New Kobalt 80V Max Line

[1 Lucky Texan]

man, you got this stuff down - thanx

 

[dougmacm]

Now that I've got the 80V Kobalt 22" Snow Thrower w/ 5Ah Battery & charger, I'm thinking of picking up a blower so my battery gets year round usage.

My most powerful cordless blower I have now is a Greenworks 40V 24322 (185 MPH / 340 CFM) and would like a more powerful brushless Jet Blower so getting an 80V Kobalt makes sense.

Can get the old model KHB 40B (125 MPH / 500 CFM) on ebay brand new for $94.99
or
Can get the current model (140 MPH / 630 CFM) at Lowes w/ 2.5Ah Bat & Compact Charger for $198.50 (w/tax) thru 5/29.

$103.51 more sounds like a good deal for a battery & 2nd charger.

Best price I see on e-bay currently for a NEW 2.5 Ah battery is $84.99 and NEW Chargers can be had for $30 (either std. or compact).

So about $10 less getting brand new and more powerful with warranty from Lowes vs. claimed as new or open box from 3 different ebay sellers and likely no warranty.

Don't really "need" a 2nd battery & charger though, so I just got to decide if I want to spend the extra $104.

Doug

 

[1 Lucky Texan]

Now that I've got the 80V Kobalt 22" Snow Thrower w/ 5Ah Battery & charger, I'm thinking of picking up a blower so my battery gets year round usage.

My most powerful cordless blower I have now is a Greenworks 40V 24322 (185 MPH / 340 CFM) and would like a more powerful brushless Jet Blower so getting an 80V Kobalt makes sense.

Can get the old model KHB 40B (125 MPH / 500 CFM) on ebay brand new for $94.99
or
Can get the current model (140 MPH / 630 CFM) at Lowes w/ 2.5Ah Bat & Compact Charger for $198.50 (w/tax) thru 5/29.

$103.51 more sounds like a good deal for a battery & 2nd charger.

Best price I see on e-bay currently for a NEW 2.5 Ah battery is $84.99 and NEW Chargers can be had for $30 (either std. or compact).

So about $10 less getting brand new and more powerful with warranty from Lowes vs. claimed as new or open box from 3 different ebay sellers and likely no warranty.

Don't really "need" a 2nd battery & charger though, so I just got to decide if I want to spend the extra $104.



Doug

Wonder how Kobalt handles returned items? like cpooutlets or the Amazon Warehouse type stuff. You might find one that's missing original packaging or missing its manual or w'ever for a reduced price,

 

[dougmacm]

Wonder how Kobalt handles returned items? like cpooutlets or the Amazon Warehouse type stuff. You might find one that's missing original packaging or missing its manual or w'ever for a reduced price,

CPO does not handle Kobalt and I've never seen a similar site that does; also no one on ebay selling Kobalt appears to be a CPO type place either ... have no clue what they do with their returns.

Being the last day of the sale, I did order up a KHB 2580-06 Blower Kit this morning and will pick up at my local Lowe's on my way home tonight.

Doug

 

[dougmacm]

Used the 80V Kobalt Blower yesterday after cutting grass & trimming. Have had a lot of rain lately so had a lot of tree crap to blow off side walks & street along with the usual grass from mulching.

Definitely heaver than my other two (Ryobi 18V P2180 Jet Blower & GW 40V 24322 Blower/Vac) but it is well balanced with the 2.5Ah battery and with all it's power and air volume just made the task so much quicker than the other two … as I hoped / assumed it would.

After all the blowing that I did, I still had 1 bar lit on the 2.5Ah battery so somewhere below 35% charge left. This amount of blowing would have easily used up a whole 18V Ryobi or GW 40V 4Ah battery.

