Battery powered lawn/garden tools

[OldSalty2]

So early this year I bought into ryobis 40v system. I have not (and will not) completely replace gas as the battery stuff is intended to supplement existing gas tools for smaller jobs and convenience.

So far ive purchased a battery powered push mower, 18in not self propelled but has the brushless motor. Id give the mower a 6/10. It works decent for areas that I keep nice (which was the intent) but lacks the power to really mow down tall tough grass/weeds on the outer edges of the property.

Lawn blower. Bought the max blower and am very impressed. I give it a solid 9/10 . Only reason it doesnt get 10/10 is the turbo mode eats the fk out of batteries, even the big 6AH goes pretty quick at about 1 hour runtime on turbo. Its brushless and easily keeps up with my other 2 gas blowers in power. Also has great ergos.

Hedge clippers. The hedge clippers are also very good. Ive used on evergreen trees/bushes, rose of sharon, ect. Power is definitely there and the ergos are really good too.

Been thinking about getting the 16in chainsaw for some small light duty stuff. Have 2 other gas saws one of which is a 20in that is g2g for the bigger stuff.

Anyone else doing the ryobi 40v system have experience with other products? String trimmer, pole saw etc?

Im kinda kicking my own ass on not going with the 18v system since that is where most of the hand-tools reside. But figured I may still go that route, was just worried that the 18v lawn stuff would be too underpowered and my lawn tools get very heavy use.

 

[mscott]

I have a good collection of the Dewalt 20v system and have been pretty impressed. The string trimmer goes a long way with batteries. Hedge trimmer is a nice tool as well. The chainsaw is excellent and is what I expected.. I use it for trimming and cutting large limbs but has done more than I thought it would.

 

[missed]

I have the Ryobi string trimmer, it won't replace my Husky brush cutter. For the regular trimming work around the house I've been pretty happy with it. One thing I haven't been happy with is it seems like it feeds line out way to easy. I've been meaning to add a washer in there to increase the spring preload.

 

[Vodoun daVinci]

I'm running Ego lawn mower, snow blower, and trimmer. No more gas ever for me. Totally impressed.

VooDoo

 

[EddieNFL]

Under a half-acre, battery stuff seems to fit the bill. My neighbor bought a battery-powered mower last season and is pleased. I use a Ryobi battery-powered trimmer, edger and blower. Gets the job done. Still have a Honda gas mower. May go battery when it's time to replace, but based on my last one, that will be another 20 years.

 

[ChadL]

I'm running Ego lawn mower, snow blower, and trimmer. No more gas ever for me. Totally impressed.

VooDoo

I’ve switched all my gas equipment to Ego except my mower. I live on an acreage so the gas mower will stay. I have the string trimmer, hedge trimmer, edger, and leaf blower. Great products. I did have an issue with a battery early on and their customer service was excellent.

 

[varano14]

I have a good collection of the Dewalt 20v system and have been pretty impressed. The string trimmer goes a long way with batteries. Hedge trimmer is a nice tool as well. The chainsaw is excellent and is what I expected.. I use it for trimming and cutting large limbs but has done more than I thought it would.

This is good to hear I already am into the dewalt 20v system so I want to stay with that. Recently been eyeing their 20v leaf blowers since I feel like for my small property a gas one is just overkill.

 

[tomcatmv]

I have the Greenworks 40 amp blower and line trimmer and they work great. I especially like the trimmer because the spools are easy to change and you don't have to screw around threading line.

 

[OldSalty2]

This is good to hear I already am into the dewalt 20v system so I want to stay with that. Recently been eyeing their 20v leaf blowers since I feel like for my small property a gas one is just overkill.

I have 20v dewalt drill i got for xmas a couple years ago. Might go with dewalt for battery hand power tools instead of ryobi. Drill has been solid, but its just...a drill so not much to go on.

I do like the ryobi 40v stuff. So far its been good, has met and in some cases exceeded my epectations. I live in heavily wooded 2ac lot and the flexibility is nice.

