My Robotic Mower Woes

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2023-05-21 19:00:08

I'm no stranger to robotic lawnmowers. When my wife and I moved into our rural home just over five years ago, we picked up the Husqvarna 450X Automower since I was far too lazy to manually mow my property and the cost was equal to that of a standard riding mower. It was a no-brainer.

Fast-forward five years. Everything is still going great with the Automower. Some minor repairs were needed but that was mostly my fault since I was allowing the mower into places it shouldn't have been (ie. root systems and dirt "craters"). Then lightning struck our backyard at the beginning of April this year. The mower was fine, since we stow it away inside for the winter but the charging station, charging brick and perimeter wire we not so lucky...

The lightning traveled along the main perimeter wire and went straight to the charging station. Boom. The charging dock was quite literally blown up into a million tiny pieces and scattered across my backyard. Giant trenches were carved up where the perimeter wire had been embedded in the lawn. This surge also followed the path towards the main power adapter and exploded that as well. All of this happened even with the charging station / adapter turned off and unplugged from any outlet. At least my mower was safe...

I realized I was going to have to buy another charging station, power adapter and also pay for a dealer to re-install the perimeter wire. This idea didn't thrill me but at least all-in the expense wouldn't be that high. Or so I thought...