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The consumer battery market is growing by leaps and bounds, but commercial is definitely reluctant to adopt battery - or maybe it just still hasn't met Pro spec's yet? Too many broken promises about power, durability and run times?

Oregon, the saw chain experts, would love to know.

Those $80 model specific batteries on the smaller machines might have something to do with it?

:welcome:

Welcome to the forum!

I'm going to move this thread over to our Electric & Battery Powered Equipment section.

Hello,

Unless you carried a slew of charged battery packs, how would a commercial guy charge them?

Adding to what tom3 stated, If the electric mower manufacturers adopted a "standardized" battery pack (one that works on various brands), would they sell more units? This would be a good idea for all electric tools. ISO certification.

How safe are they in regards to catching fire? I'd like to have a "warm/Fuzzy", but not if the "warm" was my house going up in flames. I just Googles electric lawnmower fires and 28,000 units sold by Lowes were being recalled, for this reason.


Regards

Jeff

jp1961 said:

How safe are they in regards to catching fire? I'd like to have a "warm/Fuzzy", but not if the "warm" was my house going up in flames. I just Googles electric lawnmower fires and 28,000 units sold by Lowes were being recalled, for this reason.

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Those fires were due to faulty circuit boards, and had nothing to do with the lithium-ion batteries. As far as the batteries catching fire, they do not just spontaneously combust. They have to get really hot before that can happen. Virtually all of them use smart chargers, which sense the battery temperature, and will not charge a battery that is too hot. Once the battery is fully charged, the charger will automatically shut off, to prevent any possible battery damage.

Hello,

Thanks for the clarification, at least now, I can explain to my insurance company, it was a faulty circuit board, not the battery pack itself that burned down my house.

"Virtually" all manufactures use a fail safe charger doesn't cut it for me.

I think electric mowers are tagging along with electric cars, somewhat of a novelty item, until the owners of the first gen electric cars get a bill for 10k for a battery pack. Now they have nice boat anchor.

How long is the warranty on the battery pack on the typical electric lawnmower?

Regards

Jeff

jp1961 said:

Hello,

Thanks for the clarification, at least now, I can explain to my insurance company, it was a faulty circuit board, not the battery pack itself that burned down my house.

"Virtually" all manufactures use a fail safe charger doesn't cut it for me.

I think electric mowers are tagging along with electric cars, somewhat of a novelty item, until the owners of the first gen electric cars get a bill for 10k for a battery pack. Now they have nice boat anchor.

How long is the warranty on the battery pack on the typical electric lawnmower?

Regards

Jeff

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Well, the circuit board problem only occurs when the lawn mower is running, so unless you mow your carpet it won’t burn down your house. It’s a simple matter to determine if a product uses a smart charger, and anything you buy in a store definitely will have this, because stores don’t like getting sued for selling unsafe products. Yes, battery powered lawn mowers are more expensive overall than gas powered, but the reason you do it is for the convenience of no maintenance, easy starting, and the safety of not keeping flammable liquids in your garage. The warranty on lithium-ion batteries is typically 2-3 years, but in my experience they usually last much longer. Some of my batteries are over seven years old and still going strong. I can count on one hand the number of times a battery failed before the warranty expired, and in all cases the manufacturer made good on the warranty.

Dangers of lithium ion batteries

The lithium ion cell manufacturers learned how to build factories that were less vulnerable to a single cell failure. The last few years, however, have seen some high-profile lithium ion safety problems related to specific devices. Each has had serious consequences. For example:

In 2013, following two battery fires, Boeing grounded 48 Dreamliners.
In 2015, over 100 Hoverboard fires were reported. One sadly resulted in the death of a three-year-old girl.
In 2016, Samsung recalled almost 3 million Galaxy Note 7 phones. Seven hundred engineers, 200,000 phones and 30,000 batteries were involved in the investigation. Samsung has an outstanding reputation for quality. This was an unfortunate blemish.
As of the end of 2016, residential payouts for property damage caused by lithium ion batteries in the U.S. had exceeded $2 million.
One of the following can cause safety incidents involving fire or explosion:

A manufacturing defect that lays dormant until the cell is used in a device. This was the case in the Note 7 incident.
Poor design of the battery and/or its integration within the device/charger. This was a key issue in the Boeing incident.
Abuse or misuse of the product. This may be intentional or accidental. A good example is an electronic vehicle catching fire because an object is kicked up from the road and punctures the underside of the battery case. Insurance fraud also fits here.

Source of the above info is from propertycasualty360.com

In my best impersonation of Clint Eastwood,,,,"you feeling lucky?,,,,well are you,,, punk"?

I think I'll stick with gasoline powered equipment, thanks.

Regards
Jeff

jp1961 said:

Dangers of lithium ion batteries.......

I think I'll stick with gasoline powered equipment, thanks.

