Kirkville (WSYR-TV) – A Central New York man thinks he has come up with a solution for all the toil associated with cutting the grass: an automatic lawnmower.
From the steering to the cutting,
Doug Heffron's invention does it all. The mower can even be left alone for lengths at a time.
The inventor himself has plenty of use for such a device – and the empty seat on the fully-automated riding mower has received a lot of attention from his neighbors in Kirkville.
"He came running around the corner and he says your lawn mower, your lawn mower, it's going, there's nobody on it," Heffron said.
Wire, installed about an inch deep in the ground guides the seated John Deere mower through a sensor, which is connected to the steering.
"On a repeatable trip on the wire, it will follow the wire within a quarter inch, so it's very accurate," Heffron said.
The mower also has a built-in safety feature – sensors in the front that will automatically shut the machine down if it goes off course.
"Or if it deviates from the wire, which I've never had happen, but if it goes off the wire anywhere within two inches, it will shut down," Heffron said.
Heffron's invention received some attention from John Deere when he initially devised it in the late 1980s. The interest never developed further, however. Since then, Heffron has upgraded to a new mower and improved the wiring technology.
"I built my house, I built my furniture, I like to keep going," Heffron said.
Currently, he is waiting on a patent for the invention.