Kobalt Specs: 140 MPH / 630 CFM
GW 24322 …. 185 MPH / 340 CFM
Ryobi P2180: 100 MPH / 280 CFM

Definitely glad I bought the "KIT" with the 2.5Ah battery as it is about 3.25 lbs. vs. 6 lbs. for the 5Ah. The 5Ah battery is same cross section, just 1-3/4" longer which kinda screws up the balance. I'll still run it with that battery every few weeks just so it gets used during the other three seasons.

Doug

 

[dougmacm]

Now some real world spec comparisons:

KHB-2580-06 Blower Manual states 5.84. lbs w/o battery and Lowes site states 8.9 lbs. w/ battery (same as old model that came with 2.0Ah battery) … and Battery Manual states 5Ah and 6Ah are both 5.50 lbs. so I wanted to see what actual weights are.

So I brought the blower & batteries to work this AM to put on UPS Scale to get actual weights.

5.88 lbs. Blower Alone (manual 5.84 close enough)
3.28 lbs. 2.5Ah Battery (don't remember what manual stated)
5.56 lbs. 5.0Ah Battery (manual 5.50 close enough, but doubt 6Ah is exactly the same as the manual states)

9.16 lbs. Blower w/ 2.5Ah Battery (vs. 8.9 on Lowes site)

This is still pretty decent considering the performance difference vs. my other two blowers mentioned in post above.

Only 3.2% Heavier than GW 24322 (8.8 lbs. w/ 4Ah) but has 85% more CFM.
The GW puts out 32% more MPH, but that is to be expected because it is a small nozzle non-Jet Fan type blower.

And 48% Heavier than Ryobi P2180 (6.18 lbs. w 4Ah) but 40% more MPH and 125% more CFM.

There are 4 GAS blowers sold at Lowes and all can beat the 140 MPH air speed of this 80V Kobalt
(range between 170-205 MPH)
… but none can touch the 630 CFM volume
(range between 441-470 CFM)
I'm sure there are better GAS blowers out there that Lowes does not sell that can beat both air speed AND volume, I just did not search them out.

Only found ONE review of this Kobalt 80V Blower and it could have been treated better ...
https://www.leafblowerguide.com/blowers/kobalt/80v-khb-2580-06/
… said there was a TORO F700 51624 blower that put out more CFM but when I looked it up come to find it is a 12 Amp CORDED blower which is NOT a fair comparison as it is NOT the same category. The TORO is lighter too at 6.6 lbs., but again an unfair comparison since it does not have a battery adding to it's weight. Add the weight of dragging around a 100 ft. 12-3 cord and weight load on the user's arm may be closer or more than the Kobalt's 9.16 lbs.

This looks like one of those sites that only compares specs and does no actual testing, so need to wait for real reviews.

Doug

 

[PatrickLBG]

Hi Doug.
I'm in charge of the above-mentioned website.
I do agree with you that comparing cordless and corded blowers was totally unfair. It was due to a bug on our side ,which has now been fixed.
And yes, as you rightfully mentioned, we only compare the specs for the following reasons:
1) It would be absolutely impossible to individually test close to 300 products
2) This prevents us from having a bias for/against any specific product or brand. Many "Review" sites get products for free in exchange for a review that will obviously tend to be more towards the positive side. We do not conduct such practice and every product or brand on our website is treated the exact same way. Yes it could lead to inaccuracies, as we all know that all manufacturers tend to exaggerate their product specs.

Thank you again for this remark as it helps us offering more accurate comparisons.
Don't hesitate to let us know if you have further remarks or suggestions for improvements.

Best,
Patrick

 

[dougmacm]

Was bored today and looking thru treads here and realized I never posted a review of the Kobalt 80V 21" Self Propelled Mower that I bought in July 2020.

I did mention the purchase and discussed using it in post 3 of this thread:

Snapper xd 82v blade speed

I had been considering a battery powered mower for some time and my wife surprised me with a snapper xd for Christmas. When mowing season came around I noticed there was two problems with its design. The snapper xd has "load sensing" and adjusts the blade speed based on the thickness of your...

www.lawnmowerforum.com

... but never posted an actual review that I can find.

