning of the 19th century were constantly 50 employees busy mowing the lawn, for example, in the park of Blenheim Palace (England).

In parallel, in England sports like lawn tennis, football, croquet, cricket and rugby, which also require an intensely manicured lawn, always popular.

Around the year 1830 Edwin Beard Budding realized ( 1795-1846 ), a textile engineer from Stroud in Gloucestershire, England, that no improvement was possible to the hand scythes themselves. He saw now but in the local weaving a machine: This resulted in the fabric after weaving on a fixed blade along and separated by a rotating spindle with additional blades protruding fibers from in order to achieve a more uniform appearance. Budding transferred this principle to the lawn cutting, announced on August 31, 1830 the mower for a patent and began with John Ferrabee, to produce the owner of the Phoenix Mill this reel mower.

The company Ransomes in Ipswich bought the patent from Budding and started in 1832 (according to other sources 1836) with factory-like production. Ransomes sold to 1840 over 1000 lawn mower to 1858 more than 7000 pieces and continued to develop the mower. In 1902, Ransomes developed the first motor driven lawn mower.

A small museum in the Elizabethan manor house Trerice at Newquay in Cornwall is of historical models.

At the International art and large horticultural exhibition 1904 in Dusseldorf, Gebr Brill, factory showed f lawnmowers along with garden tools, Barmen mechanical mower for a wide audience and campaigned royal with the words " in most. , Fürstl. and urban gardens for over 20 years in use. "

The first series-produced rotary mower was brought by the German company SOLO on the market in 1956 ( prototype of which was shown in 1949 at the DLG Exhibition in Hannover).

According to an estimate of the manufacturer Briggs & Stratton in Germany there are now about five million gasoline-powered lawn mower. Approximately 800 different types, of which about 300 lawn mowers and about 200 lawn tractor models from more than 50 vendors are on the market.

Technology

Depending on the type and arrangement of the cutting tools are distinguished

• Reel mower
• Sickle or rotary mowers and
• Mower.

Reel mower

On a rotating spindle ( with a horizontal axis transverse to the direction of movement of the mower ) arranged upper knife cut the blades of grass against a fixed bottom blade ( scissors principle ) to give a clean cut cross-section results. Depending on the setting of the lower blade, the knife sharpening automatically or set of blades must be sharpened by hand. Reel mowers are used everywhere, where it depends on a high cutting quality, exactly uniform cutting heights (minimum 7 mm ) (eg, golf courses and other turf sports fields ). The behind the lower blade mounted as a spacer support rollers guide the reciprocal mowing due to the residual inclination of the blades of grass in a characteristic striped pattern of the freshly mown lawn. Since the rotating spindle blades of grass " captures " from above, grass may be greater than the spindle radius are poorly mowed at a height. Lawns have to be mowed more often with cylinder mowers as with rotary mowers. The frequent cutting results in increased water loss from the blades of grass on the cut surface, which requires an artificial watering of lawns. Consequently, reel mowers are used more in areas with higher rainfall (England, Australia).

Sickle mower

In sickle mowers rotate horizontally disposed blades on a vertical shaft at high speed and beat by the grass outdoors cut without cutting off against, the average cross section is fibrous irregular. In Buckled Halmreste and Halmfasern wither and result in a stronger shade of brown the chopped dried grass as it is the case when mowing with a reel mower. The majority of the walk-behind mower rotary mower are, in part, with two cutter bars ( " knives Cross" ). The cutting elements can be bolted knife or sharpened blades. The blades are usually halves with a certain aerodynamic angle of attack - provided to generate an air flow from the bottom through the plane of rotation to the top - similar to a propeller. Thus the cut crop is highly promoted on the cutting plane and blown through correspondingly shaped channels in the housing in a container or high centrifugal forces throw it laterally outwardly in a grass basket.

Used In agriculture large rotary mower with moving blades called rotary mowers.

Mower

Special comfort promise Lawn Mower, mowing the mower as a mulching an area autonomously without human guidance. Your energy they receive from a rechargeable battery which can be powered by solar cells or is automatically recharged at a charging station. Built-in sensors respond to any emerging obstacles. The cutting area is usually limited by a carved power cable, recognizes the inductance of the mower.

Riding mowers and lawn tractors

Self-propelled mower with seating hot riding mower (also known as " Rider Mowers" known) or lawn tractor. A special form of the Rider is the zero turn mower (zero turn), a rotary mower, which is mainly used in North America for the professional care of large areas.

Other distinguishing criteria

By type of lawn mower drive are divided into the following categories:

• Hand mower, mostly designed as reel mowers,
• Electric Mowers ( power cord or battery)
• Petrol mower with two-or four -stroke gasoline engine,
• Lawn tractor with front engine like a tractor,
• Riding mower with the engine behind the driver.

Petrol and electric mowers are further subdivided into units

• Without wheel drive
• With wheel drive,
• With electric start (only petrol mower).

A special form hover mower dar. This knife and housing are shaped so that the lawnmower floats on a cushion of air and does not have to be pushed on rollers. This makes them extremely maneuverable, but have the disadvantage that the grass blades are pushed to the ground and they can only cut short grass.

Mulching mowers chop the clippings small and leave it on the lawn as mulch, there it rots and serves as a lawn fertilizer and food for soil organisms. The time required for the shred disposal is not necessary.

Lawnmowers and environmental

Exhaust

The environmental impact of gasoline-powered lawn mowers are discussion about this matter. Your pollutant balance is significantly worse than the modern automobile engines, in fact; a lawnmower with two stroke engine emits per liter of petrol consumed as many pollutants as a car of the thirties. That's why the German Greens proposed in the summer of 2000, to prohibit the use of gasoline mowers at Smoggefahr. The proposed regulation but failed. Today ( 2011) are sold almost exclusively lawn mower with four-stroke engine. Your noise level is slightly lower; the pollutant emissions are significantly lower. For several years, catalyst mufflers are used. To reduce the still high hydrocarbon emissions from four-stroke engines is alkylate petrol ( gasoline equipment or "Green Gasoline " ) are available; However, this is over 3 € / liter ( 2009) more than twice as expensive as regular gas.

" We estimate that contribute on a sunny weekend day, the devices with ten to 15 percent for ozone pollution " (Axel Friedrich, head of the traffic department of the Federal Environment Agency )

Noise

In September 2002, Germany entered into the " equipment and machinery Noise Ordinance " in effect.

It applies to all motor- powered garden equipment such as lawn mowers, trimmers, brush cutters, hedge trimmers, chain saws, leaf blowers and pressure washers as well as construction equipment.

Including motorized lawn mowers brush cutters and grass trimmers since then only be operated on weekdays from 07:00-20:00 clock, only from 09:00-13:00 and 15:00-17:00 clock Clock - In residential areas, many of these devices may. On Sundays and public holidays, it may not be turned on.

Note, however, that since the new regulation states, cities or municipalities, regulations must be modified. Thus, for example, specified rest periods at lunch time may be prescribed. It is advisable to inform themselves more closely with the relevant local authority on the regulations.

Risk of accident

In Germany there is a year to 7,000 accidents with lawn mowers. The most common causes are mowing children, driving over unprotected toes, the manual clearing of grass discharge openings, slung stones and knife parts and the release of blocked diameters in the switched on power mowers, which start after the remedy immediately and injure your fingers. After such injuries is usually amputation necessary. Modern devices have an automatic blade stop, which responds when a lever on the steering handle is no longer held.

Lawn mower in Motorsport

A novel motor sport discipline lawnmower races, where the Rider be equipped with powerful engines and used to race.