Battery powered weed wacker/trimmer suggestions (bought Ryobi 18V lithium)
 

Last night was the first time doing lawn work this year. While my wife cut the lawn, I struggled with the gas powered weed wacker that was donated to me last fall. It just wouldn't run good no matter what. Anyway, I'd like to look into electric replacements. The yard is too large for a corded unit, so that leaves battery powered units. Is anyone here using one they could recommend? A lot of online reviews say they don't have enough power, but who knows what these people are trying to cut through either.

I use the Black & Decker 18v cordless weed wacker. I think a full charge almost does my yard twice...or almost twice. But the battery takes like...8 hours to charge. I like it, as long as I remember to charge the battery.

You could always make your own and put the battery in a back pack, plenty of power then.

I have often wondered if you could build a backpack with some batteries and convert a corded tool into a cordless tool. Probably not practical - but a corder weedwacker is inexpensive..
I am sure once i actually think about it - the weight of the batts would be a deterrent...

I was just gonna say...that would be a heavy backpack. Not to mention that's a lot of electricity and voltage sitting on your back.

all you need is an old computer UPS back up power supply, has an inverter and battery and can be bought for $100 on sale.

ryobi makes one
 

Check out the ryobi one+ trimmer. Last year I bought one at Home Depot not knowing they wouldn't be available there anymore but they are still on ebay. One of the cool things about the ryobi is that it used the one+ 18v nimh OR lithium battery and it is easily swapable if you have a big yard. (I mow 3 acres and with a bunch of trees it to trim around I use up the lithium). They charge in about 30 min ~ 1 hr and again the batteries are and other ryboi one+ 18v tools are still available at HD. Do a search for the P2000 on ebay if you are looking for one. They aren't cheap at $100 approximately shipped to your door plus batteries plus charger but it works well and my elderly parents love it. Imagine not having to deal with mixing gas oil again and the pain of the seperate gas tank and jerking the rip cord until your sholder wants to fall off. Just a quick trigger pull and off again to the next tree. Mine is plenty strong with the lithium battery (P104).

Good luck,

PS Here's a link to one of ebay: RYOBI P2000 Cordless 18v ONE+Grass Trimmer & Edger"New" - eBay (item 140323749195 end time Jun-04-09 19:56:29 PDT)

Dang. I like my B&D one, but it takes a LOT longer then 1 hour to charge those stupid 18v batteries.

My gas weed wacker broke so I got a new plug in electric model. Would have been great if it was 12v, but its 110. I tried running my deepcycle Boat battery through a converter. It ran till the converter started beeping and quit. After I turned it off and hit the reset button it did the same thing. The converter isn't big enough. I'm thinking for my large yard to mount a bigger converter with 2 batteries on a cart with a 10ft cord. Or I could just attach my old 12v trolling motor to the old featherlite and just use one battery. After all, I could troll for 4 hours.

I'm about to go buy one of these today -- the corded ones are more energy efficient, but the battery units are more convenient...

I would like to find a corded one with the motor at the top (to counterbalance the cutter) -- does anybody know of a current model that has this? If I can find a Stihl dealer... Does Ryobi or Troy-Bilt have one? (The Troy-Bilt given top honors by CR in 2006 is no longer available...)

I would love to have a lithium battery unit; rather than NiMH. My drill/light kit with NiMH battery packs have soured my on those... Do any lithium units come with 2 battery packs?

I bought the latest model Ryobi One+ trimmer this week. But... its been raining all week so I haven't tried it out yet. It is a fair amount lighter than my gas trimmer and seems to have absolutely no lack of power from a quick use (battery wasn't shipped charged). It came with one battery, more than enough to do my yard I'm pretty sure. I'll do a full review on it after using it for a while.

Thanks Tim -- which type of battery did you get?

It came with the larger of the two lithium ion packs that work with the one+ series. I think its 3.5Ah, but I'd have to confirm that.

EDIT: Just looked it up. Its a 2.4Ah pack.
http://www.ryobitools.com/catalog/18..._chargers/P104

I'm thinking of Lithium too.. I want to replace our old AC model (RYOBI 137R).
Motor is at the top end..
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/...1L._SL250_.jpg
I like it okay, but my wife doesn't like dealing with a 100 foot extension cord..

I want to get over to home depot to look at this one..

Ryobi 18 Volt Lithium String Trimmer
Model # P2002 Store SKU # 663831

http://www.homedepot.com/catalog/pro...d5f907_400.jpg


There is a going to be a lot of difference in performance, but I think she
is going to like the less fuss of wireless..

My daughter has a small lot, and she might like the extra HP of AC power.