So, better late than never ...

Kobalt KMP 6080-06 80V 21" Self Propelled Lawnmower review:

It came with the 6Ah battery, Fast Charger, Rear Bagger, Mulch Plug, and Side Discharge Chute and I paid $473.50 before tax.

Having been used to a bail lever for self propel function on Lawn-Boy's my whole adult life as well as a Greenworks 40V MO40L02 that I bought in August of 2018 I did not know if I was going to like the thumb actuated SP lever on the Kobalt. Well, this ended up being a non-issue as my hands & brain adapted to this configuration without much effort.

The Greenworks MO40L02 is basically the same mower as the Kobalt just 40V instead of 80V and with a normal SP bail lever ... both are a 21" deck with a 20" cutting width. The GW will typically do my whole 15K sq-ft. lawn on (3) 4Ah (146Wh) batteries where this Kobalt can do it all on ONE 6Ah (432Wh) ... this all dependent on grass length / thickness and whether MULCHING or BAGGING.
40V: 3x146Wh = 438Wh
vs.
80V = 436Wh
Pretty mush a wash as far as power consumed doing the job.

Self Propel Speed Closely matches Kobalt Specs and is fast enough for my normal cutting pace:
MAX SPEED with fully charged 2.5Ah Battery (81.8V) 200FT in 42-43 Seconds = 3.17-3.25 MPH (per manual = 4.44 FPS = 3.03 MPH)
and
MAX SPEED with 1/2 discharged 6Ah Battery (72.6V) 200FT in 47-48 Seconds = 2.84-2.90 MPH

The 40V Greenworks self-propel speed is similar, so no benefit to 80V here.

Compare to the Lawn-Boy 10525 in 3rd Gear that I'm used to ...
(3260 RPM at no load): 200FT in 35-36 Seconds = 5.71-5.56 Ft-Sec = 3.83-3.78 MPH (Per manual = 3.8 MPH @ 3000 RPM)


Where the 80V excels is running the Greenworks HD Blade (2908902) that has more lift and offers a better cut. Problem is, it appears this blade may have been discontinued. I ran this blade two weeks in a row and bagged both times:

First week the grass was not too long in that it ran at the normal 2800 RPM and never kicked up to high speed however it did deplete the battery faster than the standard blade. I was running at cutting height # 3 (2-1/8").

Second week I again ran at cutting height # 3 and grass was really long and thick and mower kicked in & out of high speed mode.
I had also bought a generic 6Ah HYG brand 6Ah battery off of e-bay from Battery World ($147.00) and this was it's first test run.

I ran the 6Ah HYG Generic battery 1st and it lasted 27.6 minutes ... the Genuine Kobalt 6Ah went in 2nd and lasted 33.6 minutes. The HYG was fully recharged by the time the Kobalt decided it was done so the HYG went back in and had 2 bars left (1/2 charge) after the final 11 minutes.
Kobalt claims their 6Ah battery should take 180 minutes to charge, so it is hard to believe this HYG battery is a true 6Ah as I'd guess it was fully re-charged in about an hour. Based on the run time's I recorded, the HYG lasted 82% of the Kobalt which would be closer to 5Ah if conditions were identical which is really hard to say. Definitely similar grass length & thickness, but it does vary throughout my yard.
Filled 15 bags ... about 1.86 bushels / 20 lbs. each ... in about 1 hour 11 minutes total run time.

Third week I ran the GW-HD Blade at level 4 (2-5/8" cut) and Mulched this time ... really did a nice job. It jumped up to high speed a bunch of times where it was longer & thicker but not near as often as it did the prior week bagging at level 3 (2-1/8" cut).
Like week two, I started with the generic 6Ah battery and it lasted 37:40 minutes (4 minutes or 12% longer than last week) then ran the Kobalt 6Ah for the remaining 28 minutes and it had 3 of 4 bars remaining on the mower and 2 bars of 3 on the battery @ 77.3V.

