It’s that time of year again… Curious how people are precision striking unwanted weeds without chemicals…
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Well, I have a lawn service come because this isn’t in my budget.
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Wow, yeah, way way out of my budget. Asked them for specs and price of their cheapest model anyway…
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I don’t have one but a Weed Dragon is a reasonable answer to your question. It’s just a propane torch. My neighbor has one. It looks like fun.
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LOL - the Weed Dragon is a fancy name for a device I used in my first job many decades ago. Arizona - middle of summer - and my job was to use a torch to burn tumbleweeds before they got out of hand. The tank was towed behind a tractor so I was also supposed to keep moving the tractor to keep the tank away from smoldering debris. I worked for a ditch company, so most of the weeds were along the water and I was hitting them early to minimize uncontrolled fire later.
But I was listening to a John Deere podcast, about how the tractors now know how the plants in a given area are growing compared to the rest of the cohort, and the tractor can adjust distance, or adjust fertilizer to optimize plant growth over the entire field.
Now I want a little mower with a colorimeter to adjust the fertilizer, blades to mow, and a laser to take care of the weeds. Perhaps by monitoring height, it could even adjust the sprinkler zones to optimize water without being wasteful. What a cool gadget. (If it could pooper scoop, I’m all in.)
(I’m in Arizona, so realistically, I’ll probably just xeriscape and be done. Although the dog might appreciate a small patch.)
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My uncle is a farmer (corn and soybean). They run their combine off of gps and have for years. In the fall the harvester measures yield. In the spring they look at the data and manually adjust the variables like distance between seeds and even variety of seeds to get the maximum output.
There are a bunch of signs on the road of his neighbors. I guess the University of Nebraska does a bunch of science on the fields, adjusting fertilizer and water to test different things.
Being a farmer is much more like being an engineer than you’d think.
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The solar weeder is a neat concept. Shame my yard is shaded and blue skies are not as frequent as I’d like at this time of year.
Working on cordless JackPot controlled semi-automatic weeder. Will temporarily be calling a Smart Pet Weed Euthanizer to qualify for https://www.printables.com/contest/468-smart-pet-gadgets-with-arduino.
Although not fully autonomous, I figure this’d be an upgrade from how I usually weed, and a not too complicated, or too time consuming that I end up switching to a different shiny project. Making a smart cordless thing with utility value is one of my goals this year.
Guessing grub screws in the grinder hub will not hold onto the Stepper shaft’s flat face for long… Suggestions appreciated! Will set low current and feedrate to begin with, am using smaller NEMA 17, not the 84oz ones from V1E.
Grampa’s Weeder and Fiskars Stand up weed pullers are great for medium/large weeds, but not so much for smaller weeds. Normally use a Hula hoe or rake, but figured I’d try this as a possible step towards something faster and more automated. The weed whacker string trimmer would be simpler, and probably good enough if continuously monitoring like the solar powered Tertill (best for vegetable gardens).
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Just live on the side of a mountain. Can barely grow grass, weeds are just extra green. 
The gardeners have been working pretty hard though.
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My first clean kill of a weedling via hand cranking. Many tweaks/improvements needed to improve clean kill-to-trim (KtT) ratio. This small win after many hours of messing with CAD makes me feel like it’s worth continuing further… Planning to attach jackpot, some power, and EMT next…
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Currently using grub screw to fasten PETG inner grinder hub to stepper shaft, but that seems like the weakest link… Currently thinking something like a teethed Pulley without flanges so a printed hub could slide on.
Suggestions for more effective small weed pulling mechanisms also appreciated!
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children
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That’s pretty decent. I never liked the lasers idea. This works at least as good as any tool I’ve used for it.
How hard is it to line up? Can you just use it on a stick?
I just resort to chemicals. I tried the manual method when we first moved in, but I have a neighbor that doesn’t care about his yard at all. It’s overgrown with weeds and the perennials blow seeds into my yard. I’m really close to giving up. The local water company puts us on restrictions every year and trying to keep enough water on the lawn to keep it green was over $400/month last year. Plus the cost of ferts and weed killer each month. I could buy a nice 3d printer for just 3 months worth of savings.
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this is amazing and I want one! However I’m not sure if this will be able to deal with weeds I have between my carrots and tomatoes. I just let them grow and grow and then I’d have to build like 2 tonnes version of your thing… 
Just do flowers for the bees. Lawn isn’t good for nature anyway. 
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Chemicals for the neighbor might work as well?
@niget2002 just joking!
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I put some of these seeds in a problem section of my side lawn, Amazon.com, I am pretty sure I am just going to throw it everywhere. It is slowly filling in. It takes way less water, and Since I have lawn there as well I still mow it, but if there was no lawn I would not need to. So every year in the summer when my lawn dies back this seems to move in to the bare spots. Looks great.
Zones 8-11. I think I am zone 4? Bummer.
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Yes…
But…
Not sure until stick+spool are added.
Before that though, I want to improve Kill-to-Trim (KtT) ratio metrics, the tires and/or mechanism needs improving. Suggestions appreciated! Idea I have for the next iteration is likely going to result in a lawsuit from Gaultier/Madonna.
Here’s what I’m seeing… Nice weed pull at 1:30, but rest of the attempts are mostly pants, SlowMo starts at 45s Mechanical Weeding ASMR, a Mostly 3D Printed Weed Puller, Test #2
Weed whacker string trimmers are way faster than this contraption at trimming. However, trimming weeds takes many cuts over a long time period to exhaust the root to death. So, feel like I need to improve KtT ratio for this to make sense as a manual stick attached tool, and/or, improve KtT ratio enough for an autonomous battery powered bot, ideally an existing design…