Export thread

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 grass. Heres the problem. I have fescue and my Honda gas powered mower does two things that are huge advantages for my yard. The Honda appears create a vacuum and cut the grass blades even and more importantly picks up and mulches the pinestraw and pinecones from the many trees I have in my yard. When I mow my xd the yard does not look great because it leaves all the debrie(unmulched) from the pine trees. The snapper xd does OK job when load sensing had the blade speed turned up. Here are some things I have considered.
1. I have ordered what appears to be their mulching blade. I haven't received it yet and don't have much hope it will make a difference. I have a feeling spent money on a replacement blade that will not change the behavior of the mower.
2. Modify an existing 21 inch mulching blade for a different model to create a load on the motor.
3. Figure out someway to trick the mower to think it is in thick grass.

All suggestions welcomed.

I have a Greenworks 60 volt 21” deck mower with a heavy duty blade that does exactly what you are saying. As soon as the mower senses any load, it kicks into high speed mode and stays there even when the load is removed. The blade has chevron shaped detents, so if your blade is like that, then it should work. Note that it will drain your batteries much faster than the standard blade. You can buy it on the Greenworks Ordertree website (greenworks dot ordertree dot com) with the part number 2908902, although it is currently out of stock.

MowerMike said:

I have a Greenworks 60 volt 21” deck mower with a heavy duty blade that does exactly what you are saying. As soon as the mower senses any load, it kicks into high speed mode and stays there even when the load is removed. The blade has chevron shaped detents, so if your blade is like that, then it should work. Note that it will drain your batteries much faster than the standard blade. You can buy it on the Greenworks Ordertree website (greenworks dot ordertree dot com) with the part number 2908902, although it is currently out of stock.

Click to expand...

Not only does it say "Out of Stock" it also says "No Longer Available".

Thank's to Mikes original post about this "unicorn" blade, I bought one to try out on my Greenworks 40V Self Propelled mower. It ran at the high 3200 RPM the whole time and quickly depleted the 4Ah battery in around 14 minutes (lasts twice as long with normal blade). Did not like the short run time, nor did the batteries as they were too warm to put on the charger right away so this was a one & done experiment on this mower.

I recently bought a Kobalt 80V Self Propelled mower and have ran this HD blade on it the past two weeks ... this blade is a much better match for 80V than it is for 40V.

Both weeks I bagged ...

Last 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.

This week grass was really long and thick and mower kicked in & out of high speed mode.
The first 6Ah battery lasted 27.6 minutes (HYG Generic battery) and 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.

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

Maybe I'll be able to mulch with this blade next week as see how that goes.

Doug

Kmac said:

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 grass. Heres the problem. I have fescue and my Honda gas powered mower does two things that are huge advantages for my yard. The Honda appears create a vacuum and cut the grass blades even and more importantly picks up and mulches the pinestraw and pinecones from the many trees I have in my yard. When I mow my xd the yard does not look great because it leaves all the debrie(unmulched) from the pine trees. The snapper xd does OK job when load sensing had the blade speed turned up. Here are some things I have considered.
1. I have ordered what appears to be their mulching blade. I haven't received it yet and don't have much hope it will make a difference. I have a feeling spent money on a replacement blade that will not change the behavior of the mower.
2. Modify an existing 21 inch mulching blade for a different model to create a load on the motor.
3. Figure out someway to trick the mower to think it is in thick grass.

All suggestions welcomed.

Click to expand...

Lets just face it....elec mowers are not going to cut like a gas powered mower, TOO MUCH of a power difference. So, if you're going the elec route, you're going to have to deal with the cut it provides!

dougmacm said:

Not only does it say "Out of Stock" it also says "No Longer Available".

Click to expand...

Funny thing is that there are also items that are listed as "In Stock" with the green "ADD TO CART" button highlighted, that also have the "No Longer Available" banner beneath them. For example: https://greenworks.ordertree.com/catalogsearch/result/?q=36305847

MowerMike said:

Funny thing is that there are also items that are listed as "In Stock" with the green "ADD TO CART" button highlighted, that also have the "No Longer Available" banner beneath them. For example: https://greenworks.ordertree.com/catalogsearch/result/?q=36305847

Click to expand...

Well that's a good sign then that the unicorn may ride again !!

I'll keep an eye on it as I'd like to buy 1 or 2 more of them and post in this or the other thread if you see they are back in stock.

Thanks,

Doug

With all this COVID-19 and China trade war stuff going on right now, it may be a long wait before the unicorn blade is once again a reality.

Thanks for all the advice.
Regarding blade on the snapper: it does have the chevron shapped detents so I am pretty sure our unicorn blade would work.

