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Old 05-01-11, 03:04 PM   #1
RobertSmalls
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Smile Electric mower starts every time.

My electric mower put a smile on my face today, and I wanted to share.

I took it out of the garage for the first time this year, plugged it in, and fired it right up. No oil changes, spark plug cleaning, fuel, or anything. Despite its age, all it ever needs is a blade sharpening.

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Old 05-01-11, 05:06 PM   #2
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I did the same thing a few weeks ago, not to cut the grass but just to show it to a friend who was over, pulled the battery off the maintainer, dropped it in the mower and turned it on!
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Old 05-01-11, 08:08 PM   #3
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I took mine out just this afternoon after returning from the alternative vehicles show. As I told many of the people I talked to during the day, I wouldn't trade it for anything.
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Old 05-02-11, 08:54 PM   #4
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Mine doesn't used it last year and the bearing on the top of the motor, if I can even call it a bearing failed and tore chunks out of the magnet. Even with about 15% of the crushed magnet pulled out and the little useless sleeve that they called a bearing replaced with an actual ball bearing it still mows the lawn. I wish I could say mine was maintenance free. Mine is one of the Black and Decker ones that you use with an extension cord. I'm wiring up a battery to connect to it. Seems to run well off of 46v DC wired directly to the socket, not full speed but its all I had that I could use to test it. The motor is a fairly standard commodity motor. It is connected through a bridge rectifier that provides the brushed motor with DC current.

If it runs off of 65 volts of NiMh (54 cells), I'll use it, if not I'm probably going back to gas because a 100 foot extension cord doesn't go all the way around the house and I have to fish it through the storm window which isn't built for the abuse I put it through to dislodge it to pass the cord through and the trees make mowing very difficult.
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Old 05-03-11, 08:43 AM   #5
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My wife was bugging me to do the "1st start of the year" on our Sears 'gas' mower.
She hates that mowers are always so hard to start in the spring.

I checked the levels, open the fuel valve, wiggled the choke lever and went to 'slowly' pull-through the engine,
to make sure it wasn't frozen.

It very slowly turned about 1/3 a revolution and cranked-over! Started running like it had been pre-warmed.
No rope yanking required! Kinda weird. I guess Sears is selling better lawn mowers these days..
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Old 05-03-11, 11:12 AM   #6
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Default A Better Electric Mower??

Speaking of electric mowers, I have been an electric mower advocate since around the time of the OPEC oil embargo. I just love them.

Not only the easy to start part, but the noise is less, and the smell... well, you can actually smell the grass you are cutting, as you aren't walking behind a roaring machine, enveloped in a cloud of noxious fumes.

It's really civilized.

But I'd have to say that lately (in the last 15 years), the electric mowers I have bought have not endured as well as I could hope.

My mowers seem to make it about 6 or 8 seasons and then they just die.

I did have an earlier one that I built... I used a platform and wheels from an old gas mower and I grafted onto that a big, powerful 3600 rpm motor that was from a large computer tape drive unit (it was from the era even before 8" floppies), so the motor was really huge. I was lucky in that the mower blade mounting assembly was a percect fit onto the tape drive motor. The whole thing was really awesome looking, and it had terrific power and very high speed, and could cut grass like crazy. The mower push handle was not designed to handle the extra weight of the tape drive motor, and eventually broke off, so I replace it with a bizarre fabrication of water pipe, making it look like Frankenstein's Monster's mower, which made me really proud. But it lasted a total of nearly fifteen years. I finally hit a football-sized chunk of concrete that was hidden in the tall grass, and it seriously bent the motor shaft, so ElectroMowerZilla died a shuddering, fitful death.

(* ...respectful pause for the passing of a loyal friend... *)

If anyone has a recommendation for a better electric mower that will hold up to normal use, I'm all ears.

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Old 05-03-11, 02:01 PM   #7
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I've never used a battery powered electric mower.

I used a gasser for only 6 weeks when staying at someone's house for the summer.

But I've been using electric cord mowers ever since I turned 14 years old. Not only are they much cleaner and quieter than gassers, and cheaper than battery mowers, but they are much lighter than both.

And, as Robert noted, when you want to use it, you just use it. Like any other appliance. No checking, no tune-ups, just sharpen the blade every now and then.

And unless the lawn extends to half a mile from the nearest outlet, then I can't imagine why anyone wouldn'y use a cord mower.
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Old 05-04-11, 07:22 AM   #8
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My plug-in electric uses the equivalent of less than 1/4 cup of gasoline in an *hour* of mowing in thick grass. It is far quieter than a gasser, and there are no fumes or heat that I can feel walking behind it. It has ball bearing wheels and a strong steel deck, and is quite light and it is very easy to push.


(click on image for link)

There is a virtually identical model from Home Depot:

(click on image for link)

I thought the 1-lever height adjustment was silly -- but that was before I used it. This is an awesome mower! If they made a 24" model, it would need a 20A motor, but I think this would make it even better.

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Old 05-04-11, 08:28 AM   #9
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I've never had a new electric lawn mower so I can't say how long they last, but the one my parents have is a Toro Carefree from what I am guessing is the 70's and they have owned it for over 10 years, I think they are on their 2nd $30 battery.
My electric lawn mower is much newer, a YardMan mower, I got it on trade from a lady who bought it new 10 years ago, used it until the batteries needed replacement then let it sit for a year or so, she bought a Reel mower that needed to be sharpened so I got it in exchange for two Reel mower sharpening's, batteries on it are in boxes with handles on top and a plug built in so you drop the battery in to an opening on the top of the mower and you are set to go! the charger can plug in to both batteries to keep the batteries topped off, from what I can tell, a single battery is more then enough for mowing my standard sized city lot.
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Old 05-04-11, 09:48 AM   #10
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I guess I'm the only non-environmentalist in this said subject RE: electric lawnmowers, etc. for I'm still using a flathead gasser (you guess right! a B&S).


Yeah, been an avocate for B&S single cylinder engines (from 1955 tiller to whatever I can get my hands on) for their simplicity and easy to service/maintain. They are not very efficient when compared to Honda OHC engine and tend to be quite smokey (not the oily type) due to poor combustion (thus the carbon accumulation in combustion chamber, which B&S typically recommends manually unbolting the head portion and scrape the piston head with a plastic scraper, weird eh?)

While I may consider going electric eventually, at this moment: I can either stay on with a 15 yr old gasser (which still runs great) or taking on my parent's 20 yr old BD corded type..(brushes been replaced numerous of times, deck rusty, handle switch broken, etc.) Oh well, I guess the answer is not as difficult in my case...

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