Battery powered lawn mowers?

Hi All,

My wife is the gardener in our house and is looking to get a new lightweight cordless battery operated lawn mower similar to the Greenworks one being shown on TV at the moment.

Does anyone have any experience of these or recommendations?

i believe that battery life is the main issue but we only have a small lawn area.

looking at the twin 24V battery 48V model at around £260 or so.

cheers, Martin

Last year I bought an Einhell cordless mower from Wickes. Great for our small lawn, (?50 sq. m), one charge finishes the job easily.

Currently on offer I see, bundled with a bare strimmer for £164. Why pay more?

The only real complaint is that the finish is not quite so good as my previous cylinder mower, but so much quicker.

Edited By Clive Brown 1 on 21/04/2023 14:25:44

Martin

The Greenworks mowers have rather small batteries, 2 Ah in most cases. I'd be a little worried as to whether that would do a decent area per charge.

The other issue is whether batteries will still be available when you need new ones.

Lithium batteries are said to last 1,000 charge cycles but final capacity will be significantly reduced by then, to 50% or so of new. Heavy continuous loads are also said to reduce life because the battery gets hot in use. I'd be expect no more than 300 - 400 charges out of a mower before noticing reduced life.

My battery tools are all Makita 18v LXT, no mower but I do have dual battery hedge cutter and strimmer. Seem to be about as powerful as the mains powered equivalents and the 5 Ah batteries hold up pretty well. My garden is too big for a battery mower to make sense but I'd have no qualms about advising folk to buy a Makita. Be about £100 more than a Greenworks one tho'.

One reassuring thing about the LXT batteries is that there are enough Makita tools out there to make it worthwhile for folk to offer knock-off and pattern replacements. Probably not to Makita standards but it bodes well for supplies being around for years to come.

Clive

I have one. I zip tie the charger to the handle and run an extension lead to it from the house. Saves a lot of time.

😀😀😀😀😀

Martin

I have a Husqvarna, it is excellent and does a great job. Now in its 3rd season.
They are not cheap though, mine was about £100 more than a direct replacement for the worn out Honda petrol model of the same size. I did waste a bit of money on going for the powered drive. I had that on the Honda, but the Husqvarna is so much lighter you don't need it unless you have stepp slopes

Big advantage is commonality of batteries across other tools. I also run a pole hedge trimmer and chainsaw on the same battery.

Had the same mower for 50 yrs suffolk colt looked after still ok but the wife wants me to get an electric one as our solar panels kick out nearly 4 kw on a sunny day,so she says it'll save paying for petrol, she's right but I love my old suffolk, not sure what is a good make.

How many on here entered the world of the internal combustion engine by messing with the dear little suffolk engine ? Noel.

Gtech do a really good hoover, the design and useage is sooo easy

If their lawnmower is similar then it's worth checking out

I sold off my indestructible sebo hoover because we stopped using it, just too heavy compared to the Gtech

If you go for Makita, it is sometimes cheaper to buy the bare mower, and buy a Makita drill, 2 off 5ah batteries and a charger from Screwfix or Toolstation. Effectively you get a free drill, although the charger will a single battery rather than a double. That’s what I did.

I bought an Einhell mower, long pole hedge trimmer and strimmer from Toolstation two years ago. I have also bought 2) 3 amp hour batteries and 2) 4 amp hour batteries. All excellent tools. Not the best quality, but when I see "made in china" plastered over the better known brands I don't think mine can be much worse. I mow my large lawn with either the 3ah or 4ah. I wear out before the batts do! The 2ah batts I keep for the hedge trimmer and strimmer.

As I already have some Makita battery tools it made sense to look at their mowers when my old Hayter started playing up. Is short, I bought one from the Makita range and it has been a good buy. I'd recommend.

Martin.

It seems that most are replying by referring to the battery capacity, not the battery life.

If the batteries are Lithium ion chemistry, battery life should be good providing the battery is not continually fully charged or exhausted completely. Lithium ion phosphate chemistry batteries should exhibit an increased number of recharge cycles than Lithium ion polymer types.

I lead/acid chemistry (less likely if truly ‘lightweight ), the battery should not be deeply discharged - and most certainly not left in a discharged state (ie less than fully charged) for any longer than practical. Leaving in a discharged state means early death to lead/acid batteries.

Edited By not done it yet on 21/04/2023 18:40:02

I already had a Makita 18V drill so I bought a bare mower and then shopped around for two batteries from the cheapest vendor. The mower works fine and I know from experience the batteries will be good.

Battery lifetime is closely related to temperature. The hotter they run the faster the battery ages with the associated reduction in capacity.

High current draw increases the internal heating and the continuous running associated with things like lawnmowers doesn't give the battery any breaks to let it cool down.

For any given current draw a larger capacity battery should run cooler than a smaller one. So all things being equal you'd expect a bigger battery to have a longer overall lifetime than a smaller one doing the same job. But if you exploit the extra battery capacity by making the larger battery work harder, drawing a disproportionately larger current, it will get even hotter inside leading to even shorter life.

It's a balancing act really as big enough is big enough. My guess is that if the battery takes longer to charge than it does to run down odds are you are asking too much of it.

It's noticeable that 3 Ah batteries run perceptibly hotter to touch than 5 Ah ones in my twin 18 volt Makita hedge cutter and strimmer. Once, on a very hot day, I managed to get one of the 3 Ah batteries so warm that the dual fast charger refused to charge it until I'd let it cool down for maybe 10 minutes. The other battery wasn't quite so warm to the touch and did accept charge. Charging almost immediately after the strimmer stopped might not have been the best idea in the world as not only did it take longer than usual but the charged battery was still quite warm. Memory says the second one was only a minute or three behind reaching full charge despite the 10 minute cool-down wait. Makita batteries have a temperature sensor inside to help monitor charging.

That little episode convinced me that sharing the two 3 Ah batteries from my drill and driver set with the hedge cutter and trimmer might not have been the best idea in the world. So I splashed out on two new 5 Ah ones for the garden tool department. Hafta say the extra life is nice. Two and a half charges to do all my hedges, one charge to do the strimming if I don't leave it too long between goes.

Anecdotal evidence so not conclusive but it may be relevant to note that Tesla makes serious efforts to keep their car battery packs cool.

Clive

Anecdotal evidence so not conclusive but it may be relevant to note that Tesla makes serious efforts to keep their car battery packs cool.

More than just ‘anecdotal’, Clive. I would say well proven when one reads up on the woes of such as the nissan leaf - which eats through its battery due to a lack of battery conditioning.

Hi All,

Will be checking out the offerings from Makita over the weekend. I already have the twin pack screwdriver and impact driver with 2 batteries so will see if they fit.

As said our lawn is really very small so should be OK.

Cheers, Martin

My electric bike uses Bosch 36v "professional" power tool batteries, 4 & 6 Ah. I've bought a strimmer that takes the same batteries, and I believe they also make a mower. It may be that the battery life will be reduced but sharing the cost means it probably doesn't matter. Biking, the batteries work for longer when warm and there is a little glove supplied to cover the battery in cold weather.

It used to be the cold that zapped all our battery power

But now it's globul warming lol

Are batteries really robust enough for our brave new eco world?