On 18/04/2019 17:32, Harry Bloomfield wrote:
Its that time of year again...

My tractor mower, sometimes suffers from the cutter blades coming to a
stop due to becoming completely choked with grass. When that happens, it
slips the drive clutch, but from the driving seat, there is no
noticeable change in the noise and I carry on driving with no cutting
taking place and damaging the clutch.

I don't use a grass collector on the rear and because it tends to be
another cause of it choking up, but I can look back and see grass
cuttings being blown out the back when all is well. The drive clutch and
its pulley output to the cutting deck, is under the engine.

Ideally, I could do with a better way to be sure at a glance, that the
clutch isn't slipping and the deck is being driven round. One idea I
have is a magnet fixed to the edge of a pulley, rotating past a coil
powering an LED mounted on the tractors dash. Has anyone any other
suggestions?

That seems a pretty neat idea to me. My analogous problem is a 100 litre
electric sprayer that sits in the back of my all terrain vehicle,
recognising when the spray stops for any reason. I have tried a little
wireless TV camera with a monitor on the dashboard but it wasn't really
effective.