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Does anyone have experience with cordless mowers? Our petrol one is getting a bit rusty and will probably need to get replaced later this year so I've been considering one of the Li-ion cordless ones which have been appearing on the market over the past few years, but they still carry quite a price premium and I'd want to be sure is would perform OK and last for a whole cut without having to either buy a load more batteries or stop half way to recharge. Our lawn is something like 160m2.
Cheers!
Yes. I had exactly the same question. I ended up going for a BOSCH ROTAK 43 LI ERGOFLEX CORDLESS LAWNMOWER. Cost me £379 including the battery (watch out for that, some of the cheaper listings don't provide a battery). Fantastic build quality and much nicer to use than the old petrol one it replaced (Briggs and Stratton £200 job from Homebase). I don't know what the battery life is like, but you probably will need to charge it before use if you leave it a few weeks. I've only used mine a couple of times so far and I did.
Thanks, is your lawn around the same size and does it manage it with one charge?
Li Batteries will still be full months after you charge them.
Yeah self discharge isn't really a concern, it's more cutting performance and battery life I'm wondering about - I would probably regret spending more on a cordless mower vs a new petrol one if it struggles on slightly long grass or needs charging three times per cut.
still worth buying a petrol one though.
petrol lawnmowers exist for a reason.
ie your lawn!
Yep, I cut the hedge over the weekend, hadn't charged the hedge trimmer Li Ion battery since the autumn and it didn't seem any worse for it. It ran out, but the we have a lot of hedge so it always does on that first cut of the year.Quote:
Originally Posted by GoNz0
Our lawn is an awkward shape, the battery powered version of our lawn mower was about another £200 but I wonder if it might be worth it.
lets not forget people, that Li Ion batteries dislike extremes of temperature. Hot sheds in summer and sheds at -5'C in winter are a disaster for the batteries.
Li ion likes to be kept, long term at about 40 or 50% charge too. Then charged before use.
so I still don't quite see the appeal when a petrol engine works. And if the lawn and then something else needs doing you just put more petrol in.
OK it needs an oil change .. run it to warm, stick it up on bricks and put an oil tray under it ... drain,... refill with fresh. But I do mine every year and that's overkill.. it comes out like new.
For me it is down to weight. Petrol mowers tend to be heavy, and I live on one heck of a hill. Some of the neighbours have self propelling mowers but I don't see that working well on the fiddly bits as ours is more of an awkward shape lawn.Quote:
Originally Posted by Zak33
OTOH, I think next door said he has had his petrol mower 20 odd years (which is how long our last mains flymo lasted before we moved onto a hill). Every other year he gets bits of it welded back up, but still going.
My mum always buys cheap mowers because they are light and she thinks easy to push, then they burn out after a couple of years. Commander Vime's boots once again :D
self propelled is ESSENTIAL... you can turn it near a wall, squeeze the lever and it pulls itself back so you don't need to strain.
Honestly... a petrol even in tight stuff.
Self propelled :)
Petrol is certainly a heck of a lot cheaper. £185
http://www.screwfix.com/p/mountfield...ol-lawn-mower/
VS the chordless version of the mower I have is £315
http://www.screwfix.com/p/bosch-37cm...-4-0ah-li-ion/
I'm sure the chordless one is cheaper to run per use, but £130 buys a *lot* of petrol.
The petrol mower is nearly twice the weight of the electric though, which would be awkward for dragging it out of the shed and around the twisty path from front to back of the house.
I don't mind looking after tools, whether it's Li-ion, petrol, whatever - I'll sit and clean out the carb/air filter/spark gaps etc now and then, and I'd be happy storing the batteries properly too. TBH there's no big reason for me to stay away from petrol. I'm aware small engines are quite polluting (at least it's not 2 stroke), so all else being the same I'd rather pick the cleaner one, but I'm not sure how significant the overall difference is in reality.
The difference in price does seem to be fairly significant though (plus the fact replacement Li-ion tool batteries tend to be hideously overpriced) and performance is a bit of an unknown.
I'm not too fussed about self-propelled though - it's a free workout! :P
BTW does anyone know what Mountfield engines are like? They seem to be the new Briggs on the UK market, but Briggs have always been great for cheap and readily available spares, are Mountfield just as good? I'm not too keen on another second-hand mower, I think my current one was either left out in the rain or just never cleaned as it had a lot of hidden rust which showed up not long after getting it. It's lasted a good few years though, so not bad for £70. Well, more like £80 when you factor in the spare brake cord (old one snapped due to rust) and the oil change I had to do.
Mountfield are good.
Look..... petrol isn't polluting when you consider what goes into a Li ion battery and what you do with it once it's finished with and you need another. You're looking at a tiny engine and compared to your central heating or car... it's only on for a short time once per week, spring to autumn.
Electric things work well....torches... drills.... razors... ovens.
But when it comes to small powered things, petrol engines rock. They just do. They go on and on and on until the job's done.
I COULD buy a rechargeable chainsaw... I already HAVE an electric one, which is great for use in a closed garage to slice up a log when it's pouring down outside.
But .... I use my petrol 2 stroke chainsaw for everything. Cos it works and it's powerful.