Thats the one I got xringer. I'll be using it for the first time this weekend. :)

Thanks again guys -- I ended up buying a Stihl FSE-60 corded model -- very nice weight balance and power. It's a more robust feeling/looking unit:

http://www.stihlusa.com/graphics/trimmers/FSE60.gif
(click on image for link)

You have to buy these from a Stihl dealer, and they have to assemble them for you. I got mine from a locally owned hardware strore called Robinsons Hardware, and I'm good with that...

I swear that this trimmer is virtually the same unit as the Troy-Bilt TB 50 unit Consumer Reports recommended in their May 2006 issue, which is the most recent review they have done.

Ya' gotta' manage your cord, but it won't run out of power, and it is more efficient than using a battery. There is a very effective "hook" on the back so the cord will not unplug, and I paid $3 for a clip that locks two cords together, too. It isn't cheap ($120), but I think it will last long enough to make it worthwhile.

I used the timmer for the first time this weekend. Overall, I'm very happy with it. Heres a quick list of pros and cons.

Pros:
lightweight
charges quickly
quiet
starts instantly
you don't smell like gas after using it
very adjustable

Cons:
needed to charge 3 times to do the whole yard (which admittedly is large and this is the first time trimming this year).
not incredibly overpowered like the gas trimmer it replaced (but is powerful enough to take down anything normal)


So, you can see the pros definitely outweigh the cons. The starting issue alone is worth it...

I'll do a more in depth review for the blog later this year after using it more.

Its been some time, but it seems I toasted my first battery on this trimmer. A couple weeks back I went to use it and it didn't spin up. I pushed the battery indicator button on the pack (shows red/orange/green light for charge status) and I got nothing. I plugged it into the charger, I got an error and it wouldn't charge. I have yet to do anything further, but it seems that 5 years is what I got out of the first pack. Not too bad, but I'd be lying if I said I was a bit disappointed. Thankfully, it seems other companies now offer aftermarket packs for the Ryobi 18V tools. A replacement isn't horribly painful. I think I paid about $120 for the trimmer back in 2010. Back then a new pack was either $75 or $90. Now, you can get an aftermarket one off amazon for $40 with a bit larger battery. A Ryobi brand pack is $50.

However, before I replace the pack. I think I will give this a go:

Cell Re-balance of Ryobi One+ 18V Li-ion Battery

That Re-balance play might be a good thing to try.. If you own a good charger or one of those fancy power supplies..
When I was working, I had those nice power supplies all over my bench..

But, if I had to re-balance our pack, I would use my old RC airplane charger..(this model).
http://www.rcgroups.com/gallery/data...06charger2.jpg
Which is pretty adjustable in voltage and current, when used in manual mode.

Well, the rebalance is a no go. I measured ~3V at the main terminals (of a 18V pack). I did open it up, but as expected each cell was under .5V. So, I could try to charge it, but I think its pretty well junk.

http://ecorenovator.org/forum/attach...1&d=1464133108

http://ecorenovator.org/forum/attach...1&d=1464133108

Are there ten 1.8volt cells in that pack?

I wonder if you might have one open cell and the rest are still good.?.

I have stuck with plug in trimmers for this reason.
The first one, a black and decker lasted from 2008 till 2013 or 2014 when I tried to use it with 0.080 weedeater line and tried to take down a tumble weed and broke the plastic ring gear.
Then the second one has lasted since 2014, that modle had been discontinued so I bought a used one with bad trigger switch off ebay for parts.
I still use 0.080 weedeater line.

I used a Greenworks 40V Lithium G-Max DigiPro strimmer, and it worked pretty well. A 2Ah battery lasted about 45 minutes. It came with a 4Ah battery - my in-laws also have a 20" twin blade mower, that came with a 2Ah and a 4Ah battery. The mover really needs four 4Ah batteries to be useful for their ~1/2 acre lawn; when the grass is long, anyway.

http://d2ydh70d4b5xgv.cloudfront.net...98736947be.jpg

The shoulder strap is well balanced, and it has two speed ranges, with the trigger letting you vary the speed. The gear box gets warm, but not hot. I think reloading the string is fairly easy - much easier than the Stihl was. (The Stihl was destroyed in the house fire at my in-laws house.)

It was on sale at Amazon for $170 with the 4Ah battery and charger, which is only $47 more than the battery alone.

There are 10 3.7V cells in the pack. The configuration is 2 parallel, 5 series.

Sadly, I did check a bunch of the cells and they're all below 1V.

Those cells are all over eBay and rebuilding a battery pack is not hard nor expensive. I have done a few rebuilds.

