Electric lawn Mowers - who uses them ?

After reading all the posts I decided on a Kobalt 40 volt model KM2040X-06 from Lowes for $349. Warranty and having two batteries were the deciding factors for me.

After one month of use I am pleased with the mower with one exception. With the grass catcher on the mower it can become quite heavy and hard to push. The mower cuts the grass very fine so the catcher holds a lot of grass. The little flap on the top of the catcher is a nice touch in letting you know when the catcher has reached capacity. No more guessing on when it is full.

As for run time I am able to cut my small front and back yards using just the 4ah battery. I do switch batteries occasionally to use the 2ah battery first. Depending on height and moisture content I can sometimes finish just using the 2ah battery but most times it switches to the 4ah just before finishing.

On a side note, Sear's just reduced their identical Craftsman mower to $249 on clearance.

This is my second summer using the EGO 56V Lithium Mower from Home Depot. It's now $399.99. It has a 4.5 out of 5 customer rating with over 1,000 reviews.
http://www.homedepot.com/p/EGO-20-in-56-Volt-Lithium-ion-3-in-1-Cordless-Lawn-Mower-LM2001/204746234



To avoid the heat, I usually mow late in the day as the sun is going down and can finish using the LED light in the front. (The mower has headlights!)
The mower lasts 45 minutes and the battery recharges in about 30 minutes. (After mowing for 45 minutes I need to take a break anyway.)

Mowing the lawn is good exercise, and using an electric lawn mower means I don't have to breathe in the exhaust from the gas engine. Since electric lawn mowers are quieter, I can also listen to music through my earbuds while mowing.

I've used my Craftsman mower a few times (Bought it during a month-long rain, now we haven't had rain for a month and the grass is dead :roll. I can get 15-20 minutes per battery (40 volt max, 2.5 Ah). The problem is that the mower pulls so much power that these little batteries get quite warm, and the charger refuses to charge them until they drop to room temperature. I bought a lithium ion charger/balancer and am slowly making progress at building my own battery out of old laptop batteries. I estimate that I should be able to get an hour of mowing on a charge, and the cells shouldn't get as hot (less amps per cell).

It's actually quieter than my cordless string trimmer, quiet enough that I can have music playing on the speaker of my phone and be able to hear it just fine with my phone in my pocket.

Works great, but I don't have much grass to cut. Been very dry here lately.
I have one tiny patch of tall weeds and loved how it ramped up the blade to cut threw it all.

Last June I also bought a Kobalt Lawnmower when on sale for $299. It’s the newest model --- KM2140-06. I still don’t see it listed on Lowe’s website. It uses one 40V 5AHr battery. This 19” unit has gone through a lot of improvement over the last 2 years. My house is on a 0.2 acre lot and it mowes it all on one charge. And then I mow part of the empty lot next door to keep the weeds from flowering. I’ve used it almost 20x so far and I’m impressed. For 17 years I used a corded Earthwise mower. But it’s nice not having a cord. It used to take me 1 hr to mow, and now it takes me 30 minutes in my yard and 15 minutes with the weeds in the next lot. I mulched grass all my life so I ditched (stored) the grass catcher it comes with.

And then I’m shocked how quiet the Kobalt is. I can hear my wife talk to me and she’s a quiet lady.

It has a plastic deck with a nice smooth finish. I always check underneath after each mow and no grass is sticking.
I gave my corded mower to my daughter as she was just struggling pull starting hers.

tigger19687 said:

...Only thing I see is that the cord was a little crimped. Hopefully it will not have an issue. Will let you know how it is tomorrow after I do the yard.

Click to expand...

Are you talking about the charger cord? Or the pushbutton cord on the handle?

Bottom line, the Kobalt KM2140-06 does very well. No stalling. This newest model appears to have fixed all past weaknesses.

It’s nice having all my car, lawn mower, and weed trimmer charged via our city’s hydro power.

-Barry
-electric is fun

The cord that runs from the push button to the motor.
I have the same one you do BarryP, they are trying to get rid of the older model

tigger19687 said:

The cord that runs from the push button to the motor.
I have the same one you do BarryP, they are trying to get rid of the older model

Click to expand...

So did it get crimped in the box packaging?

There's no older model in our store. It appears your link is advertising the KM1940 model.
I have the newer KM2140.
-Barry

It must have gotten crimped in the store. It works fine I am just going to be very careful with it if I have to fold the whole handle for Winter storage.

I have the 19" 1 blade model. The 'New' one has the 2 blades, and I didn't want that.. not sure why.
The only other model available is the corded one 19" blade.

Fully charged video comparing 'petrol' vs electric lawnmowers:

http://youtu.be/AFPRvfNW-Qs

I'd like one of these bikes as it uses the same battery as my lawnmower:

Used the Kobalt to take out the leaves in the yard. Did ok, Didn't really chop them up too much.
But it did a decent job and will continue till the leaves are all gone.
I do have a Corded Work blower and leave mulcher. Works great and hold a ton of leaf bits in the bag.
I will probably have to use it on the pile I have from the mower to make it smaller and toss it to the dump.
I just filled up the compost bin ( that 3.5 feet tall and 4 feet sq) So there is no more room to put anything in there.

Mine does sound a little... chinsey, cheap as it goes over my bumpy yard. But I still love it !

No lawnmowers or snowblowers needed in our backyard:

It's almost time to think about mowing again in my area. I was planning on building a custom battery pack for my mower to give me an hour of runtime per charge, but depending on if I can recover the dead pair of cells in the hoverboard battery I'm working on, I may just use that pack. It's already 36 volt nominal and contains 162 Wh. The stock mower battery is 90 Wh, so if I run them in parallel, I should get a runtime of 56 minutes, maybe a bit more since voltage sag will be less (each cell would be outputting less amps than if each pack was run separately).

That sounds like a fun project.
I would start a new thread and ad Pics so we can see how it goes.

I am hopefully buying a house this year, so I don't have much umph to do the lawn at this rental