Battery Power for Lawn equipment -- is it time?

I also have the Kobalt 80v self propelled lawn mower and string trimmer.

That battery you got for $25 is one great deal. I believe I paid close to $160 for 2 new ones or about $80 a piece.

Our neighbor bought a new Kobalt self propelled 80 volt mower after I let him use ours. His came with a single 7.5 amp hour
battery and he can cut his whole yard twice with one battery. I have the 2.5 amp hour battery (4 of them) and I will change batteries 3 times for our yard.

 

You're in the USA, just use that old standby excuse and blame it on the metric system. I ran out of gas. Dang Metric system.

 

I am sure it is using less power; as I get at least half an hour of run out of my 280 Whr battery, it must not be working much harder than 560 W most of the time, about 3/4 HP.

The similarly-sized gas mower I was previously borrowing from a friend had a 4 HP engine to do the same job.

I think part of the difference must be, as Leadfoot pointed out, it's brand new and the blade is very sharp. My friend got the gas mower at a yard sale and I'm sure has never sharpened it, and with 4 HP it can still kind of bludgeon the grass into submission.

Probably the Ego is going to struggle if the blade ever gets that dull. But it's easy to sharpen. I've already done that once after my second mow (which included an unplanned encounter with the corner of a sidewalk step).

The other difference I think is that the blade has less of an upturn on the trailing edge, so it make less of an updraft. It doesn't lift up and cut long, laying-down grass as well as the gas one did.

 

Yep, that 82v one is significantly heavier than my 40v unit. I know they also make a 16" unit that comes in under 40lbs but I have not seen it or used it.

Keep in mind the weight is all-up with catchbag, if you're in mulch or dump mode it'll be lighter anyway.

 

I've never had a plastic deck mower, but I'd think that "the problem" would be the deck cracking due to a picked up rock or branch, or similarly cracking where the wheels attach if you have really dry washboardy ground there.

Given your priority on low weight for ease of handling I think you should seriously look at those plastic jobs.

Sure if something goes wrong with a steel deck you can just weld.... yeah nobody actually does that anymore. Advantage neither.

I will mention that I only picked mine because it was very inexpensive; it came to me secondhand. If I'd been buying my heart's desire I likely would have gone for a wider machine to reduce time doing laps. Or maybe even that amazing Ryobi electric ride-on rig that Georgina has.

 

If it's well engineered plastic, it's much better than steel, imho. First of all, I've never seen plastic rust, but I've either trashed or welded patches onto lots of steel decks. Also, the plastic is easier to clean. The plastic deck on my EGO only has grass stick to it if it's wet. And then I just wipe the grass off with a wooden paint stirrer. It's still very glossy after about 3/4 of a mowing season. Not sure how long it'll stay shiny or if lack of shine will even matter. My previous mowers with steel required lots of hacking with a narrow putty knife.

 

If you want light weight, I think you are stuck with corded.

I think there are self propelled battery ones.

 

Wait for one of the eco-yups in your neighborhood to throw out a corded unit.
Or?
In somebody else's neighborhood if you're embarrassed to drag one home.

I came into possession of a nearly new-condition corded push mower that way.
My Spidey senses tell me that somebody bought it, ran over the cord and then threw it away in disgust.
I use it regularly and it cuts grass phenomenally well compared to the older gas mowers because it seems to use a much sharper blade spinning at a faster rate.

A certain close family member that may or may not be my CFO "might" have similarly come into possession of an even newer corded line trimmer, although she didn't have to drag it home......it was a giveaway.

 

I have an Echo 58V battery powered push mower. I got it at the "direct tools outlet" site last fall for an awesome deal.

I LOVE it. It is not self propelled. However, you don't need it. The thing weighs very little and requires very little effort to push around. I am really impressed by it. A battery lasts over 1/2 an hour. The mower can have two batteries loaded at the same time.

 

Son has an Ego mower from 3-4 years ago, next door neighbor has one too. There are two battery sizes.

I have a blower and a shrub trimmer. Three batteries.

All of us pleased.

 

That sharper blade may be connected to its nearly-new condition.

I've been using corded mowers for three decades. They don't stay sharp.

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FWIW, I'm not impressed with the "lifetime deck warranty" of a certain plastic deck corded mower. What good is a lifetime deck mated to a 4 year motor? After two of them failed, one from a failed thrust bearing, the other mangled its brush and commutator, I switch to a different line with a corrosion-susceptible metal deck. While corroding some, it is far from perforation, and the whole unit has lasted much longer.

I should have saved one of those lifetime plastic decks to see if it might possiblly be kludged to mate with a neighbor's gasoline mower, whose engine still worked fine after the deck eventually failed from corrosion. But he got several decades out of it.

 

I've had a corded Black & Decker for over 25 years.
No blade stays sharp -- you have to sharpen them!
The motor and plastic will probably last another 25 years, IMO.


Mike

 

Both of my motor failures at 4 years were on corded Black & Deckers.