Lawnmowing: manual and electric powered

Thanks for the tips. I used the Scotts for about 40 minutes yesterday doing about half of my lawn. I still need to use the tractor to the the back because it's so big. The downside is that the Scotts doesn't cut nearly as cleanly as the rotary tractor does, it does miss a few spots. But I still like it for the front yard and around all the obstacles. I just hate using the tractor where 1/2 the time I'm actually just manauvering and not cutting. The large section of my back yard only takes 20 minutes with the tractor, so it's not bad. Our grass grows so fast back there it's crazy.

I think I have the Scotts set right, the blades touch, but there isn't much resistance. It's definitely a workout (comparable to pushing a heavy rotary ICE), but it's enjoyable with less much less noise and clean air.
 
The Scott's reel mower has been doing quite well now, I think I have the blade set perfect.

Today, something amazing happened.

I pulled out the reel mower and showed my mom how to use it. She took it from me and spent the next half hour finishing up the rest of the lawn. It was pretty clear that she instantly got addicted to it. This is a person who has had many arguments with me in the past about the idea of her using a reel mower. I converted her. :D

Next up, is my dad. Last time I talked to him he said he thought of getting an electric mower for the grass at his permanent campsite, which is VERY little grass. Of course, I know he succumbed to a ridiculously overpowered, wasteful, polluting ICE mower. Next time he comes by the house here, I'm going to have him try the reel mower.

As far as I can tell, the reel mower is king of small lawn cutting, all things considered.

BTW, I did use my corded Black and Decker rotary mower on the super tall 12" grass we had let overgrow. It chewed clean right through it, going forward then back once.

Still need to take apart the battery electric mower.
 
Those reel mowers are kinda addicting. I loved mine for the small yard of short grass I used to have. But it never was the same with the tall common bermuda lawn I have now. It was real nice at the old place, to go out right about sunset every day, and just do 2 minuites with the mower. It would get all of it three times a week, and looking like a putting green. It was putting green type grass after all. Great croquet green.

I'm loving my battery B&D, 24v, now that I put a wire onto it so I can paralell some nicads in with those lame sla's. Next summer I'll dump the sla's altogether. Just had to get one season out of em before I dump em.

Wish I'd held out for a 36v one though now.

Anybody know if I could just run that 24v one on 36v? I got a 36v ping that I'd love to replace those sla's with! I know the onboard charger wouldn't work, but is there any other electronics on it that couldn't hack 45v ? All I can see is stuff that looks like a charger, and some switches. Tyler?

Or could it take 33v? as in 8s lipo? That would work too for a lighter mower.
 
dogman said:
Anybody know if I could just run that 24v one on 36v? I got a 36v ping that I'd love to replace those sla's with! I know the onboard charger wouldn't work, but is there any other electronics on it that couldn't hack 45v ? All I can see is stuff that looks like a charger, and some switches. Tyler?
Click to expand...
Besides the charging circuitry, the internal board also has a 40A "short-stop" self-resetting breaker and some electro-mechanism to inhibit the start lever until the breaker resets. That's prolly about it.

You are most likely gonna bypass the whole board, so I don't see a problem... other than the blade spinning really fast. :twisted:
 
That's great there is an electric option for ride on mowers. I wonder what battery it uses, and the total cost?

I opened up the 24v battery mower. I saw a 50v on a capacitor or something. So I bet I could run my 36v fatpacks on it. The SLAs are dead, won't charge. I don't want to spend $80 replacing them, since I don't really need it and might not even be staying here through next year. But if I did start a lawn business, I would need it for occasional cutting - the first cut for a customer who has long grass, before I could use a reel mower.

I really love the power and lightweight of the corded mower though. I got skilled at maneuvering with the cord so it's not a big deal. The problem is I can't go further than 75ft with it, and I don't think it's good to use more than 75 or 100 ft of cord?
 
The rule of thumb with power tools on construction sites was always that the last 50' of cord could be 16 guage, but any more would have to be 12 guage cord.
If you must go further than 100' of cord, then as much of it as possible should be as big as possible. About 150' of cord is close to the max before you really start having the voltage drop to the point whrere motor performance is noticeably affected.

