Battery lawn mowers

[MullumMiss]

A few years ago I bought a battery powered mower, whipper snipper and blower from Aldi.  They all used the same batteries.  I love to mow our lawn and being a touch OCD I have a little routine.  Edgers first, blow clippings onto lawn then mow then blow again for tidying up.  Then I started to collect battery operated Ryobi garden tools.  First a pole pruner then a secateurs.  So I decided to upgrade my mower and whipper snipper to Ryobi.  The mower is The RYOBI 36V 18” (46cm) Brushless Mower.  Retails with battery for around $550.  I bought on marketplace for $375 including battery.  My whipper snipper I also bought on marketplace for $30.  They are great.  
I recently took our petrol mower to the tip.  It was given to us from a customer around 30 years ago and it did us well.  

Edited May 11, 2023 by MullumMiss

[Tortuga]

5 hours ago, Tortuga said:

I decided to buy this one today. There was an online special and I got it for $400. The two batteries are worth $300!!

Unfortunately it won't start. I may have to take it back and exchange it...

[bagwell1987]

1 hour ago, Tortuga said:

Unfortunately it won't start. I may have to take it back and exchange it...

Oh good grief.

I had a similar issue with my weed Wacker. A brother showed me it was an issue with assembly. It's temperamental but it's still impressive.

[Tortuga]

1 hour ago, bagwell1987 said:

Oh good grief.

I had a similar issue with my weed Wacker. A brother showed me it was an issue with assembly. It's temperamental but it's still impressive.

I have decided to take it back and get my money back. I had read a lot of bad reviews about this mower but I thought they were talking about the 5aH batteries. This one has 10aH batteries so I had assumed that DeWalt had fixed the problem. 

 

Tonight I did more research and I found a lot of bad reviews about the current model with the 10aH batteries. So the problem isn't fixed. A lot of people complained that the mower would work just a little longer than the return policy, then quit working. I don't want to get stuck with a $400 door stop so I'm taking it back now.

[bagwell1987]

1 minute ago, Tortuga said:

I have decided to take it back and get my money back. I had read a lot of bad reviews about this mower but I thought they were talking about the 5aH batteries. This one has 10aH batteries so I had assumed that DeWalt had fixed the problem. 

 

Tonight I did more research and I found a lot of bad reviews about the current model with the 10aH batteries. So the problem isn't fixed. A lot of people complained that the mower would work just a little longer than the return policy, then quit working. I don't want to get stuck with a $400 door stop so I'm taking it back now.

Good for you, I'd do the same. Dog gone it can't they do something right?

[Qapla]

4 hours ago, Tortuga said:

Unfortunately it won't start. I may have to take it back and exchange it..

 

We thought our wouldn't start when we first went to use it - till we figured out that you have to hold the safety switch and it comes right on.

 

 

[Tortuga]

1 minute ago, Qapla said:

 

We thought our wouldn't start when we first went to use it - till we figured out that you have to hold the safety switch and it comes right on.

Yes, I followed the directions and ensured the safety key was in place and I held the start button while moving the bar. I'm confident I was doing everything correctly.

 

There is a battery life indicator on the motor that presumably turns green when you insert the batteries, it never came on except to flash red once each time I pulled the bar into place. I found several reviews that mentioned the same problem and DeWalt Service wasn't able to help them.

[bagwell1987]

12 minutes ago, Tortuga said:

Yes, I followed the directions and ensured the safety key was in place and I held the start button while moving the bar. I'm confident I was doing everything correctly.

 

There is a battery life indicator on the motor that presumably turns green when you insert the batteries, it never came on except to flash red once each time I pulled the bar into place. I found several reviews that mentioned the same problem and DeWalt Service wasn't able to help them.

