Remote Control Mowers for Slope Mowing Applications
Today’s popular zero-turn mowers are generally rated to safely handle up to a 30-degree incline without risk of injury to the operator. A lawn care professional has to equip 5 or 6 of his team members with profit-eating string trimmers when it comes time to cut a customer’s slope that’s too steep for his team to drive. This has always been a problem for the professional lawn care provider, as well as for state maintenance crews working on DOT (Department of Transportation) highway crews. With government officials raising the bar on safety standards regarding hillside mowing accidents, hills and slopes over 30 degrees are neglected along portions of our nation’s highways and other government property. . Parks and recreational facilities are among some of the other properties affected by the new safety regulations.
Summit Lawn Mower Company, based in New Albany, Mississippi, has a fairly new and interesting solution to slope mowing problems with their remote control lawn mowers. By placing the operator out of harm’s way, safety concerns are not much of an issue. By not having a person on top of the machine, combined with an industrial grade rubber track drive system, commercial models like the TRX-34PRO can achieve a very low center of gravity, giving you mowing on slopes that top out at about 40-50 degrees while remaining practical. I don’t expect to see these 34- to 60-inch robotic machines replace the huge riding mowers the guys at DOT need to maintain hundreds of acres along our highways. While its current line of commercial mowers is being used by lawn care professionals in mountainous regions around the world, the company plans to launch an industrial line of hydraulically-powered mowers to cater for large-area slope mowing where state DOT departments might be interested.
Affordable Commercial Grade Remote Control Lawn Mowers for Homeowners
In addition to track-driven remote control mowers that are only practical for commercial applications, Summit also offers models with zero-turn wheels that are practical for use around the home. Unlike hydrostatic designs that use the engine for propulsion, these electric machines use high-torque electric motors for propulsion using an alternator that acts as an on-board generator to keep the battery charged while in use. Like the commercial models, the transmitter has two joysticks. One controls the machine in all directions while the other starts and stops the gasoline engine. This easy-to-operate design makes the ZTR Series mowers popular with the elderly and disabled who want to rekindle the joy and satisfaction sometimes associated with maintaining their own lawn. While tracked remote control mowers have truly impressive slope cutting capabilities, the ZTR series models are limited to being practical on 30 degree slopes due to their front swivel wheel design.
The company also offers a full line of parts and upgrades, such as video control, remote deck height adjustment, and headlights.