 

[vinniedelpino]

A little gas on my fingers and exhaust in my nostrils leaves me satisfied.

That said, the little echo battery powered chainsaws are the bees knees for small jobs.

 

[DocRDS]

Yeah my weed wacker (small suburban lawns) has been great on the Ryobi. I h ave an older model so the batteries only give about 10 min of juice (had it for like 10 years), but you just keep both charged up, no prob.

My cordless tools and stuff on the 18V is the shiznit. Would not go back to cords.

Plus the wife and kids can help as the gas was a PITA to start because no one can follow directions.

 

[whiskeytower]

Good info fellas, what kind of performance and battery life y'all getting out of your leaf blowers. I have gas everything besides pole saw and leaf blower. I hate the electric blower cord hauling is for the birds. And the Ryobi pole saw is a POS. Battery is good, seems to have plenty of power. But the build quality on mine is junky, pole bent, chain won't stay tight.

 

[Moe Ron]

Got the Ego mower a couple years ago. Love it. It will mow my residential yard twice on one charge. 56 volt.

 

[JbBooks]

Being how I have supported my family with the oilfield, this thread gives me hives, but that being said, my wife’s ergo or ego leaf blower or whatever the fuck it’s called, is pretty badass, especially on that turbo mode!!

 

[OldSalty2]

Good info fellas, what kind of performance and battery life y'all getting out of your leaf blowers. I have gas everything besides pole saw and leaf blower. I hate the electric blower cord hauling is for the birds. And the Ryobi pole saw is a POS. Battery is good, seems to have plenty of power. But the build quality on mine is junky, pole bent, chain won't stay tight.

The 40v ryobi leaf blower is pretty good, definitely go brushless if you buy. 6AH Battery lasts about 1hr to 1.5hrs full turbo and at least 2-3 hrs just on full throttle non turbo. I have massive, massive amounts of leaves. The thing has been rock solid good. Its a bit heavy with the 6AH battery and of course much lighter with the 4AH or 2.6AH.

I always keep 4 to 5 batteries charged as well, since I can spend several hours at a time cleaning up leaves.

 

[ChadL]

Being how I have supported my family with the oilfield, this thread gives me hives, but that being said, my wife’s ergo or ego leaf blower or whatever the fuck it’s called, is pretty badass, especially on that turbo mode!!

I have one and that sucker moves some air. I use it to clean my garage.

 

[respiegel]

I also have the Ryobi 40V stuff and i've been very happy with my 0.6 acer lot. String trimmer seems to have just enough charge to make it all the way around the house and fence. The wife loves the blower and even helps out sometimes!

 

[Laser1]

Good info above. Any thoughts on the Stihl battery powered line trimmer? Which would be the best in your opinions for 2' high weeds covering maybe 50 square yards.

 

[R0man]

Just used my Greenworks 60V mower and have lowered the cut height to prepare for winter. For the first time the battery has heated and the machine stopped. Never happened before. After a half hour cool down and a recharge it was good again. Too much work I guess.

 

[whiskeytower]

Good info above. Any thoughts on the Stihl battery powered line trimmer? Which would be the best in your opinions for 2' high weeds covering maybe 50 square yards.

I purchased a battery handheld hedge trimmer for the wife. Its a little combo about 100$ but works great. I looked at the larger Stihl stuff but the price to get into it was WAY more than I wanted to spend. All my gas is Stihl and is bullet proof and I really like the idea of battery Stihl but, just too high dollar.

 

[gigamortis]

Since I was already invested in the Milwaukee M18 system, it was an easy leap to to try out their string trimmer, blower, and 16" chainsaw. I am very pleased with all their performances.

 

[Snipe260]

I like and use gas for all my needs. Big or small.

 

[E. Bryant]

I still use gas for the line trimmer since it's several hundred feet to go down the driveways and around the yard, but am considering picking up a cordless unit for quick "touch-ups".