Dang, I've had that happen. Pffft

[Pabo]

If I lived on town block, then I would be going probably with Makita, as my cordless tool platform is Makita. But I would not have enough batteries to do our current lawn, as I have between 9-12 hours worth of mowing with a Honda 21inch self-propelled petrol mower. I cannot use a ride-on (even though we have one), as there are some tight places, and the Honda SP mulches the grass better and also I can catch it as well. I had crunched the numbers and the time difference is negligible if we used a ride-on but I would have to use a trimmer for a lot longer all the places that I cannot get the ride-on in, or just use the SP mower and have very little trimming to do, and get in some great amount of walking too.

 

Check out Project Farm on YouTube, as he does some great testing of stuff like that.

[New World Explorer]

Ego is the one to go, the rest is still catching up to them. 

[Tortuga]

6 hours ago, New World Explorer said:

Ego is the one to go, the rest is still catching up to them. 

The EGO that I looked at looked like a monster. It was huge and complicated looking. I have average suburban yards and I would feel like I was attacking them with a spaceship. I was looking for an average looking mower.

[Friends just call me Ross]

We were going to purchase a zero-turn electric rider.

 

But, after reading the one-star reviews on all of the different brands,

we decided against it.  

 

Too many troubles with bad batteries and bad wiring and, most importantly,

bad or non-existent service and customer relations.

 

There are many sad things about this 'throw away' system of things.

And one of them is that very few workers take pride in their craftsmanship anymore.

 

Greedy corporations give their employees garbage parts, so they make garbage products.

 

It actually astonishes me, nowadays, when something I purchase actually works as it should

and doesn't come broken 'right out of the box'.  

[Qapla]

[Lee49]

7 hours ago, Tortuga said:

I was looking for an average looking mower.

Well, huff & puff with this type! 🤣

[Qapla]

It is good to keep in mind when looking at cordless tools ... Noah built the ark with cordless tools

 

 

[Tortuga]

3 minutes ago, Qapla said:

It is good to keep in mind when looking at cordless tools ... Noah built the ark with cordless tools

Maybe not. He should have had a cord attached to his hammer in case he dropped it from the top floor...🤣

[Qapla]

16 minutes ago, Tortuga said:

He should have had a cord attached to his hammer in case he dropped it from the top floor

 

That's what he had three sons there for ...

 

 

[Tortuga]

37 minutes ago, Qapla said:

 

That's what he had three sons there for ...

 

They were taking care of the one that was hit by the falling hammer...

[bagwell1987]

2 hours ago, Lee49 said:

Well, huff & puff with this type! 🤣

This is what my grandgirl uses to mow her front patch of grass. 

[Pabo]

22 hours ago, Lee49 said:

Well, huff & puff with this type! 🤣

 

I have one of these, and I have a catcher as well.

 

 

It was great for collecting grass clippings to feed the chooks when we had them. Also i had used it mowing the Kingdim Hall until the grass became too thick to mow it with.

 

Best type of mower to use, as it literally cuts the grass leaf without tearing it as what rotary mowers do. But it does take some getting used to.

[daydream]

2 hours ago, Pabo said:

chooks

Chook is an Australian/New Zealand slang term for a chicken.

 

Do or don’t: Feeding your hen grass cuttings

Small handfuls of grass no longer than a couple of inches are safe and healthy enough for your hens, however, anything longer than that is likely to cause problems, making them ill and in extreme cases causing death.

[Qapla]

Here, in portions of the US, they call chickens "Yardbirds" - it was the nickname for jazz musician Charlie Parker ... often shortened to "Bird" ... supposedly due to his eating so many chickens when he traveled playing music.

 

However, as far as I know, Bird never used a battery-operated mower - although he may have used a cordless one like was pictured by Jason.

 

 

Edited May 14, 2023 by Qapla

[bobby]

https://www.facebook.com/reel/946675803021617?s=yWDuG2&fs=e&mibextid=Nif5oz

[Qapla]

Now that is clever!!!

[Pabo]

12 hours ago, Imagine said:

Small handfuls of grass no longer than a couple of inches are safe and healthy enough for your hens

 

I get catch a catcher load per day for a dozen chickens to forage and eat in their pen first thing in the morning and the length of the grass cuttings was only half a inch long.