When it comes to caring for parks, gardens and other landscaping projects, the trade offers the user a series of very useful machines and tools. Among these, and given their importance, the Lawn mowers they occupy a preferential place.
Essential in every home that prides itself on maintaining a garden in perfect condition, the Lawn mowers They are cutting and pruning machines that perform the hard task of pasture maintenance and weeding in a short time.
From the point of view of the basic principle of operation, we can speak of two types of Lawn mowers: with motor and without motor. Although they are not the most popular, the mowers without motor, or manual, are the ideal option for those who have a small garden and are looking for a tool economical, completely silent, and free from the worries of cable handling or the need for a nearby electrical outlet or fuel container within reach.
However, the powerful group of Lawn mowers with motor is the one that offers variety and the one that generally best incorporates all the technological advances in search of the most ambitious results. According to the type of energy supplied by the motor of these machines, they can be classified into three large groups:
Although each of these machines has its recommended applications, the most traditional ones have always been those of the internal combustion engine and the electric ones with cable. Those who have a large garden or who carry out work in squares, parks or public walks are well aware of the strength, the roar and the smell of fuel that emanates from an exploding machine. The neighbors and passersby who are in the vicinity of the cutting work also know this …
For their part, many users of corded cutters they enjoy the noble services of their machine, but they are forced to a work area no larger than 30 meters from the socket in use and why not, more than once they have accidentally tripped over the cord.
So if we think again about the benefits of a lawn mower manual, the one that offers a silent and worry-free work, but we have a surface a little larger than a small garden and we want more power to carry out the task in a few minutes, so it is good to know that we have a machine available that can satisfy all our needs: the battery powered lawn mower.
With a battery-powered mower, lawn maintenance and weed cutting can be done over a much larger area, without the effort that a manual machine would entail. Nor will we have to worry about picking up the cable and avoiding not only that it gets in our way, but also that it gets entangled in trees or on our feet causing us to fall, simply because battery-powered mowers do not have a cable. The same applies to the need to find an outlet in the immediate vicinity of the work area, since they do not require electrical current either. What’s more, we don’t even have to withstand the more than 100 decibels of noise caused by an exploding machine (when the maximum permissible by government health agencies is 85 decibels) or that uncomfortable fuel “fragrance” that will soon flood our home.
A cordless lawn mower (battery-operated) has advantages over the other models with cable or explosion, which we present in this technical article and does not have any of the aforementioned drawbacks. So, let’s get to know these machines better.
Main components
A typical battery powered lawn mower It has an elegant design similar to that of a household vacuum cleaner and is composed of the main parts detailed in the figure below.
Parts of a Battery Powered Lawn Mower
- On / off switch
- Upper thrust arch
- Thrust Arch Supports
- Carry handle
- Central cutting height adjustment
- Ejection gate
- Grass collection basket
- Compartment for the battery / s
These are generally machines that weigh between 16-19 kg (depending on the model and manufacturer) and have a range of 30-60 minutes. The basket where the grass is collected has a capacity of approximately 40 liters and various cutting heights can be achieved, for example between 25 and 75 mm. In addition, the handles are usually foldable, so that when not in use, the tool can be conveniently stored in confined spaces.
Batteries
The most striking, however, of the cordless lawn mowers it is the batteries and the potential that these present after the advances of modern technology. Depending on the manufacturer and the machine model, the batteries respond to different technologies. In a previous article by On Machines and Tools we developed the various types of batteries for power tools and also presented a guide on how to choose them.
The standard for Lawn mowers It is represented by lead-acid batteries. Therefore, the machines generally incorporate between one and three 12 V lead-acid batteries (in order to obtain a voltage of 12, 24 and 36 V, respectively). However, the actual voltage (or power) delivered to the motor will depend on the amperage. For example, a 12V mower with high amperage may have higher cutting power than a 36V with low amperage. Some manufacturers of battery powered lawn mowers lead-acid batteries include the charger in the same machine, so it is connected to the electrical network for a full charge time that can take between 12 and 24 hours. This is one of the drawbacks of lead-acid batteries, not to mention the environmental pollution they pose when they are disposed of.
