In 2005 we created our solar mower #1 that is merely a 24 volt battery operated cordless Ryobi push mower. We were not taking photos or video at that time but we wanted to. So recently, we were at a monthly local public auction (great place to get project parts) and came up with a Black and Decker 12 volt model and since our 5 year old 24v Ryobi was in need of repair at this point. So it’s a great time to share this little mod to basically charge a battery operated mower with a solar panel.
This is only a concept guide to what we did and you will no doubt be using other equipment or have problems other that we incurred here so please be safe with your re-engineering. If you are not sure what you are doing ask someone and/or check the web/wikipedia.
One thing we forgot to mention in the section of adding a diode to block current in the case we accidentally connect the power up incorrectly, you should add a fuse ( 3 amp in our case) to the power line in which you use the blocking diode so that it will blow before the blocking diode is destroyed (please use a polarized power connector).
Please feel free to comment or ask a question but do allow some time for a reply as I am a busy guy !
We hope to have the website updated to full functionality sometime soon.