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Have you ever considered the many dangers associated with the use of gasoline and other volatile flammable and explosive fuels ?

A can of gasoline in a hot garage is far more likely to catch fire or explode than a lithium ion battery.

MowerMike said:

Have you ever considered the many dangers associated with the use of gasoline and other volatile flammable and explosive fuels?

A can of gasoline in a hot garage is far more likely to catch fire or explode than a lithium-ion battery.

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Agreed, but gas isn't going away - too much energy stored in there to walk away from in an industry like landscaping, forestry, agriculture...

But carrying highly flammable liquid around with a messy two-stroke engine a foot from your head doesn't seem the best way to get things done either. Commercial battery appears to be the next thing in mowers. I'm biased, of course.

MowerMike said:

Have you ever considered the many dangers associated with the use of gasoline and other volatile flammable and explosive fuels ?
A can of gasoline in a hot garage is far more likely to catch fire or explode than a lithium ion battery.

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One is 'green', the other is not.
Just like coal, neither are environmental friendly. Never was!

AFA battery powered tools, no, lawnmowers for contractors or 2nd ring suburbanites that have football field lawns, gas is the only practical option, at least for now.
BUT, at least with Ryobi (I haven't looked at the other manufactures) who came out with a 6ah pack last year, now has a 7.5ah 40v pack for their mowers & trimmers. Their mid end model that had a 5ah last year now comes with 6ah at the SAME price.

(Of course they had to do that a year after I bought mine )

Are battery powered equipment "green"? Ultimately they are powered by fossil fuel or possibly nuclear. How efficiently they make use of the energy from the power plant is up for debate but if you want a battery powered tool or piece of equipment for convenience that is fine but if people think they are saving the planet they are just fooling themselves. I love my battery powered tools and my gas powered equipment. When aftermarket companies sell quality aftermarket batteries the battery powered mower market will take off.
My friend has a Nissan Leaf with a dead heater that will cost $2k to fix and the battery pack is starting to fail. He can't give the car away. Dealer doesn't want it as a trade in.

As with all things cordless, the durability and longevity lies on the technology that the manufacturer chooses and in doing so, the cost that is passed along to the consumer. A battery is not to be considered a "fuel" source, but rather a source of "power." Electric-powered motors can outperform fuel-powered engines in means of torque and hp, but both rely and a continuous supply of power or fuel to keep them running continuously. It is simply more convenient to acquire, store and use "fuel" than "power." While all of these are not without some harm to the environment, the electric-powered equipment has one major benefit of being quieter and for the majority of consumers practical.

I drive 500 miles a week and take long trips in a State where there is not infrastructure for on-the-road recharging. I own 3 acres of property which is maintained as a hobby farm and electric-powered equipment would be impractical to use. This is just my situation, but each and every person has to evaluate their needs, wants and equipment options.

As for the equipment being asked about, they are coming a long way! Toro is offering a steel deck Recycler that is no different than their normal recycler with the exception of the power plant. It even includes their Personal Pace self-propelled system. At GIE, Toro also showcased a "commercial" cordless mower that was heavy duty for commercial use.

If you are a commercial lawn care business, you may find that some customers would prefer a contractor that operates electric-power equipment. Whether it be a noise issue or simply the feeling that they get from knowing that their lawn isn't being cut using "fuel." This is obviously more practical on a smaller scale operational.

One of the greatest myths perpertrated by people who are as passionate about as they are ignorant of the environment is that battery power is green.
It is not, never has been and never will be cleaner than burning a fuel.
The energy effiency of an electric motor is substantially higher than a combustion engine but the effiency of the battery is very low and the effiency of the charger is even lower + power losses in the transmission system .
The add to that the batteries that can not be economically recycled are around 2000 % more toxic than anything associated with a combustion engine .
However you can not open the eyes of those fixated on a single item , CO2 , so they happily ignore everything else but CO2 emissions.
Then we have the copper & cobalt problems.
The mining and refining of both of them is again highly dangerous and both produce more toxic waste of a much higher toxicity that anything associated with a petrol engine.
And the amount of both of them is very limited which is why one of the biggest copper miners ( BHP ) is currently doing a lot of touchy feely nice PR advertising because they are about to reopen some really filthy mines that have killed thousands from the toxic waste.
Th only truely green way to cut grass is with a sythe or perhaps a push reel mower and we are way too lazy to do that.
If we really want to be environmentally responsible then we would return all of the millions of acres of grass into heath or scrublands and limit the grass to an area just big enough to provide a space to hand the washing out in the sunlight & for the kids to play on. Doing that alone would be substantially better for the environment than any fancy dancy battery powered anything.