Steve

Thanks, I'll look into that. It would be nice to get 15 cells and get some extra capacity out of the pack...

Sounds like either one cell went bad and brought all the other ones down or the charger went bad and did the job. It is possible to bring the cells back one at a time until you find the bad one but it may not be worth your time. Years ago I was using the 36V DeWalt packs for my ebike and shortly after I bought my then $100/pack it quit working. After disassembly I found one cell below one volt.I just connected a couple D cells in series for 3.2V and then parallelled them with the lithium cell. That brought the single cell voltage up to above 2.6 or 2.8V-- what ever the charger minimum voltage was and then allowed the factory charger to do its job and charge the complete pack. I'm still using that pack in the drill it was made for. Don't know if it would work for you since all your cells seem dead and it might depend on how long they have been at that low voltage but it could be worth a try.

JJ

I've got the greenworks 20v one. So far seems to work for me. I don't do a lot of weedwacking though. I also have the greenworks leaf blower/sucker, so I can interchange the batteries as they're both 20v.

I ended up going with an aftermarket 4.0 Ah pack. This is a bit larger than the OEM spec of 2.6 Ah. It was $50, but it should give me considerably longer run times and also longer pack life I hope!

http://ecorenovator.org/forum/attach...1&d=1464373909

I got one of these, it really is amazing. I have 3+ acres and lots of trimming due to the fact that we don't use roundup. It will trim the yard twice before needing charged and I haven't found anything it won't cut that a gas can.

ECHO 58-Volt Lithium-Ion Brushless Cordless String Trimmer with 4 Ah Battery-CST-58V4AH - The Home Depot

You guys motivated me to try one. I just bought the
Ryobi 40-Volt Lithium-Ion Cordless Attachment Capable String Trimmer
Home Depot $149
Hopefully my 12 year old son can handle it.
Ryobi 40-Volt Lithium-Ion Cordless Attachment Capable String Trimmer-RY40220 - The Home Depot

My 12 year old son could handle it fine but I guess I have too many weeds for a battery trimmer.
It lasted about 23 min we charged it and ran it again and we still are not done. I am going to take it back.

Its been 8 years since I purchased this trimmer. Just the other week, the charger stopped working on me. I think I'll crack it open to see if there is anything obvious, but I'm thinking I may have to replace it.

A few screws and it came apart. The problem was easy enough to find.

Here is the Ryobi P1113 lithium battery charger.

https://ecorenovator.org/forum/attac...1&d=1534433259




Four torx head screws on the bottom (under the rubber feet), and it comes apart.

https://ecorenovator.org/forum/attac...1&d=1534433259



Finding the damage is quick and easy. Notice the little plastic chunk.

https://ecorenovator.org/forum/attac...1&d=1534433259



This is where it used to be.

https://ecorenovator.org/forum/attac...1&d=1534433259



Amazingly, the body of the transistor or whatever it is was actually intact. I could easily read the part number of TOP247YN.

https://ecorenovator.org/forum/attac...1&d=1534433684



So, I checked digikey and mouser for this part number. It looks like they cost almost $5 for one piece. A new aftermarket charger costs $24 shipped. So, I think I'm going to go that route instead of trying to repair it. Who knows if the rest of the components are actually all okay still.





Interestingly enough, this charger actually has a recall going on for it. Ryobi has it posted on their website. Unfortunately, my charger is a later serial number and not eligible for a replacement.

https://cc831cbd7a5a3a616f82-5093119...b758551c16.pdf

https://ecorenovator.org/forum/attac...1&d=1534433014

Sometimes a bad battery will make a charger burn up like that.

I've been using this one for several years with no problems.
Kobalt 80-volt from Lowes

Mike

I had a 120v corded weed eater from 2008 to 2012 killed it, bought the same one again in 2013 and still have it.
A $70 black and Decker.
Now I have a 29cc Redmax.

Interesting. I'm going to tell our grounds guy about this.

Damn I just killed that 120v weed eater from 2013.
Got a 120v plug in troybilt.

Me too. Got a generic Ryobi 18 Volt 6.0Ah for the wacker and so far, my wife likes it.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07P2CTFP5

So, this thing has finally kicked the bucket. It started making very funny noises and the string would randomly let loose. Turns out that the motor bearings are shot. You can wiggle the armature around way more than you should be able to. I tried looking for a replacement motor, but I'm really not finding anything. The best I can find is the P2003 motor which looks like it mounts the same, but its only a 10" vs mine which is the P2002 and its a 12". I may give it a shot. But, some of those higher voltage models are looking pretty good. I certainly wouldn't mind a bit more oomph as I tend to let things go before I get to them. Suggestions on a replacement are welcome!