That is why the great advance in this matter is constituted by the innovative “universal” battery kits that we already presented in a video in On Machines and Tools.
Lithium-ion (Li-Ion) batteries and chargers
As they are heavy duty machines compared to, for example, a polisher, the Lawn mowers they are notably benefited by modern lithium batteries and their corresponding chargers.
Manufacturers using this technology in their cordless lawn mowers They usually use two lithium batteries of 18 V each (that is, 36 V in total) and a global amperage of 3 Ah. Furthermore, many of these batteries, as well as its chargers, are of the universal type, that is, they can be used with a wide series of other cordless tools from the same manufacturer that have that technology. The process is so efficient that the machine’s two batteries can be fully charged in just 1 hour.
Let’s look at an example of a lithium-ion battery lawn mower in full action.
One for all: advantages of “universal” technology
To understand the enormous savings in time and money of having machines and tools wireless that incorporate batteries and universal or “smart” chargers capable of being used in many other toolsLet’s imagine the following situation.
- We want to build a small wooden box in our garden to store all the tools and gardening implements. For construction we will need, among others, a good screwdriver / screwdriver drill, a jigsaw, a saber saw, an angle grinder and an orbital sander.
- Once we have installed the box, we can store all the tools there and take care of essential gardening tasks with the help of our cordless machines, for example: cutting the grass with a lawn mower, give a perfect finish to this cut with an edger, prune bushes with a hedge trimmer, cut branches with a pruner and clean the residues of these tasks with a leaf blower.
It seems like an impossible job to accomplish in a short time, but if all these tools come from the same manufacturer and use universal batteries / chargers, then it will be very simple and fast to build the box and then dedicate ourselves to gardening work always using the same battery-charger set every time we need it.
More promising technologies on the market
The appearance of universal batteries / chargers is one of the great advances presented by the new machines and cordless tools. But there is still more.
Robotic lawn mowers
The continuous search for automation and less dependence on labor has also reached machinery for landscaping activities and the Lawn mowers robotics that make our presence unnecessary.
These innovative robot machines work in any type of climate and terrain, being suitable for slopes between 35 and 45%. If they encounter any obstacles in their way, they have the ability to automatically redirect themselves and “know” when your lithium-ion battery needs a recharge. To do this, they go to the charger (called “charging station”) and connect to charge in just over an hour. The blade system provides efficient operation and extremely low power consumption, allowing the robotic mower to operate at a fraction of the cost of traditional lawn mowers. And since it is a cordless electric machine, it does not produce harmful emissions.
The sophistication of robotics applied to Lawn mowers It also includes an application for smartphones with GPS tracking that is already being incorporated into some models. This provides the user with a convenient menu that allows, among other functions, to send “Start”, “Stop” and “Park” commands of the machine remotely and even, if necessary, from anywhere in the world. In fact, the application also includes an anti-theft alarm that even allows us to track the location of the machine in case it disappears from our garden by the work of strange hands.
As you can imagine, the cost of these Lawn mowers Robotics is for the moment exclusive to the home user, but without a doubt, over the years, it will be available to everyone.
Solar batteries
Although they are still mostly in full development, a few manufacturers have already released cordless lawn mowers High performance battery whose battery works with a dual charging system, either by electric power or by means of a small solar panel of approximately 25 W that can be purchased as an optional accessory. This solar panel can fully recharge the battery in 2-3 sunny days or 4-5 cloudy days. Many robotic lawnmowers feature this dual recharging technology.
Lawn Mower – Solar Power
The next step will then be to refine the solar panels to allow a shorter recharge time, so that the market for fuel-fueled machinery used in landscaping tasks can gradually shift to clean technologies, with zero carbon dioxide emissions and a lot of operation. more silence.
As a final point in this note, let us briefly summarize the characteristics of each of the technologies that incorporate the Lawn mowers to power, in order to provide a comparison that will help the future user to make a decision.
Comparative Power and Cordless Lawn Mowers