I picked up the 60V DeWalt chainsaw a few months ago, and it's pretty impressive. I used it during a construction project to chop up some telephone poles and it had absolutely no problem with that task. Gas is still the right fuel for tasks like all-day firewood cutting, but for quick limb trimming and what-not, it's nice to slap in a battery and pull the trigger with no hassle.

 

[oneshot86]

I have a good collection of the Dewalt 20v system and have been pretty impressed. The string trimmer goes a long way with batteries. Hedge trimmer is a nice tool as well. The chainsaw is excellent and is what I expected.. I use it for trimming and cutting large limbs but has done more than I thought it would.

how long can you go w the weedeater

 

[mscott]

how long can you go w the weedeater

I guess I’m not sure but about 15 minutes cuts everything I need it to. I usually let the ditch go for a while but it handles thick grass easily. My 15 minutes doesn’t use but 1 bar on the 5ah battery.

 

[wkelly]

Garden tools can be both battery powered or electic powered. Although battery powered tools are compact and handy to use but they are less powerfull than electric powered tools. I use both garden tools like ryobis tools are my favorite as battery powered. I aslo use alot of hand tools for my garden like this Felco pruning shears.

 

[n2ishun]

I had all the Milwaukee hand tools like the drill, impact screw gun, 1/2 inch impact, sawzalls and circular....all that shit.
So I now have the Milwaukee string trimmer, chain saw, pole saw, leaf blower, and yea, a backpack sprayer.
Everything will keep up with gas powered stuff except the leaf blower, it eats batteries but does work just fine for smaller areas.
The circular saws eat batteries too when cutting stuff like 2x8 or 6x6 and the like, but will run a long time cutting 2x4 and 1x4 kinda stuff.
I prefer the string trimmer to my Stihls...will run as long as a gas tank will and is lighter....and no fuel/oil to deal with (I have both 2 stroke and 4 stroke Stihls).
Got *about* 7 acres and would never buy a electric mower....I have zero turns for that stuff and a brush hog on the tractor....but everything else keeps up just fine.

 

[EddieNFL]

I had all the Milwaukee hand tools like the drill, impact screw gun, 1/2 inch impact, sawzalls and circular....all that shit.
So I now have the Milwaukee string trimmer, chain saw, pole saw, leaf blower, and yea, a backpack sprayer.
Everything will keep up with gas powered stuff except the leaf blower, it eats batteries but does work just fine for smaller areas.
The circular saws eat batteries too when cutting stuff like 2x8 or 6x6 and the like, but will run a long time cutting 2x4 and 1x4 kinda stuff.
I prefer the string trimmer to my Stihls...will run as long as a gas tank will and is lighter....and no fuel/oil to deal with (I have both 2 stroke and 4 stroke Stihls).
Got *about* 7 acres and would never buy a electric mower....I have zero turns for that stuff and a brush hog on the tractor....but everything else keeps up just fine.

Saw an EGO zero turn a while back. Uses six 56V batteries. Says it will do "up to" two acres. If so, that's mildly impressive. At $5500 I'll think on it for a bit.

 

[Doc68]

Do you know how I know y'all are faggots.......


Doc

 

[Vodoun daVinci]

'Cause we use the battery powered stuff?

VooDoo

 

[davsco]

current generation battery powered is a game changer. the couple of times a year i use a string trimmer, the gas one just never wants to start, gummed up etc. then the tiny hose cracks, the primer bulb cracks... added a pole saw (wow is this thing useful) and hedge trimmer. dewalt 20.

 

[Doc68]

'Cause we use the battery powered stuff?

VooDoo

Is everyone's sarcasm meters broken these days......

Doc

 

[EddieNFL]

'Cause we use the battery powered stuff?

VooDoo

No. Because when he kisses your junk you both get excited.

