Hi, apologies if this is in the wrong forum. My first post.
Glad to find this site as I’m in the process of ordering a Chinese tracked slope mower for my farm. I’d like to automate for some areas rather than babysit it with a remote. The two units I am considering are AWY-800SM and MK800-M. The “SM” model supposedly comes with a “GPS option”. Because of the language barrier it’s hard to get a good read on what that means. The agent I’m dealing with says that they use Mission Planner.
Does anyone here have experience with these mowers? Would I be better off getting a non-GPS version and working with this forum to convert the machine for auto pilot use or is the offered GPS feature good enough.
I’d appreciate any advice or links to a relevant thread (I’m not sure what to search to find one).
They are pretty awful, and I don’t recommend one. It was fun to convert mine, but they turn terribly, so they don’t tune well. The onboard electronics are pure garbage. Save your money.
EDIT: I used a different brand, but I expect all of these companies make pretty similar products, and I stand by my recommendation.
My Luba 3 isn’t so great on turning either. I’m not so much interested in finesse. I want to use this on my fields and the overgrown scrub in between. The Luba 3 does ok on the lawn surrounding the house, but the rest of my property is pretty hilly and not something I want to tackle with a machine I have to ride on.
You’re right on about the similarity of the products - they all seem to be sold out of the same city in China. Do you have anything you would recommend?
The chinese units are the only ones that I’ve found that can swap to different tools and are small enough to be easily handled and transported in the bed of my pickup. Anything “commercial” that I’ve found in the US market are like $70K and up - just for the tool carrier.
I’m willing to put up with some idiosyncrasies as long as it does its job. The autonomous use would be a “nice to have” but I would be fine with just the remote control too.
Yes, I might eventually try to do a ZT mower, but that would take a lot more work I think to add multiple tools to. I don’t plan on working mine to death. I’d like to clear out brush between trees so I can set up electric fencing for some animals. I’m planning on pigs to do most of the heavy clearing.
I don’t think either of the two machines you mentioned can really achieve the level of “automation” you’re looking for. I checked some information, and fundamentally they are still remote-controlled machines.
As for the GPS function, I think it mainly adds positioning capability and supports some route-planning functions in Mission Planner. However, with meter-level GPS accuracy, it still may not be precise enough for the mower to reliably stay on narrow field ridges. Otherwise, you might end up harvesting your fruit together with the weeds, haha.
I also noticed that the GPS function seems to be a new feature on a product that is still in the pre-sale stage. Because of that, I would expect the feature to be relatively immature, since it has not yet gone through the most important stage: real-world market validation.
In actual use, the performance figures listed in the manual may realistically need to be discounted to around 50–80% of the advertised values. Of course, every product has to start somewhere. Only after customers buy it, use it, and report problems can the manufacturer gradually improve and upgrade the product.
Thanks. I don’t expect it to be as precise as say my Luba 3 lawnmower, but if I can get it to do some relatively “safe” fields with some autonomy I would be happy. One mfr that I contacted said that their GPS uses Mission Planner, but the other mfr said they use some homegrown chinese s/w, but I suspect it’s probably still based on Mission Planner.
The other thought I had in mind is that I just received a GPS antenna from Geodnet. Evidently it’s a company that offers its networked GPS system to surveyers and construction companies and self driving cars to improve the location accuracy of GPS signals. The company pays me to host their antenna, but they said they would allow me to use the signal as well. If I can get the Chinese GPS system to read that antenna signal I would have 2 cm accuracy.
After confirming your needs, I think you can consider purchasing the mower you really want and then using the GEODNET equipment you already have to improve its positioning accuracy.
Most GNSS modules on the market today already support GPS, GLONASS, Galileo, and BeiDou satellite systems, so you do not need to specifically purchase a system that can receive Chinese GPS signals.
If you need additional technical details, feel free to contact me at [allen.techsourcing@outlook.com].
I did order a chinese “tool carrier”. More than a mower - it has tools for trenching, backfill, rototiller, snow plow. This unit is supposed to have a GPS module - not as sophisticated as a Luba3, but I’m hoping the interface is better. Mammotion’s app sucks bigly.