So a 100' 12 guage cord would be good, and a little more of lighter guage that you already have could be added when really needed. I have been using my plug in mower with about 80' of 16 guage and it seems to have plenty of power.

Thanks for the info Tyler. My mower seems to do ok when I run it with batteries with less sag. The sla's suck, and are only good for thin grass. When I add a paralell 8 ah nicad it runs fine, and only bogs on the thickest spots where I water the heck out of some oak trees that shade my west side. I'm going to try 16 ah of nicads next, and ditch the weight of the sla's. But since I have finally piled up some substantial lipo, I wondered if I could get away with 10s. (42v) A light mower would be a joy. I'm sure it could handle 8s (33v) but I only have 5 ah of that. The best bet long term might be to get some more of the 4s blocks, or some 3s blocks to go with my 5 s ones. I also have this 36v ping that could mow about 10 yards on a charge. It has about 400 cycles left on it. So about 13 years of mowing left on that battery if I used it. :mrgreen:

Comparing the two mowers, one corded and the other not, Both perform just about the same when the battery one is fresh charged. But with Sla's of course, that only lasts about 50' of cutting before it gets worse and worse and worse. I figure if I started out with more volts, and had less sag, the battery mower would perform every bit as good as the corded one. I'm sure the motor is identical in the 36v model they sell this year, but I don't want to fry something in the switches. Of course, push to shove, I could just run wires straight to the motor, and use andersons for a switch. But it is nice to have the automatic shutoff, etc.
 
I just got through with an experiment, putting the 36v ping battery on the 24v B&D mower. It really wails! :twisted: Perhaps to the point where it's dangerous. I don't doubt for a minuite that I could melt down the motor. But it sure has some power! Muahhhaahaahaa. But it did not fry in 5 min of mowing, and sure whipped through my thickest patch of grass on the shortest mow setting with no effort at all. So I know what to do when I really need to cut some thick stuff.

On the other hand, when I put a 24v nicad pack back on it, It blew the nicad packs 25 amp fuse in a heartbeat. So the amp load of this thing is less than the 40 amp breaker inside the mower, but well above the 25 amp fuse. So 30-35 amps perhaps? Gee, no wonder a 24v 17 ah sla sagged like mad.

So it looks like to use the nicads I need to paralell my packs and use both, so each pack draws less than 25 amps. And pulling 30+ amps from a V1 ping would be foolish as hell.

What I did to do the actual modification was look at the circuits a bit. It's in two pieces, one piece is obviously the charger. Pulling the two wires that connect it to the other piece, I found the mower still ran. Bingo! Clearly one piece is the charger, and the other is just the on off switch. And there is no controller at all! Another no brainer that the mower was murdering those sla's. When I hit some thick grass, I bet that motor was really pulling some amps!

So it looks to me like the best modification I could make would be to put a brushed controller on it of about 20 amps, with a throttle, and set the blade speed to a safe level with the throttle. Then run it on my 36v ping.

For now, I'll just run it on the 24v 16 ah nicads for the rest of the season. I'm tired of those sla's sagging after just a few minuites of mowing. With two packs of nicad paralelled, it shouldn't be blowing any fuses.
 
The 24v 16 ah nicad setup works great, less sag than the sla's, a bit lighter, and I rigged it so I easily remove the battery to charge it. The two things I loathed about the sla set up was you had to recharge immediately, and often needed to do it when it was about 105F out there. So even finding shade by a plug was not easy at my house. If I brought it into the garage, the car had to sit in the sun. Often I had the charger running when the thing was sitting in the blazing sun. Now I can bring the batts inside, let em cool off, and charge whenever.

But to really make that 24v mower work nice, the thing to do is 7s or 8s lipo. :mrgreen: I just did the front yard on a 5 ah 8s pack, 33v or so, and boy does it mow sweet at that voltage. Not so scary as 44v with the ping. And a few amp spikes won't bother 30c lipo much. The mower is soooo light and easy to push with a 4 pound battery in it instead of a 20 pounder.
 