 

[Dunraven]

Sounds like these electric devices are working well. I don't have any yet. It's fascinating to me that when democrats use their scare tactics(climate crsis), the world falls in line, and now, voila, we have electric cars and tools, etc. My understanding is that much of the electricity is still produced by fossil fuels, of which we still have hundreds of years' worth. It is also my understanding that many of the folks advocating for green energy are heavily invested in it.

 

[308pirate]

Sounds like these electric devices are working well. I don't have any yet. It's fascinating to me that when democrats use their scare tactics(climate crsis), the world falls in line, and now, voila, we have electric cars and tools, etc. My understanding is that much of the electricity is still produced by fossil fuels, of which we still have hundreds of years' worth. It is also my understanding that many of the folks advocating for green energy are heavily invested in it.

My major like of electric tools and vehicles is the near zero maintenance and much lower number of failure modes compared to stuff powered by ICE engines.

Once nuclear energy takes over the bulk of power generation in this country, and the distribution system is upgraded/expanded to meet the capacity required, the game changes.

 

[n2ishun]

Saw an EGO zero turn a while back. Uses six 56V batteries. Says it will do "up to" two acres. If so, that's mildly impressive. At $5500 I'll think on it for a bit.

Last year the local equipment dealer sold me 2 ExMark zero turns for 1k.
One had a seized engine and the other had caught on fire.
Both were less than a year old and both were the same 54" chassis with Honda GX630 engines.
Took me just over a day to swap all good parts to 1 chassis, the only thing I bought was a new set of blades.
Been running perfect since.

 

[EddieNFL]

Last year the local equipment dealer sold me 2 ExMark zero turns for 1k.
One had a seized engine and the other had caught on fire.
Both were less than a year old and both were the same 54" chassis with Honda GX630 engines.
Took me just over a day to swap all good parts to 1 chassis, the only thing I bought was a new set of blades.
Been running perfect since.

Gas Powered?

 

[Vodoun daVinci]

Not really a lawn or garden tool but along the same line....EGO's Nexus Power Station. 3000 watt peak/2000watt continuous 120 VAC Inverter that uses all the same batteries I have for my lawn and garden stuff.

POWER+ Nexus Portable Power Station

Introducing the EGO Nexus Power Station; Quiet Clean Power for Indoor and Outdoor Use. Tool Only now available!

egopowerplus.com

No heat or noise. No emissions. I set mine in the Kitchen and ran a couple cords to power strips in the last power outage last Spring (big thunder storm) and stoked it with 4, 7.5 Ah,56 volt batteries and plugged the cable internet modem and router, a couple small LED lights, fridge/deep freeze, microwave and the TV in and the meter on the front told me it'd last 11 hours Which I really doubted. Made dinner in the microwave surfed the 'Net until bed time. put the phones and stuff n the built in charger and went to sleep expecting the hear it alarm in the wee hours but it made it all night and the power came back on about 7:30 am.

Really impressed especially as I can pull the batteries and it's light enough for my petite wife to load up in the car if she has too. Can't wait to see where this technology goes...gonna get the Solar charger for it next Spring and a couple of those 10Ah batteries. I wanna see how long it'll run a small window air conditioner along with the other stuff.

VooDoo

 

[n2ishun]

Not really a lawn or garden tool but along the same line....EGO's Nexus Power Station. 3000 watt peak/2000watt continuous 120 VAC Inverter that uses all the same batteries I have for my lawn and garden stuff.

POWER+ Nexus Portable Power Station

Introducing the EGO Nexus Power Station; Quiet Clean Power for Indoor and Outdoor Use. Tool Only now available!

egopowerplus.com

No heat or noise. No emissions. I set mine in the Kitchen and ran a couple cords to power strips in the last power outage last Spring (big thunder storm) and stoked it with 4, 7.5 Ah,56 volt batteries and plugged the cable internet modem and router, a couple small LED lights, fridge/deep freeze, microwave and the TV in and the meter on the front told me it'd last 11 hours Which I really doubted. Made dinner in the microwave surfed the 'Net until bed time. put the phones and stuff n the built in charger and went to sleep expecting the hear it alarm in the wee hours but it made it all night and the power came back on about 7:30 am.