Prior to posting I looked at the parts manual( https://www.snapper.com/na/en_us/pr....downloadmanual.1687884-00_IPLURL_LO.pdf.html) and noticed they had an optional mulching blade. I had already ordered this prior to my original post, however the arrival time is Aug 24th. I'll report back on the performance of the blade.

I am personally not concerned with battery life. My yard take about 30 min of run time and typically and and the battery has plenty of remaining power when I am done. Since I have two batteries, I should be fine for now.

You got my curiosity up so I searched for that 84004556 Mulching Blade and looks like it can be had for $19.01 on Snapper's site.

Post a side by side picture of it and the standard blade when you get it. My guess is the blades are the same as the Std. & HD GW blades unless Snapper engineered (or had GW engineer) something special.

Ran the GW-HD Blade at level 4 (2-5/8" cut) on Friday 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 last week bagging at level 3 (2-1/8" cut).

Like last week, 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.

Doug

As it's been a couple of weeks ... did you get the MULCHING BLADE yet and if so did you get a chance to test it out ??

Thanks,

Doug

Doug
Thanks for checking back in. The shipping of this blade has been pushed three times now. Apparently snapper uses a company called power mower sales for their online orders. When I called they essentially told me the part was on back order and they have no way of telling if snapper will ever send them the part. I then called some of the local snapper service dealers and they informed me that the supply for mower parts have been impacted by the pandemic and some parts are taking 6 months to show up. I contacted snapper directly and they simply refer me to their dealers service departments when I tell them i am not satisfied with the performance of the mower. I honestly dont know what to do. I feel like this mower is just super expensive weed wacker taking up space in my garage.

mower king said:

Lets just face it....elec mowers are not going to cut like a gas powered mower, TOO MUCH of a power difference. So, if you're going the elec route, you're going to have to deal with the cut it provides!

Click to expand...

Don't forget those 19 inch decks LOL. And the $400 price tag on a replacement battery that will fail in 3-4 years. Not saving any money and not helping the environment at all. Power plants still have to burn coal or nuclear to charge your batteries. How about all that pollution?

How many of these new wonder battery mowers are still working, I'll be easy here, say 10 years after purchase? I have 40+ year old Snapper gas mowers that still cut like day 1.

slomo

slomo said:

Don't forget those 19 inch decks LOL. And the $400 price tag on a replacement battery that will fail in 3-4 years. Not saving any money and not helping the environment at all. Power plants still have to burn coal or nuclear to charge your batteries. How about all that pollution?

How many of these new wonder battery mowers are still working, I'll be easy here, say 10 years after purchase? I have 40+ year old Snapper gas mowers that still cut like day 1.

slomo

Click to expand...

I tend to agree with you, although battery technology has come a long way. A few things to note. I have a pretty small yard so battery powered tools tend to be sufficient. It would be nice to get away from having gas cans laying around the garage. Also, this snapper mower is really enjoyable mow with. It is super quiet, light weight and you dont smell like exhaust when your done. The only problem is the grass does not look as good and you dont get that weird sense of satisfaction after you finish. If there was only a way for me to keep the mower on high...

Some people will not be pleased with the current (hah) batt-pwrd, mowers. But I don't think they are all that bad for many others. I didn't switch due to environmental reasons, I did it for convenience. I belong to some other forums and on one of them there is a yard equipment thread. Folks get on there every spring and complain about equipment that won't start. I always post; "I put in the battery, pushed the button and mowed". Lol!

My electrics are not ' OMG The Millenium Falcon of lawnmowers !!!' But, they are 'adequate' replacements for my old gasser. Electric motor is just another way to spin the blade to its federally mandated 200mph tip speed. If you are regularly mowing overgrown brush - you aren't gonna like doing that with an electric. If you are maintaining a typical suburban lawn, they're fine. No oil changes, no trips to the gas station, no fuel cans, and, you can store the mowers vertically with no fluids dripping out. I have batteries pushing 8 years old. I have no regrets after having used electric in 2 different home lawns. I can't see ever going back to gas mowing.

I do my own car maintenance (I have a 17 year old car and a 14 year old car. ) and most repairs. I like working on my cars OK, mostly for the cost savings. I do not miss working on my mower.

When I started this thread it was never my intention to create a comparison between battery powered and gas. I keep my gas powered mower around for the things my battery powered mower is not great at.

