Battery Power for Lawn equipment -- is it time?

I guess they all truck now.

yep grass is always wet down here my Kobalt is a metal chassis and the paint has come off the bottom. Its about a year old. I take the battery out of it turn it on its side and hose the bottom off after every session.

I got about 1/3 of an acre all in. Its alot in this humidity. Its been like 90% humidity lately. 2 mins outside doing anything your soaked.

But I dont have to pull the cord on a mower any MORE!!!! Woo Hoo!!!!

 

One step backwards.

I now own a gas-powered riding mower. My neighbor bought a new one and offered me his old one at a price I could not refuse. It's very noisy and stinky but it's getting the job done. Eventually I'll replace it with an electric.

Of note, the only real issue with this one is um, electrical. The 12v battery is weak and doesn't always offer enough amperage to fire the PTO clutch. New battery next spring, I think.

 

Lawn was getting too long this afternoon, so went out to get it done. But with all the smoke it looked more like dusk than the 3 hours it really was before then. So put on an N95 mask and turned on the Ryobi mower and was caught off guard to enjoy a feature previously useless to me - the LED headlight.

 

Here's what the sky looked like at high noon in Solano County:



Always nice to find a seldom used feature though.

Stay safe in your neck of the woods.

 

A mower with a light seems useless, but you just gave me an idea. I just ordered a portable waterproof rechargeable LED work light. I am going to somehow attach it to my snowblower. I am far more likely to use it in pitch dark than a lawnmower.

Stay safe, those who live in the fire-affected areas which seem to be most of the west coast states.

Fire and Smoke Map

 

Mine came with one. I added two more (rear/side for hi-vis safety) and "while I was in there" a heated handlebar kit. As a headlight, it's not as good as the floodlights on the house, but it does help in some parts.

 

Yeah, I have 4x 100w equivalent LED flood lights on my house and garage walls shining our driveway. The problem is they are on timer and motion sensor. When I am away from the building for a while, it turns off. Coming back toward the house in pitch dark in deep snow is sometimes difficult. I have been using a headlamp on me, but I think putting a bigger work light on the snow blower would give me better visibility.

 

EGO now has a 2 stage snow blower

POWER+ 24 in. Self-Propelled 2-Stage Snow Blower with Peak Power™ by EGO

 

Nice find.

A bit dear at $1,300 but I could see this replacing my gas rig at some point. Progress!

 

That looks so cool, I need one for our once every 3 year 5" - 6" snow.

If I got one, it's guaranteed 7 or 8 neighbors would have to have one.

 

In that case, buy it without batteries and then order some when the forecast turns. That way they won't go bad sitting around for 3 years.

I just applied asphalt sealer to my driveway over Labor Day weekend.

All 5500sf of it. That's 27 buckets worth for one coat. Was thrilled to find a water/latex formulation that had almost no stink to it.

Even though most of our winters have little snow accumulation here, I would not want to try blowing it clear with less than a 2-stage machine.

Now I'm curious to see what effect the sealer has on snow accumulation/removal.

 

Good method. I was kidding though. I still shovel it, well mostly just push it around.

 

Ego batteries, sitting around on the charger, will adjust their charge levels for storage and kind of take care of themselves. At least the book says they do; I haven't staked them out to catch them doing it.

 

That's good to know. My DeWalt gear absolutely does not do that, and I've noticed capacity lost over winter unless I manually intervene.

My Greenworks batteries don't claim any feature like that. I tend to keep those batteries almost as busy in the winter anyway, so I can't pin any lost capacity on storage.

 

That is also a way to have them stuck in shipment, or on backorder, when they are needed. Just like winter tire installation, the moment the forecast turns, the shops are swamped with very long waiting lines and must turn many customers away.

 

I am very tempted. But I am going to wait to read some reviews. Power and durability is the key. The photo looks very plasticky... Yeah, "Steel Auger" but what else? Also what does " clear an 18 car driveway with 8" of snow on a single charge" mean? I need to know how long, in minutes, it will run on full charge batteries.

 

Good point.

So if you're up against batteries that don't self-manage, the better-still way is to buy the batteries in the fall weeks before they are needed, then sell them in the spring, assuming that they also fit a summer tool.

That way you go into each winter with strong ones. I'm willing to bet that the costs of doing it this way are lower than running them into the ground over a few years. Many buyers can't or won't consider depreciation on used batteries.

10-15% cheaper than new, and it's only a year old?? *snap* goes the trap.

@Salamander_King raises a good point about durability. If I were still in Alaska I'd never take this- seen far too many plastic things shatter under the lightest touch once it gets properly cold. But now in PA? It could be worth a shot, so I'll be watching.

 

Seems to me the "what area and depth" approach is the right one. Minutes would be far too easy to game. A machine that throws half the snow could run for twice the minutes on the same charge. Also the Ego will probably run about twice as long if you're clearing half the depth or half the weight of snow.

The area ✕ depth formulation will still have a YMMV component based on light powder, packing, wet, slushy, etc., but that's nowhere near as open-ended as "look, our blower with a third the power gives you three times the minutes!"

 

Hmm, the book actually says they'll do the self-discharge trick on their own, without having to be on the charger. That would be good for me, as at the moment only one of mine is on the charger.



I have never noticed the "5-LED indicator" on the older of my two; that one might be an older version. I should try to find the version of the manual that came with it.

 

The power of the machine will tell what depth and how far it can throw the snow. Yeah, I need to know the machine can handle a certain amount of snow for the job, but I still need to know how long the full charge will run. That's a different parameter. 8 inches of light powder snow and 8 inches of heavy wet snow are two totally different jobs. Similarly, if I am blowing a straight driveway that can be cleared in a few passes, it takes far less time than when I am doing a wide-open parking area or irregular shaped corner of a building that requires many passes for the same area and depth.