Cordless lawnmowers advice

Lizard1977:

To close off this thread, I pulled the trigger on the EGO 42cm self-propelled mower. 56V with a 5.0Ah battery. I'm very impressed. It was boxed well, looks like a 60s robot, and has a really sturdy, well-built feel to it. The 9-year old in me gets a thrill from the size/weight of the battery, and the act of slotting it into the top of the mower, and then inserting the safety key, makes me feel like I'm operating a nuclear sub or something like that!

I mowed my whole lawn (~300sqm) with fairly tall grass, using the catcher and the height on the fourth setting, and finished it with one bar of battery left. I then charged it up for 30 mins while I had lunch and lowered it to the second setting and used the mulch plug to finish it off. My plan is to not let it get so long next time, so I think I should easily mow it on a single charge.

It's not as quiet as I hoped - there's a big whoosh/whine when you turn it on, but then I wasn't expecting it to be silent. It's probably a little quieter than an ICE mower, but I still wouldn't mow the lawns at 6am on a Sunday...

The self-propel function is interesting. I used it intermittently (so it's hard to work out how much drain it was on the battery), and it helped a little to get through some thicker stuff, or on the gentle slope at the front of my property. But I noticed that the left rear wheel would lock up occasionally if I wasn't using the drive function. When that happened I gave the drive a little blip and it started moving normally, but I did find it a little annoying. Not sure if it's a fault or a glitch.

Clean up takes a little longer, using a damp cloth rather than blasting it with a hose, but it's probably better long-term care.

All up, I'm very pleased. I feel like I might even be inclined to mow more frequently because it's *almost* fun to use. Now I just have to work out what I want for my redemption bonus - an extra 2.5Ah battery, a line trimmer skin or a hedge trimmer skin. I already have a (cheap, corded) hedge trimmer which I don't need to use very often and works fine (when the blades are sharpened); my petrol powered line trimmer is okay (when the line doesn't disintegrate) though the line feed has never worked properly. I would have automatically gone for the spare battery (it's worth a little more than either of the skins if I was to buy them later on), but getting through my lawns on a single charge makes me think I should grab another skin.

That wheel lock issue is normal - mine does the this too. Could well be intended as a safety feature! If I stop the self drive the wheel always locks from rolling back. You can push it forward to release and it will then happily roll back.

In the weekend I mowed some grass that was over 30cm high. It just monstered it... until the rear discharge shute gets blocked and then the blade area became full and then it can stall. If this mower had a side discharge then this would not be a problem. The safety flap over the rear discharge is just a little too restrictive for a large volume of grass.

Oh, and I have the "powerload" string trimmer which is also a beast. Unlike other trimmers I've had in the past the bump feed works well and the powerload feature means you don't have to disassemble the spool to reload it. No springs popping out! It is a bit heavy with my 7.5Ah batteries but that's all I have. I should get a 2.5Ah for it.

Lizard1977

johno1234

MartinGZ