Improving the efficiency of the internal combustion engine or use of alternative fuels will be our salvation!!!!

cleaner electricity like from Thorium salt reactors will go a very long way to cleaning the environment.
They were abandoned in the 60's because they did not produce waste Plutonium which of course could only be used to make atomic weapons .
we can do clean engines and these use Hydrogen as the fuel so produce only water as the exhaust .
The hydrogen can be distilled from the atmosphere using direct solar power.
The only real technical snag is the safe transportation & distribution of Hydrogen .
All the other problems are political & financial .
However batteries have captured the imagination of the public so batteries is what is being demanded so batteries is what we will get.

Getting off topic but the ultimate solution is to stop making garbage that ends up in landfill.
Thus everything must have a long service life and then when no longer useable must be able to be broken down into the base materials for reuse or recycling.
The opposition to that is purely financial coming from the directors & shareholders who make the stuff we throw away .
For the mower companies they make more money by selling you a new cheap ( low profit margin ) mower every 5 years than selling you an expensive ( Higher profit margin ) mower then parts for the mower for the next 30 years.
To the customer the end cost is almost the same a new cheap mower every 5 years or a much more expensive mower to start with and regular servicing for the next 30 years.
The main difference is whose pockets the money ends up in and those who control the system have decided they want it all so it is junk all the way .

bertsmobile1 said:

Getting off topic but the ultimate solution is to stop making garbage that ends up in landfill.
.

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I'll stay off topic a bit. I remember as a kid going to a place just out of town. Big gulch, maybe 60 acres, real deep. Us kids spent many days on our old Hondas hill climbing, ridge running, tearing up stuff, getting filthy dirty, having a ball. Turned into a landfill. Today the whole area is sort of a mound, completely full of garbage and covered with some dirt. Hate to think of all the rotting stuff, chemicals, paints and thinners, industrial disposal products that are leaching into the ground in that place. Maybe a million tons of it? And this is just one little forgotten spot on the whole earth.

Yes we have done things exactly the wrong way.
Nature can generally handle any pollutant in small quantities, break them down & carry on .
We "smart" humans decided to combine it all into massive heaps so big , nature will take thousands of years to break it all down if it actually can.
But of course , like moving the homeless on from pretty parks, out of sight is out of mind & f you can not see it ti does not exist.

I was thinking a bit about this thread as I like the "idea" of battery powered equipment while it is not practical in my current situation. In my immediately family there are at least 7 household where cordless equipment is not only possible but practical. In fact, I would think that if they utilized equipment with 7.5 Ah batteries they could mow, trim and blow their lot on a single charge.

Now, while all of these people already own gas powered and corded electric tools, I would not expect nor encourage them to "toss" their old equipment. All machines should ideally be used until they can no longer be repaired. Any new, first time homeowner, as with any other person in the position of needing a new piece of equipment, can then decide which option is best for them.

In today's day and age, consumers have to realize that products are built utilizing a cost/quality/feature "model". You pay more for more features and for higher quality. You sacrifice features and quality for a lower cost. Very rarely do you find that you get high quality, feature rich products at a low cost. If you can find a balance of the three.

As for the original question about these new mowers the best that you can do is 1) comparison shop all options that fit your needs and wants, 2) sit back and wait for others to report their reviews, and 3) check with your local dealer to see if you can demo the equipment to see if the equipment meets your expectations, considering cost/quality/features.

I think that says it all!

Remember when Makita came out with the 9.6v battery powered drill? I still have one. It was a game changer. Now we has battery powered tools that will out work corded tools. I have a DeWalt 60v circular saw that is awesome. As long as there is a market the manufacturers continue to develop battery powered equipment and they will get better and better. If a battery powered piece of equipment suits your needs then go for it. If gas powered equipment suits your needs then go for it. Just don't be that i'm saving the world tree hugging self righteous Prius driving smug jerk that looks down at people like me with 30+ things with a gas engine on it. Oh wait.....that kinda sounded like a rant.

Awye hammer don't be a spoil sport.
Nothing is more fun than baiting one of the ignorant, passionates then destroying their self ritchious beliefs by quoting facts to them.
I use a lot of 2 stroke mowers and have a mile of fun showning them that the 2 stroke is responsible for less than 1/3 the pollution of a 4 stroke over the same operating life.
Even more fun is the vegans who have no idea about the nutrient cycle or the specific water requirements of different food crops .
So the first bit is asking them where the Phos is going to come fraom and ifthey would be happy eating plants grown in their own poo ( most turn green at that thought ) .
Best fun was a friend who is a broad acre farmer listening to a city living Vegan telling the assembled crowd that we could convert all of our range lands into vegetable gardens .
He pulled the $ 5000 he had in his pocket put it at the speaker feet the told him he could have the money if he could name a single human food crop that would grow with only 5" of rain rain a year , From the crowd I kept on yelling out names of popular vegan foods and watched the face of the vegan become more & more distressed as the agronomist also on the stage pratteled off the water requirements. Eventually in agony the vegar ran off the stage crying his eyes out.
Best days free fun I have had in years.