Jun 4, 2016 | By Benedict
Summit Mowers, a manufacturer of remote control slope mowers, has fitted its latest machines with 3D printed brackets. The Mississippi-based mower company sells the majority of its machines to government municipalities with steep hills to maintain.
Ever wondered how parks and city councils manage to keep their grass tidy, even on the steepest and most inaccessible hills? Fortunately, you won’t see many mountain goat-like gardeners driving their heavy and expensive mowers up crazy inclines. What you might see, however, are remote control “slope mowers”, designed specifically for tackling grassy slopes without causing erosion. Since 2008, Summit Mowers, based in New Albany, Mississippi, has specialized in building these handy machines, all the while fulfilling a lifelong ambition for founder John Wright, who had been experimenting with remote control lawnmowers prototypes since the 1990s.
Like many medium-sized businesses, Summit Mowers recently had an additive manufacturing epiphany when it realized it could shorten a time-consuming process with the help of 3D printing. The company has not invested in its own 3D printer, but has been using the on-demand additive manufacturing services of i.materialise to order custom 3D printed brackets for its mowers.
Since each Summit Mowers machine has to withstand dust, vibration, and potential oil spills—not to mention the elements—the company must ensure that the circuit boards powering the remote control mowers are properly organized and protected. To do this, Summit Mowers use servos to control rocker switches which energize relays for the entire electrical system. The servo arms need to be positioned in just the right position over the rocker switch or they will not function properly. Before 3D printing, this process had to be done by hand using thin strips of material called shims—a procedure that was less precise and much more time-consuming. Now, the servos are mounted on a custom-made 3D printed bracket designed in SketchUp, which Wright and his team were already familiar with, having previously used the 3D modeling software to design laser-cut metal parts.
When Wright decided to start Summit Mowers after the 2008 market collapse, he spent almost four years researching and developing his products: unmanned mowers which can climb and mow on extreme 40 to 50 degree slopes thanks to a pair of wide rubber tracks. The mowers are built on a zero-turn mower foundation rather than being built from the ground up, which saves the company time and money. To prevent erosion of terrain, the machines can mow side to side—wheel driven machines, on the other hand, can only go up and down, which causes erosion.
Most of Summit Mowers’ customers are government municipalities which need to maintain a number of steep hills, while power plants and water works facilities have also benefited from the remote control machines. One of the company’s most notable customers is the National Parks Service, which recently acquired a Summit Mowers machine to help maintain the Natchez Trace, an historic 440-mile forest trail which links the Cumberland, Tennessee, and Mississippi rivers. Since the National Parks Service also maintains the grounds of the White House, Wright hopes that his machines could someday be used to cut presidential grass.
Having seen the positive effects of 3D printing first-hand, Wright hopes to use the technology more and more in future: “3D printing has been around for a little while now and the technology is growing every day,” he said. “One day I hope to be able to have other metal parts 3D printed.”
Posted in 3D Printing Application
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