Cordless Electric Mowers: What's up

      What's up right now in the world of 

cordless electric mowing?

 

      One way to get started when looking to get away from the 

hassle of combustion power is to examine the reviews of 

these guys' top 10 picks as shown in the image atop this 

post. Of course I may not agree with all of them, being a ~10 

year 14" Neuton user.

      Best I can tell Greenworks has the currently most 

advanced ones in their "G-Max" lineup. Some G-Max mowers 

have 2 40v. Li-ion battery slots that gang up for longer run 

time. The same batteries are also used in the host of hand 

held power equipment (hedge trimmers, string trimmer, 

small chainsaw, blower etc.). The top of their G-Max line is a 

twin blade 20" model. 


    There's another Li-ion battery powered mower maker 

that's been making them longer, "Recharge Mower". They 

even make a battery electric riding mower, supposedly good 

for 2 acres on a charge.  Or, there's the latest models by the 

maker of  my 10 year-old Neuton (see link in 1st paragraph). 

    There was a really cool deal recently. Pep boys oddly 

enough was taking gas mowers in trade for Greenworks 

mowers: A Reel push mower with grass catcher free with 

trade, a 20" corded electric $75 with trade and a 20" cordless 

lead acid battery mower at $150 with trade.

Recharge Mowers Ultralite

      When you buy a push or self propelled walk behind 

model, make sure it's one with in-use removable battery and 

get a spare battery. Rechargeable batteries hate short cycling 

so you want to run on the battery until the sound of the 

mower (or the battery charge life indicator if it has one) tells 

you the charge is used up before recharging the battery. That 

can be in the middle of a mowing event. That spare battery 

then functions just like that can of gas you "used to keep" for 

the gas mower. Try to get one that has a charger with auto-

shut-off or at least "charge complete" indicator. Overcharging 

is bad for any rechargeable battery.

Battery Pack for Recharge Mowers Ultralite

Battery pack for Neuton 14" (CE-5 and my EM-4.1)

      Be sure to follow the links I’ve included and carefully 

check out the models referred to so you can do informed 

assessment of any found in stores you might consider buying 

and have fun picking.  

      Happy mowing with NO motor maintenance for the life of 

the mower or fluids to manage!

CAN YOUR SINUSES BE YOUR FRIENDS?

After over a year of dealing with a seemingly endless string of upper respiratory issues in the last 1 1/2 years, allergy, colds, infections and asthma events, 3 of the latter involving E.R. visits, I am about to take radical measures to correct the pattern. 

2 Days from now I’m having sinus surgery. The best evidence is that my asthma, the worst of the symptoms, is a result of drainage from them ( the sinuses). 

This current string of illness episodes eventually resulted in loss of my singing voice back in May of last year. I literally had to leave in the middle of a concert. The voice came back around the beginning of November but I've had a number of interruptions in singing due to colds, Flu, infection and asthma events since then. Unfortunately my flu shot in October didn't  completely protect me as I came down with influenza B in December.

 This won't be my first sinus surgery. I had same back in spring of 1980 for correction of everything I've experienced this time except for asthma and complete loss of singing voice. The results were dramatic back then. The sound of my voice was very improved as well as quite a dramatic decrease in the infection events.

The 2nd scariest part of this whole thing, the scariest obviously being going under general anesthesia, has been getting off certain meds in preparation for the surgery.   Those would be any aspirin or any other NSAIDs (Advil, Aleve etc), allergy or cold remedy meds and dietary supplements. Since my asthma results from sinus drainage, the number 2 item in the list is the scariest part.

The nature of the procedures has advanced quite a bit since 1980 so the surgeon will be addressing it with different corrective "adjustments" of the structures. 

One of the things he'll be addressing is my deviated septum.  That was part of the 1980 surgery as well, correcting the results of a foot to the nose in a pick-up football game ~ 1968. 19-20 years ago or so I managed to re-injure it by failing to wear a catcher's mask while warming up a little league pitcher and looking away at just the wrong time.

I'm hoping to be back to singing a couple of weeks after the surgery but we'll see. I'm 34 years older than the last time after all. 

 

Rake? No, Mow Em Down

      Though the results of the greenest though  least watered lawn on the block should be enough incentive to keep knowledge born of experience  rolling into action every year, it's always good to seek and relish evidence that I'm not the only one who knows it. That is particularly important when one is confronted by the obvious results of humanity's abusively wasteful treatment of earths living assets. MOW THE LEAVES INTO THE LAWN WHERE THEY FALL!

      Ideally you'll be doing it with your cordless electric mower that's using  a "Trim Reaper" blade (patent pending). Of course the "special blade" will only be available when I get a mower maker to buy licensing rights from me and make them.

M. L. King's Birthday & Discomforting Truth

       He was one of the truly great Americans of the 20th century, a champion of the power of non-violence and civil disobedience. It is fitting that his words be restated as they apply in our current society.
     The difference between always and "almost always" is vast! Over the last 30-40 years a "creative dedicated minority" has given us the current gross inequality of treatment by the government at all levels between the privileged few and the majority and the resulting unprecedented chasm in income, wealth and power between the same few and "the people" as a whole in the USA.

MOVE THAT SNOW!

Worx WG650

          Who in the world would choose to have to pour fuel into a piece of yard equipment or repeatedly pull-start it's gas engine at -2 degrees C or colder if they had a workable alternative? For most homeowners, what's the alternative for moving snow with power equipment in the sometimes frozen, snow covered northern half of the good old USA?  Electric power is now the answer. 