I could buy a petrol brush cutter (heavy duty strimmer type of thing)... but a petrol 2 stroke one is FAR more effective.
And I can EASILY get an electric lawnmower.... cable OR rechargable...
but I don't
Petrol does a job. Use it.
the Mountfield SP164 at Screwfix is £185
It's got a plastic deck so it won't rust (where my old steel one is slowly rusting through the height adjustment holes, ten years later)
I cant see for the life of me how that's not just... the best thing ever!
and the very fact that the Mountfield Rechargeable..comes with a second battery... just says it all.
The technology aint ready yet people... not when petrol is SO powerful.
It's not like its cheaper? Or that electricity is free... or that it lasts forever for the extra price.
Oh don't confuse me for being a green nut like I say (especially when it comes to greenwashing i.e. pretending stuff is 'green' when it really isn't), I've no problem using a petrol one, I have been for years now. But in terms of emissions (other than CO2 I mean, things like CO, NOx, etc), small petrol engines are far worse than even car-sized engines because of e.g. no cats, no mixture control, etc. Methane in central heating also burns very cleanly. Battery recycling is also meant to be getting pretty good now. But like you say you're using it for a few minutes a week for only part of the year, so probably isn't such a big deal in the grand scheme of things.
Off on a bit of a tangent but I'd still like to read more about lifetime pollution of Li-ion for things on the scale of electric cars and 'power walls', the latter seeming a bit unnecessary when you have perfectly good lead acid batteries for where weight isn't an issue, and lead acid recycling is excellent because of car batteries.
Yeah I have a few relatives/friends who are professional arborists, gardeners, etc so I know a bit about the sort of petrol gear they use e.g. Stihl, Husqvarna, Etesia, Honda, etc. Just I'm not looking for something that expensive to cut the grass once a week or so. A couple of them are moving to cordless grass trimmers too for less noise (neighbours get annoyed), less breathing in 2-stroke fumes all day, less vibration, etc. And I've used a load of things like cordless Hilti SDS drills, saws etc and there's really no drawback in terms of performance vs the corded versions so in certain roles I can well believe cordless stuff is good. Just you might be demanding on the order of a kW for an extended period of time for a mower so unless they give you big batteries I can see longevity being an issue. Again, branded battery packs being so expensive vs the raw cells is a big issue.
It's not that electricity is free but electric motors are vastly more efficient than small petrol engines - even mowing for an hour on an electric mower would probably be <10p vs >£1 for the same from a petrol mower (again, I'm not ignorant to the initial cost difference likely offsetting that).
For something like a mower though, where weight/volume isn't such a critical issue, I don't get why they don't use a chemistry like LiFePO4 instead of Li-ion which last time I checked was a fair bit cheaper and happier to delivery very high currents safely.
For cordless stuff though I don't really understand where the extra cost is coming from - electric motors aren't terribly expensive and, well, there's not much more to it? The difference in cost between raw cells and battery packs strikes again! I know there's some protection circuitry in there but it's not that expensive to justify the difference.
What we need is a standard attachment for Li-Ion batteries with at least a couple of voltages say 18V for things like drills and 36V for things like lawnmowers. Then I could take the cell pack off my Bosch hedge trimmer, and stick it on a Hitachi hammer drill and know it would work. Without mass production, I don't see how they can get much cheaper.Quote:
Originally Posted by watercooled
There will be more electronics involved in a battery powered device, but that is usually just a matter of waiting for it to get integrated into a couple of cheap components over time. If the power electronics costs less than that long copper flex that electric mowers come with, and people already own a battery, then the whole market could take off.
WRT the cost I just mean the cost of battery packs is vastly higher than the raw cells used inside them. I know they need to add a bit on top of BoM to turn a profit, but you're often paying many times the raw cost of the cells.
But yeah I agree about pack standardisation - it really is a bit silly you need a separate expensive battery pack for that cordless angle grinder you use once in a blue moon when you already have a load of batteries lying around. The only real way you can do that now is by getting locked in to one brand. If they're worried about excess current draw or something, they only need to set a current limit on the Li-ion protection circuitry.
Maybe this will help:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/gardening...rdless-mowers/
that top Qualcast IS good valueQuote:
Originally Posted by hb904460
and the link does go to Homebase and it IS that price £175
that's a good deal
Did anyone try getting the Qualcast then? Still more than a bit tempted.Quote:
Originally Posted by Zak33
Astroturf.
We decided to get a new mower last week, primarily down to not being able to get in the garage with it raining the night before and water getting into the electrics.
We do have a decent petrol mower but it is HEAVY, it can also be funny to restart if you let go of the grip and the motor stops when emptying it, mind you a lot of the time even when the grass is dry it doesn't pick up into the box properly. So we decided to get an electric Flymo Easimo, £65 delivered from Amazon and I was in mowing nirvana, lightweight and picks up every bit of grass even if slightly wet, I did look at cordless but until they come down in price a bit going to hold off.
