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Thread: Cordless lawn mowers?

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    Senior Member watercooled's Avatar
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    Cordless lawn mowers?

    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!

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    mush-mushroom b0redom's Avatar
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    Re: Cordless lawn mowers?

    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.

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    Senior Member watercooled's Avatar
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    Re: Cordless lawn mowers?

    Thanks, is your lawn around the same size and does it manage it with one charge?

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    DILLIGAF GoNz0's Avatar
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    Re: Cordless lawn mowers?

    Li Batteries will still be full months after you charge them.

    Capitalization is the difference between helping your Uncle Jack
    off a horse and helping your uncle jack off a horse.

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    Senior Member watercooled's Avatar
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    Re: Cordless lawn mowers?

    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.

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    HEXUS.timelord. Zak33's Avatar
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    Re: Cordless lawn mowers?

    still worth buying a petrol one though.

    petrol lawnmowers exist for a reason.

    ie your lawn!

    Quote Originally Posted by Advice Trinity by Knoxville
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    root Member DanceswithUnix's Avatar
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    Re: Cordless lawn mowers?

    Quote Originally Posted by GoNz0 View Post
    Li Batteries will still be full months after you charge them.
    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.

    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.

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    Re: Cordless lawn mowers?

    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.

    Quote Originally Posted by Advice Trinity by Knoxville
    "The second you aren't paying attention to the tool you're using, it will take your fingers from you. It does not know sympathy." |
    "If you don't gaffer it, it will gaffer you" | "Belt and braces"

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    Re: Cordless lawn mowers?

    Quote Originally Posted by Zak33 View Post
    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.
    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.

    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

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    Re: Cordless lawn mowers?

    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

    Quote Originally Posted by Advice Trinity by Knoxville
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    "If you don't gaffer it, it will gaffer you" | "Belt and braces"

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    Re: Cordless lawn mowers?

    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.

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    Senior Member watercooled's Avatar
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    Re: Cordless lawn mowers?

    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!

    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.

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    Re: Cordless lawn mowers?

    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.

    Quote Originally Posted by Advice Trinity by Knoxville
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    Re: Cordless lawn mowers?

    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.

    Quote Originally Posted by Advice Trinity by Knoxville
    "The second you aren't paying attention to the tool you're using, it will take your fingers from you. It does not know sympathy." |
    "If you don't gaffer it, it will gaffer you" | "Belt and braces"

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    Re: Cordless lawn mowers?

    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.

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    Re: Cordless lawn mowers?

    Quote Originally Posted by watercooled View Post
    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.

    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.

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