Really impressed especially as I can pull the batteries and it's light enough for my petite wife to load up in the car if she has too. Can't wait to see where this technology goes...gonna get the Solar charger for it next Spring and a couple of those 10Ah batteries. I wanna see how long it'll run a small window air conditioner along with the other stuff.

VooDoo

Guaranteed, it will not start a window AC.
Something something, capacitor, AC motor....something.

You're going to need a *real* inverter with 100AH batteries (as in more than 1).
That means car sized batteries.

Ain't no magic in those EGO batteries.....can't store a higher density than physics allows.

 

[EddieNFL]

Not really a lawn or garden tool but along the same line....EGO's Nexus Power Station. 3000 watt peak/2000watt continuous 120 VAC Inverter that uses all the same batteries I have for my lawn and garden stuff.

POWER+ Nexus Portable Power Station

Introducing the EGO Nexus Power Station; Quiet Clean Power for Indoor and Outdoor Use. Tool Only now available!

egopowerplus.com

No heat or noise. No emissions. I set mine in the Kitchen and ran a couple cords to power strips in the last power outage last Spring (big thunder storm) and stoked it with 4, 7.5 Ah,56 volt batteries and plugged the cable internet modem and router, a couple small LED lights, fridge/deep freeze, microwave and the TV in and the meter on the front told me it'd last 11 hours Which I really doubted. Made dinner in the microwave surfed the 'Net until bed time. put the phones and stuff n the built in charger and went to sleep expecting the hear it alarm in the wee hours but it made it all night and the power came back on about 7:30 am.

Really impressed especially as I can pull the batteries and it's light enough for my petite wife to load up in the car if she has too. Can't wait to see where this technology goes...gonna get the Solar charger for it next Spring and a couple of those 10Ah batteries. I wanna see how long it'll run a small window air conditioner along with the other stuff.

VooDoo

I bought an EGO mower last year. As my trimmer, edger, etc go tango uniform, I'll replace with EGO.

 

[Vodoun daVinci]

Guaranteed, it will not start a window AC.
Something something, capacitor, AC motor....something.

You're going to need a *real* inverter with 100AH batteries (as in more than 1).
That means car sized batteries.

Ain't no magic in those EGO batteries.....can't store a higher density than physics allows.

Electronics Engineering Technician. 49 years.

I already tested my standby window AC with the current Nexus. Starts and runs just fine. Samsung 10Kish BTU AC - 780 sq. foot house. Yup, we are Poors....or used to be. For years (decades) we cooled the whole house with this arrangement before central air. Window AC in the East Window and circulate air thru the rest of the main floor via a small floor fan. Kept the whole tiny house at 76 degrees while cycling on and off. I fired up the window air with the Nexus and it runs just fine - how long will depend on battery capacity hence the desire to upgrade to 10 Ah batts. I see now that EGO makes 12 Ah batts - 4X of those will likely run my cheesy window AC all night depending on ambient temp

The other consideration is running the fan motor on the furnace in Winter but that's a no brainer. Draws less current than the 'fridge. The backup to this system is a gas powered generator that can recharge all my EGO batteries in <3 hours and soon to be deployed solar. It works. When I get my feet under me there's gonna be a solar collector on the garage roof and another on the South side of the house. By the end of 2024 I'll be off the grid completely.

It's not a "Green" thing with me - it's a matter of being self sufficient and keeping us warm or cool and charging our devices with solar. 'Cause I'm pretty sure they are gonna regulate who eats and who stays warm/cool in the next few years and I want to be as self sufficient as I can.

VooDoo

 

[RonA]

I bought a cheap Lynx pole saw and chainsaw about 5 years ago. I use them when I'm on the tractor and need to trim a bit. Great for cutting 3" brush down at the base. Slide in on your backside and cut, slide, and cut some more. Way more useful than I thought and starts every time.