Seemed like a dangerously fast blade speed to me at 10s, or the 36v ping. Both are about 42v. If a chunk of blade broke off at really high speed, it could get tossed right through a cinderblock wall. Even 8s seems pretty hot. I'm thinking maybe buy a couple 3s lipos by next summer, and run 7s on the thing. 7s would still be 29.4v, just a volt or two higher than the nicads, but without the voltage sag of the nicads. Or perhaps just run the nicads next summer, and break out 8s lipo when I forget to mow too long and have a thick tall cut to do. I think for sure, 8s is all you could need on this 24v B&D mower.
 
I too look at the whole mowing situation as if people around me are crazy- breathing all that crap and going deaf is not my definition of leisurely evening. I tried reel mowers first- was Ok-ish, but my grass being a mix of tall weeds and anything else that feels like growing there made it quite a workout. So I got a used Yardworks 24V SLA model off ebay for like $100. That worked reasonably well for the first few years, then one of the SLAs vented and stopped holding charge. That's when I got off my rear end and made it into an 8S Headway powered beast.
(See http://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=18803)
The mower originally had a 24V motor, a power switch with a key and a brake (basically shorting motor whenever you turn things off to prevent freewheeling), and a 24V charger. I replaced the charger with a piece of wood holding a box with my own BMS, and use an off board 5A Headway charger after each use. I find that for my 0.25Acre the 8S1P pack (10AH nominal) holds up well, no longer stalling in tall grass etc. Best part is the weight-the whole thing is very light , when you take out 25 Lbs of lead and put in 6lbs of LiFe;) It also takes very little time to charge with a 5A charger. No more of these 24 hours charges ..
It's been in use since last May, typically used for an hour, then charged and left till next weekend. I'd estimate 20-30 cycles so far . Next step is to add WhatsUp or a similar AmpHour counter to know how much I use each time
 
I'm glad I'm not the only one who hates ICE lawn maintenance!

I actually like using my Scotts reel mower so much that I am about to start a little business (seriously need a job), marketing it as a green lawn cutting service. I need to get a battery electric trimmer first though. I also need to get one of those leaf sweeper carts because fall is big time leaf cleanup here in CT.

That sounds like a pretty serious mower you built, I bet there aren't many out there with anything like what you have. :lol:
 
I've been pretty happy with my B&D battery trimmer too, in the 24v nicad version rather than the 18v lithium. The batteries do wear out pretty fast, but the way the terminals are on the thing, it would be easy to hook up a couple wires, and just run it on a belt pack of lipo for longer use. But I find two of the nicad batteries still gets me pretty far, trimming the common areas of 67 condos at work. At home, just one battery works fine. I do lots of the edging with roundup though, so I don't have to edge every inch.
 
Sold the ICE push mower. Good riddance. I let the lady start it up before she bought it, and damn that SOB stinks like hell and is deafening. I'm sure new ICE mowers are considerably better, but still quite dirty. I was getting annoyed at the ICE because it stunk the shed up where I do all my drilling on my ebike projects. Those gas fumes couldn't be good to be breathing in.

Unfortunetely, the lady said she was buying it for her neighboor who uses a reel mower. I guess she felt her neighbor was struggling and wanted a gas mower? I even showed her my Scotts mower, lol, she seemed confused but didn't question me. I hate to think my old ICE is going to replace a reel mower for someone, but if she didn't buy my ICE, she would of bought someone else's, and I really wanted to get that thing out of here and no one else wanted it. Maybe she was using an old reel mower, the new ones work great, like:

I've been having a good time using the Scotts reel mower. I love it, especially when I feel sluggish from sitting around too much. I did this other large section of the lawn the other day with it, where I normally use the tractor. I do dread using the tractor, I need to get earmuffs and eye protection and I already use my pollution mask. What a joke.

I'm wanting to get the battery rotary mower going (it has a bagger for picking up leaves), but need battery for it. I'm thinking of buying some lipo, but the 5 or 6s packs won't work well with the 24v mower. Well, maybe the 6s pack might?
 
7s ought to be perfect for it. A 4 and a 3 in series. 8 s if it's usually very thick.
 
Well I want to use my future ebike battery for the mower, to cut costs. I won't use the mower that often, so it'd be great to just use whatever I have for my ebike. I'm thinking of running either 10s or 12s (5 or 6s packs) for the ebike.