Back to the original question or comment. I'd would like a way to keep my blade speed on high. I have more than enough battery to do my yard in this mode. I finally received my mulching blade. Since iis February there is nothing for me to test it on. Ill install it soon and hopefully the air resistance will be enough to simulate a load. Stay tuned

If schematics could be obtained, it may be possible to create a 'turbo button' or switch that would foce continuous highspeed operation. I have wished for that in the past for my mower. There are many times when I KNOW high power will be required. Why not get ahead of the sensing circuitry and just hit the 'turbo'?

1 Lucky Texan said:

If schematics could be obtained, it may be possible to create a 'turbo button' or switch that would foce continuous highspeed operation. I have wished for that in the past for my mower. There are many times when I KNOW high power will be required. Why not get ahead of the sensing circuitry and just hit the 'turbo'?

Click to expand...

Greenworks' new second generation 60 volt lawn mowers have precisely that, a turbo button that can force the mower into high speed operation as long as the turbo button is depressed.

gah!

I think they should send me a mower for that suggestion!

wait.....

yeah, here's one place I mentioned it - 8 years ago

[q].....maybe figure out a way to make a 'turbo' button to force it into high-speed operation.[/q]

from; https://www.lawnmowerforum.com/thre...-battery-powered-lawn-mower.13412/post-115140

oh yeah, earlier too; https://www.lawnmowerforum.com/posts/109679

It won't happen because the brain dead will work out how to have the turbo boost on all the time.
This will overheat the motor then if it has no bearings, and most don't allow the armature to go direct short
Then if the fuse fails or has been bypassed because it keeps popping by Mr Brain Dead then the batteries can go BANG big time.
Now I believe in evolution and would be quite happy for Mr Brain Dead idiot to get what he deserves, very serious injury or death.
Leaving only the people with enough common sense to live & reproduce but the government thinks otherwise .
Thus no turbo boost
If you hang round the kitchen appliance section of big retailers you will see most of the turbo boost buttons are gone from blenders & similar devices.

bertsmobile1 said:

It won't happen because the brain dead will work out how to have the turbo boost on all the time.
This will overheat the motor then if it has no bearings, and most don't allow the armature to go direct short
Then if the fuse fails or has been bypassed because it keeps popping by Mr Brain Dead then the batteries can go BANG big time.
Now I believe in evolution and would be quite happy for Mr Brain Dead idiot to get what he deserves, very serious injury or death.
Leaving only the people with enough common sense to live & reproduce but the government thinks otherwise .
Thus no turbo boost
If you hang round the kitchen appliance section of big retailers you will see most of the turbo boost buttons are gone from blenders & similar devices.

Click to expand...

Maybe...it 'shouldn't' be any different than mowing an 'overgrown' lawn that would keep the power up constantly. There is protective circuitry for overload/-heat. I have had to re-set on a few occasions when my gear shut down.

You said it yourself.
You have had to reset the overload a few times
Now if Mr Cranial Deficient bypasses that what happens ?
We rarely post how to bypass any safety device regardless of weather we feel they are needed or just backside covering .
But go to facebook or you boob and they are loaded with shaved monkeys posting how to bypass very simple devices that a 5 year old should be able to work out, to the amazement of the rest of their brain dead followers .
So the same thing would jappen with your turbo boost because it is a conspiracy to make you mow longer , use more batteries or give your dog fleas.

no different really than stalling a gasser - done that a few times.

But, you are right about one thing, the average Joe shouldn't be encouraged to go in and modify any circuitry. There's real risk.

battery technology has now reached a point where the energy density is similar to low-grade explosives.

but the link mike posted is just for newer models with a factory turbo button. Should be as OK as anything else UL or w'ever listed. (doesn't mean someone won't duct tape the thing down if it's a momentary switch.....)

Don't know abou the States byt doun here most of the "boost" buttons go removed from kitchen choppers / shredders after some twits held it down for so long the armature softened the plastic and the appliance burst into flames then dissntergrated .
Don't know if they had played silly buggers with it but I do know the knuckle dragger last his right hand & burned the kitchen.

As for Li batteries becoming bombs, yes much more fun that a tank of petrol.
Wait till battery cars become common place & a few get T boned.
I would feel safer if they were driving around with a hydrogen cylinder in the boot.

Electric motors can deliver a lot more torque than a petrol one so if designed properly there should be no need for boosting them.

mower king said:

Lets just face it....elec mowers are not going to cut like a gas powered mower, TOO MUCH of a power difference. So, if you're going the elec route, you're going to have to deal with the cut it provides!

Click to expand...

I don’t understand this statement. The electric should have much more torque to maintain the blade speed. I’m new to the electric and i use electric motors for large Radio Control planes and they have incredible power.

yeah, been mowing with cordless electric for over 8 years, I have never seen a reason to go back to gas yet.