        More than ever before, electric snow throwers in various sizes and designs have come onto the market in recent years from makers  of gas powered yard equipment and of assorted electric homeowner tools .

           Sadly, electric snow-throwers in the small manageable 14"- 20" swath range are currently limited to CORDED electric design. This is the size range most of us homeowners need. They're  big enough to quickly clear the snow from our walks and driveways and give us real direction of throw control, yet are small enough to handle with relative ease. 
         Hopefully, makers will soon realize that user removable BATTERY electric design is the 21st century way to go for all power yard equipment in this size range. Many of those same makers have already  released various cordless electric rotary lawn mowers in the size range (14" to 21") most of us need.
        Let's get back to what we have to choose from right now to move snow . 
        What factors make real differences in usability?  
         1) First on my list today is the bane of this type of electric power equipment, the ubiquitous extension cord. Unless the space you have to clear is seriously atypical,  the cord WILL often present you with more work than the moving of the snow! In the cold of winter, it will stiffen up. It will get in the way of the path you need to take to accommodate the wind, the space you're clearing and where you can throw the snow. 
           So what can you do about that? You can pick a snow-thrower that operates on 13 amps or less. Any higher current demand requires a 12 gauge power cord to safely operate at the 100' length most of us will need . Trust me, you don't want to have to deal with constant need to swing that much stiff, heavy cord out of your way every few seconds. At 100' long a 12 gauge cord won't fit on any power cord reel I'm aware of and weighs about as much as the Toro 1800 18" model snow-thrower I bought last year. I love the Toro's  snow moving capacity but HATE the 12 gauge cord it's 15 amp draw requires.

Toro Powercurve 1800

         2) Second on my list is the way the machine ejects the snow. Two options are available. One is a simple set of parallel vanes that tilts as a group to the left or right in a very limited range. The other, as in the machines shown above, is an actual chute that can rotate the entire output to the left or right close to 180 degrees topped with an  output vertical control that can be tilted up or down. Who wouldn't want the vastly better control over where the snow gets thrown that the chute affords? I hate to think of how many times a shift in the wind caused the wide spray of my old, chuteless Toro Powershovel to turn me into a walking snowman.

Toro Powershovel

        Most of the rest of the variations in details are merely a matter of personal preference and value judgement as is immediate  availability of each. 
         Now, get ready to go out there and move some serious snow!

Old Cyclist's Fantasy?

An old cyclist's dream: take a 10 day to 2 week bicycle camping trip across Illinois and Iowa to Omaha. I expect I might get a few stares etc, a 64-65 year  old grey- beard from La Grange Park Illinois riding up to the Olympia Cycle store at 40th and Hamilton in Omaha or anywhere along the way for that matter, with one of these  trailers in-tow. 
      The seed of this rapidly growing idea came from clicking on an ad for these trailers on the right side of my facebook page.  

Following the link to another YouTube video I found this set of ideas on how to make it an exercise in frugality. This guy has what seem to be some really great tips on how not to spend a ton of money on sustenance for bicycle camping trips.

       I wonder just how possible this might actually be. Is it merely a fantasy of an aging would be cycle camper or a goal that's really possible for me to achieve?

Crusade For Battery Powered Snow-blowers

Toro Power Curve 1800

     I'm sort of on a personal crusade to convince makers of battery powered lawnmowers, greater than ever before in numbers and offered model options, to get into offering user removable battery powered small snow blowers. 

                              Neuton EM 4.1

This "Crusade" grows out of my 1 year of use of a corded electric Toro 1800 snow-blower, 10 years or so of happy use of my Neuton EM 4.1 cordless electric mower and somewhat extensive research of equipment options in this area. I love the snow-blower's performance but HATE managing and avoiding business end contact with the cord midst use in the cold of winter.
       One need only note the effectiveness of corded electric snow-blowers and the comparable power and capabilities of corded and cordless electric mowers to see there's now no power advantage of corded(AC) motor power over cordless(battery/ DC) power for these functions. My experience shows me that there's no advantage for gas powered like size mowers over (user removable battery) battery electric mowers either.

      The user removable battery design item is much more important with snow-blowers than mowers because of the sensitivity of most types of rechargeable batteries to extreme low and high temperatures. The ability of users to bring charged batteries from the house to the  unheated shed or garage stored snow-blower for use is therefor key to usefully effective battery powered performance. Also, for all like sized battery powered equipment, the spare battery packs become the exact equivalent of the gas can for combustion powered units . 

RechargeMower  Ultralite = 35lbs with battery

        Lithium ion battery powered mowers now on the market demonstrate that the user removable battery packs need not be very heavy. 

Recharge Mower Li-ion 36vdc battery pack

18V Lawncare Center with Charging and Storage Station

MODEL # CCC3000

I envision designs that parallel many makers' current small battery powered yard maintenance equipment lines which share the same model battery pack between all equipment line items. They usually include string trimmer, hedge trimmer, blower and sometimes even small chain-saws /pole saws. The Black & Decker CM1936 mower and their new front tine tiller share the same model of user removable 36vDC battery pack (no snow blower yet) and are a perfect example of that vision. 

36V 19" Self-Propelled Rechargeable Mower with Removable Battery

                    36V Cordless Cultivator/Tiller

36V Battery for CM1936

      With any such set of devices come battery packs for each. If anyone owns 2 of the line's devices, that person has 2 battery packs usable with either to extend the length of the single device's use session. Again, it's just like what that can of gas does for a gas engine powered device. 

       Any makers' ears access you might be able to lend to this "crusade" would be most greatly appreciated.