YES ... this HD blade consumes batteries faster but cuts & bags better than the standard blade and it will be a bummer if GW had really discontinued it.

The generic 6Ah battery performance is definitely inferior to the OE Kobalt 6Ah battery but at a cost of $147.00 delivered it is a good value as it DOES outperform an OE Kobalt 2.5Ah which normally sells for $199.00 (6Ah is $351).

All in all, I am very pleased with the performance of this Kobalt 80V Mower as well as my 40V Greenworks version.

Doug

 

[dougmacm]

Lowes is discontinuing their line of Kobalt power tools. Replacing them with the 'Craftsman' name they they starting selling last year. When I confirmed the disco of Kobalt I asked about warranty coverage for the Kobalt tools (since Kobalt warranty is thru Lowes) and was told replacements (Lowes policy was replacement, not repair as I was told) will be Craftsman if possible.
Sounded as a wise move since Greenworks & Kobalt are made by 'Global Tool Works' (along with Snapper and Stihl among others), why carry two names from the same source?

It is almost 2 years later since this post and yes Craftsman is the majority of all OPE on Lowes site but Kobalt still is in 2nd place:
Items online vs. at my local store:
Craftsman ...... 391 vs. 101
Kobalt ............. 249 vs. 51
EGO ............... 143 vs. 18
Greenworks ... 177 vs. 9 (incl GW-PRO)
Worx .............. 126 vs. 4

Kobalt 80V OPE is no longer at stores but is available ONLINE and this is the same story for the Craftsman 60V line and I'd wager this is all due to the new to Lowes EGO 56V needed to be TOP DOG in stores this season. And the numbers below prove it:

CORDLESS OPE online vs. at my local store:
Craftsman ..... 32 vs. 11 (60V only: 7 vs. 0)
Kobalt ........... 156 vs. 16 (80V only: 60 vs. 1*)
EGO ............. 74 vs. 11 (56V only)
GW & PRO ... 68 vs. 2 (60V only: 8 vs. 1*)
WORX .......... 51 vs. 1

* The Kobalt 80V & GW-PRO 60V at my local store are batteries (2.5Ah KB & 2.0 Ah GW-PRO), notice my store no longer stocks ANY Craftsman 60V OPE.

Kobalt also introduced some improved 80V models this season which further shows it is not dead yet:
6080D-06 & 2180D-06 (w/o B&C) SP mower now has 2 battery slots and auto switch over
4080-06 18" Chainsaw with 50cc gas equiv. power (they claim it is the most powerful cordless chainsaw available)
Could likely be others, but these are just the two I noticed.

Lowes had an 80V sale a couple weeks back and I snapped up the 4080-06 Chainsaw with 5 Ah Battery & Fast Charger for $284.05 before tax. The 5Ah battery alone goes for $299.00, so I had to jump on it. It is currently in transit to my store for pick up. I'll post a review once I've got it and had a chance to use it. My 16" 40V GW GMax Brushless Chainsaw I bought in June 2018 works real well but is a little underpowered so I've also got a comparison to do.

Doug

 

[MowerMike]

It looks like Kobalt is taking control of the 80 volt tool market, since Greenworks has not made any advances in their 80 volt products for years now. Instead, they are focusing on their 60 volt tools. As to Lowe's dropping Kobalt, that is simply impossible since Kobalt is truly their house brand in much the same way that Ryobi belongs to Home Depot. Craftsman is a late comer to the electric OPE market, and they are struggling to compete with the established brands. It wouldn't surprise me to see them completely gone in five years. EGO seems to be having a hard time finding a home. First they were at Home Depot, now they are at Lowe's, maybe Ace Hardware next ? As to WORX, they are strictly a mail order item with some truly clever and unique tools such as their JawSaw.