Thinking abut a cordless hedgetrimmer

I dunno about extensive. It's lighter, yes, but the batteries run out and not only need charging, but they wear out too. Not cheap to replace. And it didn't have the required oomph of even a mains powered one. So I bought a corded one.

Are cordless *really* lighter? In theory they should be heavier because you're carrying the power supply around as well as the motor.

Fix the rapidly declining body by ditching the gadgetry and use hedge clippers. Great exercise for upper body.

;)

Perhaps lifting the trailing cord at the back of a corded machine makes it unbalanced and the operator has to use more energy to level it off in order to cut. Clipping the cord to clothing and having some slack in the cord between the operator and clipper may make it seem less heavy.

How would cordless be lighter? Surely it has batteries to wield as well as the mechanism. Brian

And like most portable things Murphy's law will dictate that you will run out of power in you last replaceable charged battery, just before you finish, and then it will piss with rain for a week. Brian

alan_m expressed precisely :

I wonder if something between a cordless and a corded might be more suitable, not that I have ever heard of one?

I have in mind a 12v lead-acid battery, in a portable box, with a flex from battery to hedge cutter.

A battery trimmer will be heavier than a corded one. Lots of info here:

This one is corded and weighs only 1.9kg:

One thing you haven't mentioned is the length of the blade. Perhaps look for the shortest one you can find. Not only will it be lighter because there's less metal in the blade, it should require a less powerful, and so lighter, motor to do the cutting.

I can remember someone coming to cut our hedge equipped with a portable generator.

But you might not be able to reach across the top of the hedge if it's too short. And, with a long blade you geta much neater cut - that's why the pros use them.

I have the slightly longer cut one. If a branch will fit into the nip it will cut through it - no question. I have never found a satisfactory battery powered one (although I have burnt out a couple belonging to relatives when cutting their hedges with supplied tools).

These days I bring my own. Nothing will stop a Bosch hedgetrimmer unless you try to cut through steel rebar or wrought iron gates by accident.

They can match the power give or take but only for at most 15 minutes before recharge. Older ones the battery dies over winter. If you recharge them whilst the battery is still mad hot then you seriously shorten battery life (advice which came with the third party replacement battery for our Dyson vacuum cleaner and they seem to be right - their replacement battery has lasted much better than the OEM one).

You can expect to do 15 minutes hard work with it every 2 hours or so. For me a mains powered one wins hands down every time provided that you are disciplined about where the trailing flex goes and have mains.

Here, that would involve around 4 or 5 recharges, so a 10 hour day cutting, instead of the couple of hours work at present, we don't really have that much hedge.

We have Black & Decker chainsaw, hedge trimmer and strimmer. They all take the same batteries, so I tend to use the batteries in succession for any given task. The main delay with charging a battery that has just been used is the delay of about 15-30 minutes while it cools down enough to accept charge (the charger displays an "over temperature" light until it has cooled enough, and then starts charging without manual intervention).

It's been very rare that I've used up all three batteries before the first one has finished charging - the only time was when I was cutting a fallen tree (about 18 inches diameter) into sections that were light enough to haul onto the bank of the stream at the bottom of our garden!).

Cordless devices, especially hedge trimmer, are a great improvement over the hassle of trying to keep the cable untangled and *away from the blade*.

Lidl were doing cordless branch cutters, which had a small and light 3-cell (10.8v) lithium ion battery. The battery life was about 10 minutes of runtime (bearing in mind each branch takes a few seconds, and most of the time is moving into position for the cut).

Problem was, one job I wanted to do was off-grid, but a petrol cutter wasn't an option.

So I bought four of them (£25 each). That means I got four batteries and four chargers. Enough for 40 mins of runtime. I had a car on-site that I could use to power an inverter.

I could then charge batteries in relays - as one battery went flat I put it on the charger and picked up a freshly charged one. Although I never actually needed to do that in the end, and 1-2 batteries are enough for most domestic jobs.

Theo

for my Ryobi kit, I have a charger that runs directly from a car battery

It's not pumping out 600W, that's how it's lighter. But that's no advantage.

How does that cope with a hedge that's flat-topped and a metre thick?

If you go for a model with a decent sized battery, it might well be heavier than a corded one. The local council contractors seem to use strimmers and (I think) hedge trimmers with batteries in a backpack.

The most annoying thing with corded is that you have to take care not to cut the lead. But then you need to take care anyway that you don't cut yourself, or any fencing wire that is around. I've only cut one once in about 25 years (no drama or danger with an ELCB).

Batteries are not cheap, and don't last forever (I have just skipped a perfectly functional B&D hedge trimmer and chainsaw because their obsolete batteries were dead).

I've standardised on Lidl for ad hoc cordless tools (I have Makita drills). I have a chainsaw, a chainsaw on a pole, an angle grinder, and a tyre pump and inflator that use their current 20 volt batteries. I'm still using a corded hedge trimmer at home. I have a petrol one for remote work but that is pretty heavy and tiring. I'd certainly consider a Lidl trimmer if one came up. But I would not consider buying one if I did not already have a collection of batteries and a charger.

It takes a bit longer, that's all. I doubt there are any trimmers which would cut a 100 cm wide hedge in one pass. Also, most hedges are more than 150 cm high, so you've got to do multiple passes for a side cut anyway.