The mower really only needs to pick up the leaves, not cut tall grass. I have the corded mower for that, or the tractor.

I'm just not sure if the controller on the 24v mower will allow 23volts if 6s, or even 19v if 5s....
 
There is no controller. The electronics inside is in two sections. One side is an sla 24v charger. The other section is just a safetey switch, blade brake and a 40 amp fuse.

No controller, so no wonder it can hammer the dog doo doo out of a battery. Hit some really thick grass and it will pull a lot of amps. But on lipo there won't be much sag. Mine ran great on 5 ah of 8s. but the blade spins a bit fast. You can buy some 5s or 6s packs for the bike, and then a couple more 1s or 2s packs would be all you need for a nice 7s mower battery.

I happened to have some 4s packs, because I found 14s to be just right for my 36v Ebikekit controllers to run 48v. 15s was just a tad too high with 62v hot off the charger. But 12s is a good voltage for running controllers that are designed for 36-48v. So 4 6s packs for the bike would be good, and occasionally for a steep hill, the 1s packs would come in handy so you could run a 14s bike pack.
 
I was gifted a reel mower and love it. It was a bit used when I received it, so it wasn't working top notch. I had to sharpen the blade but after that it was working great. The only downside to it, when the lawn grows fairly long (half way to the knee or so) the mower can't get through it reasonably and i have to borrow the neighbor's ICE. So don't let your lawn grow long and you will be fine. I couldn't stand all the people in my neighborhood with huge ICE (some even have riding mowers) for their tiny lawns. It takes me maybe 15 minutes to cut the front and back. It takes the blokes with the riding lawn mowers the same amount of time and more money. Some people are just crazy.
 
Dogman wrote:I've been pretty happy with my B&D battery trimmer too, in the 24v nicad version rather than the 18v lithium. The batteries do wear out pretty fast, but the way the terminals are on the thing, it would be easy to hook up a couple wires, and just run it on a belt pack of lipo for longer use.
Click to expand...
I hooked up my 5s 4400 lipo pack to my Black and Decker saw and it works great! A little faster than 18v nicads, but not much. 8) 8)
 
I'm revisiting lawn mowing.

Reel mowers: (Scott's Classic) - works reasonably well on short lawns that aren't super dense thick grass. I've been using it to cut a friend's lawn which is very lush and thick blade grass - I have to go over it 3 times to get a clean cut. That's not acceptable, since the lawn is large enough that it takes me over an hour of intense work to complete.

I have a 24v B&D rotary mower that uses 17ah SLAs I'm pretty sure. It seems to get weak after 15 minutes of cutting normal or heavy grass, though the battery capacity indicated LEDs say otherwise (full). I'm looking to run 5 or 6s lipo packs (10ah) to allow me cut a full lawn at once. I wonder if 5s would be two slow to cut well. I don't want to add 2 more 1 or 2s packs in series, it will be too complicated. Though buying 5s packs would be better for my ebike needs at the moment.

This mower is wicked heavy with the SLAs though, makes putting it in my trunk a chore.

That reel mower can be a SERIOUS workout if you got a decent sized lawn and it's thick/tall. And I'm an 'endurance athlete', I was trashed for a few hours after doing it the past two times in the heat.
 
Get the 6s for a thick lawn, or even 7s for a super thick one. I'm using 5s right now since it's spring and the lawn is very skimpy. When/ if/ the summer rains come, the lawn will get thick and then I'll go to 6s 15 ah.

The mower is crazy light now that it's on lipo. A real joy to push around the lawn. You inspired me to sharpen up my old reel mower last year, but it was only suitable in the spring when the lawn was thin. By 4th of july it was just not cutting well.
 
Yo dogman - I'm thinking the same thing - 6s lipo - because it's super easy to handle.... one cell log... and when you need more run time just throw in another parallel 6s 5a group. Perhaps this would be a good opportunity to take advantage of the nano-tech's higher nominal voltage - ~3.9v-4v?

I see the B&D is rated at 1200watts. What sort of run time are you getting? Have you thought of hooking a watts up meter to it just for fun :D
 
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