I should imagine in the next few year when it comes to replacing what I have just bought cordless mowers will be the norm and prices will reflect that.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AFPRvfNW-QsQuote:
Originally Posted by Zak33
That was rather funny, though possibly not completely fair.Quote:
Originally Posted by directhex
More to the point, seeing that mower chew through the grass of that meadow was pretty impressive, and shows the zero rpm full torque characteristic of electric motors is very well suited.
Anyway, I cracked. Had to drive a few miles to get to a homebase that had the £175 Qualcast, but after doing the front lawn trailing the cable around (there is a tree in the middle which is a complete arse with that cable) I decided I wasn't going through the same tedium with the back lawn.
Had a look around Homebase while I was there, the petrol mowers looked too big and wouldn't fit my current storage. There was a 37cm Bosch there which made me wonder for a moment whether that would be a better bet despite the £330 price tag, but figured I don't think I need it and the smaller Qualcast should do.
I charged the battery pack up while I assembled the mower and basket, and by the time I wheeled it outside the charger said it was done. The back lawn was pretty long, and it coped better I think than my mains powered one would have. Bring only 34cm the grass box seemed to need a lot of emptying, but it got the job done. Charge meter was in the red so it was into the last quarter of charge (crude meter) but my hope is that it now isn't as much of a faff to mow the lawns I won't let it get quite so long next time and the whole thing should be done in no time.
Thanks for posting! Roughly how big is your lawn? And did it seem reasonably powerful e.g. you didn't have to keep stopping on long bits due to the motor slowing?
I went robotic - "Colin" is in the garden at the moment :)
that's such a sad link Hex... it's just rubbishQuote:
Originally Posted by directhex
it's a shagged out petrol lawnmower vs a £1350 thing.
https://www.lawnmowersdirect.co.uk/p...ered-lawnmower
and it comes with no charger... OR batteries
The batteries are £325 EACH (needs two..) and the charger is £185...total... WAAAY over £2000!!!!
Lets see what that buys in petrol lawnmowers.....
ah.. a Honda sit on
https://www.lawnmowersdirect.co.uk/p...n-mower-28-cut
https://www.lawnmowersdirect.co.uk/m..._1544_main.jpg
it's even got a hose attachment position to wash out under the cutting deck.
£2,199
joking aside though....
https://www.lawnmowersdirect.co.uk/p...trol-lawnmower
£340 buys a proper Husqvarna that does nearly 4kph for extended periods.
electric schmectric ;)
A little... Worked fine with minimal running costs, but the Welsh neighbour borrowed it for a weekend and the condition he returned the poor thing in ended up costing us a fortune in vet bills!! :DQuote:
Originally Posted by watercooled
TBH, I can't believe a mower battery wouldn't last long enough for one full cut on a 12x12m area.
Supposedly the average UK garden is 90m², though... Each of ours (front and back) is maybe 130m² and our gardener easily does both front and back in one charge - I'll try and remember to see what he uses next time.
Sorry, only just saw this.Quote:
Originally Posted by watercooled
I think it cut easier than the 2 year old mains powered mower, but then that has 2 years of bluntness hammered into the blade so not a fair comparison. It makes a funny noise on startup, which I am guessing is some protection system to avoid full starting torque being applied to a stalled motor if you go well into the weeds as it seems to take a few seconds to get going. Still, the lawn was well overdue a cut and it coped just fine.
House is 4 bed detached, lawn is quite wide but an odd shape so hard to say what the area is. Not done front and back on a single go yet as my garden refuse bin has been full of bits of hedge, but it should do it on one charge if I haven't let the lawn go too long. Last cut out the back after two weeks growth said on the meter it used half the charge.
Someone at work has the Rotak 37 Li-ion, he says after a couple of years the batteries don't hold as much charge so I won't look forward to that.
Edit: Battery charge time is supposed to be 1 hour from flat. You aren't supposed to charge the battery straight after use you are supposed to let it cool down, but still that seems workable if I have to eg recharge over lunchtime. I suspect if the grass is so long that it takes two charges then my wheelie bin might not be big enough for the clippings anyway :)
as everyone is getting keen on them, lets at least try to help them
Li Ion batteries HATE the cold long term.. most builders with rechargable drills in vans overnight will tell you.. the life is rubbish once winter hits. It's why so many Nican still sell. They need charging regularly anyway and the frost doesnt harm them as badly. So.. keep those batteries indoors over winter while the mower is in the shed
Li-ion are ideally stored cold (although freezing can destroy them) but like a lot of battery chemistries they don't perform as well when cold. They age rapidly when kept warm and fully charged, hence why laptop batteries die so quickly. http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/a...tore_batteries
It's wise to keep them indoors though - freezing is bad and extreme shed heat in the summer is bad too.
Anyway I ended up getting a petrol mower as the guy in the shop knocked a fair bit off a 46cm Honda Izy. Still a bit more than I was aiming to spend but I always hear good things and I'll take care of it so it should last!
The Qualcast chordless is no longer listed on the Homebase website.
Interestingly, it looks like www.qualcast.co.uk goes straight to homebase. They own the brand now?
Edit: To answer my own question: Bosch own the brand, they licensed it to Home Retail Group for 8 years according to http://www.which.co.uk/reviews/lawn-...ould-i-buy-one
ideal mower :)Quote:
Originally Posted by watercooled