Battery powered lawn mowers?

A school friend and I used to go down the scrap yard and scrounge lawnmower engines, they used to let us roam round the yard unsupervised and never charged us for the treasures we found. I still have a Suffolk engine and a Villiers two stroke with a brass flywheel. To run the Villiers I mounted it on a frame and made a petrol tank out of a 1 quart oil can with the cap from a one gallon oil can soldered onto the side. Although the cap was not vented it never gave a problem, I doubt I ran the contraption long enough for the non vented cap to starve the engine. Much more fun than a PlayStation I think. I discovered how a piston ported 2 stroke and side valve 4 stroke worked from these adventures.
Mike

My long time friend in Australia has a battery powered lawnmower, over the years it has slowly degraded the 2 batteries so much he cannot finish his lawn on one charge in each. His comment that the batteries are too expensive and its a race which gives out, him, or the batteries.

At work we always recommend to customers to buy a well known make like Makita, Hikoki, Bosch, Stihl etc where parts are readily available to make repairs if necessary, plus warranty cover. The cheaper makes like Einhell (not being negative) and similar are practically unrepairable because parts are just not available in the UK. I've lost count of the number of times a customer has come in to the shop and asked for a pair of carbon brushes for their Titan tool.

Some UK stores offer quite good warranties on the cheaper brand tools though and it's always worth asking about before you buy.

Also, some of those cheaper tools are quite well made and may last for years if looked after. Depends on the amount of use and the user.

Ed.

My wife has a Stihl mower that takes the smaller size of the two battery types. We only have a small lawn, less than 100m2 area. But she does mow the neighbourers outside lawn at times too. What effects the battery life the most is the sharpness of the blade. Initially I was just resharpening the blade along the profile of the initial blade as supplied. A college suggested that I start sharpening it from the under side. So I bought a spare, and I change out the blade as it needs sharpening and clean out in that area of trapped very smeely decaying grass. Since starting on the underside, I have noticed that the blade stays sharper longer. A dull blade can mean that you get as low as 50% of the lawn mowed. She does not pick up the fallen leaves or twiggs on the ground, they just all get mulched with everything else. This year the wet summer and the warmer than usual spring, has meant we have mowed the lawns the most I have ever known.

I'm sure Woke Central will be interested in this, but advice is, never buy a mower that your wife can't completely handle without any reference to oneself.

Neil

Excellent point about the importance of keeping the blades sharp if you want maximum mowing time per charge.

I have regular spring time job sharpening two sets of blades for the, now rather elderly (10 years+ ?), Bosch battery mower owned by an acquaintance. I could easily be convinced that a primary the reason his battery pack has lasted so well is that sharp blades have kept the power demand in the region that the battery can easily supply. A blunt blade would seem to push the demand up to the levels at which the battery gets hotter than ideal inside drastically shortening the ultimate life.

That older generation of Bosch battery seems to have rather a "meh" or "okay-ish, usually" reputation when used in mowers despite being fine in the more intermittent use associated with hedge cutters. Later models seem to have a better reputation. Whether due to battery chemistry improvements, better power management control or a combination I know not.

This would seem to be yet more evidence of the importance of keeping a battery working well within its limits. Inevitably harder when the battery is on the smaller end of the adequate for the job range.

A load meter always seemed a good idea.

Clive

Mildly diverting from the original topic ( why not, everyone else seems to do it !), I bought a brush clearer several years ago from a cheap and cheerful source expecting little of it. It and the 40V battery dated 2014 have done stirling service until I left the battery out in the rain for several days and destroyed the inbuilt electronics board. Needing a hedge trimmer on a pole, I took another punt on one that also came with a mini chainsaw and a battery that resembles the brush clearer’s bu t turned out to be a bit smaller all round.
I then turned to my 3D printer and several hours and 4 iterations later I had an adapter allowing the new battery (also 40V of course) to slide in just like the original. I also disassembled the duff battery pack resulting in a store of 18650 batteries, each separated and individually charged to ensure they were in good condition. I was also slightly surprised to find that there were 20 batteries, arranged in 10 paralleled pairs which I didn’t think was good for balanced charging.
so don’t ditch the equipment if the battery has packed up, hunt down something similar and get adapting !

Simon

I wonder, is there a market for interbrand battery adaptors?

Peter

There is. A google search brings up some examples; eg here

Wow, never even thought of that. In my case the batteries slide into a recepticle with blade contacts. The print looks like this and the blade contacts are embedded in epoxy in two of the three rectangular sockets in this view. The new battery wants to see a blade and the existing brush clearer wants to see a balde as well so the electrical connections are simply blade terminals extracted from the duff electronics board.

Now, maybe I should go into business......

i bought my dad a Greenworks mower in 2019 with 2 x 2.5Ah 40v batteries. It's still working fine, much easier to start than the previous petrol one and much quieter for my mum and the neighbours (who now also have one). Largish garden with lots of bumpy uneven stuff around old trees. He's retired so tends to mow a battery worth at a time on nice days rather than having to finish everything to a schedule. No mow May helps as well, for that he just keeps a few routes clear and lets the rest grow.

My hover style mower is getting long in the tooth and recently watched a QVC advert for the new GTech (platinum) mower, as we have GTech products (hoover etc) I decided to go for it as it was a good price.

I have lawns front and back and have cut through the cable a few times on my old mower, Using the new GTech mower I managed both lawn areas with the battery showing half left, grass collection is good, did a reasonable job on the lawns.

Much easier to use and does have a carry handle, though definitely not lightweight.

My wife likes the GTech products and recently bought the new GTech Platinum hoover, which she thinks is much better than the old one.

Like anything else in this world, you get what you pay for generaly.

Of course, those with petrol mowers are like those on here with MYFORDS...............

oneupmanship is everything

Hi,What is wrong with petrol mowers and Myfords.

Please explain what those on here with Myfords and petrol mowers are like.

Maurice

EGO lawnmowers are very good and use 56V batteries. I have two and each one lasts about 30mins

One is in the mower, the other on the charger. When one runs out swap them over and finish the job.

Hint: when using an electric mower try not to stop and start it all the time - spinning up the rotor uses extra power. keep it going constantly where possible.

PS, if your battery does not last, is it really such a problem? Good excuse for a cup of tea !

Maybe, as long as you leave commercial landscapers out of your generalisation; I don't know many commercial landscapers who have made the move to battery powered mowers yet; for the pros there are currently too many cons with them when compared with gasoline powered alternatives.

That situation may of course change if battery-powered equipment becomes an economically more viable alternative or draconian legislation forces the change-over.

At last - the whole thing is brought into proportion.
Also, you can put off the whole thing until tomorrow while you build up the enthusiasm by saying you have put the battery on charge.

I find gravel gives a better return on investment than a mower - and releases time for the workshop.

It shouldn't be too difficult to work that one out!

Hi,

Unfortunately I can’t see anything wrong with either of them ,I just wondered what I’d missed.

Maurice

Wasn't aware Myfords make lawn-mowers, petrol, battery or yet, manual.... (Mine runs on tea and cake. Mower, that is, not lathe. )

Going slightly back towards the original, I have a Bosch mains trimmer, it's junk. Good name means nothing nowadays.

Edited By duncan webster on 25/04/2023 16:00:56