Thinking abut a cordless hedgetrimmer

The Lidl 10.8's seem wimpy to me for garden type jobs. If I was following your strategy I would only put the first one on the charger after I had emptied two, if you see what I mean, to avoid recharging warm batteries.

Most chargers/batteries seem to have sensors which won't let the battery charge until it is cool enough. That means you can put each flat battery on its charger as soon as you have finished with it, and forget about it. The battery will initially give a "too warm" error, but it will start charging as soon as it is happy, so you don't need to hang around and keep trying it periodically to see if it is cool enough yet.

I have an 18V cordless hedge-trimmer, but have only owned it 18 months and not really given it extensive use. For me a corded one was not an option as I have no mains power where it is is used. I only remember it complaining at trying to cut one branch that was too thick for it, and it did "bind up" a bit on the stringy/fibrous vines of some wild hops that was growing within the hedge.

Not the Lidl chargers - or at least they will charge while warm, the BMS might cut them out of their get dangerously hot.

I manually leave batteries to cool before putting them on the charger.

Theo

Modern brushless motors can be considerably smaller and lighter, yes there is the battery weight and it might be cheaper and lighter to buy e.g two 3Ah batteries rather than a single 6Ah battery.

My 36V brushcutter/strimmer puts out 1kW, but that is a 36V tool.

If you?re feeling flush Stihl do cordless tools that can be used a socking great battery backpack. This would make the tool lighter and possibly less tiring to use but you?d have to factor in the 5.5kg battery on your back.

The only good cordless garden tools run on petrol.

Bill

There's nothing more tiring than an underpowered garden tool. So cordless are out.

Bill

What a palaver

Bill

Have you actually tried a modern battery chainsaw, then? My Lidl one has more than enough power for its 10 inch bar, as long as the chain is not too blunt.

I have both petrol & battery ones,. Modern battery ones seem quite good for simple lawn edging.

So it draws 28 amps? Must get toasty.

I've used the brushcutter with the backpack battery and hardly noticed the battery weight, the tool is then remarkably light so on footpath maintenance I trim the path and sides with a 4 edge blade in it. It has nowhere near as much power as a petrol strimmer but much lighter to use. When volunteering we are only allowed 60 minutes trigger time and the battery lasted two of us.

Many professionals are using cordless pole pruners and long reach hedge cutters now. Similarly many climbers now use the small Stihl 160 and carry up to 5 batteries to last the day. In overall performance this is less faff then putting petrol in the saw, though of course you have to top up with chain oil.

As with other tradesmen if the client has mains electric available batteries are kept on charge during the day and I have yet to hear of anyone being charged for the electricity.

The batteries do get noticeably hot. Too hot for me to touch. That is also true for a Dyson vacuum cleaner in continuous heavy use.

An AA cell can source over 10A into a dead short. A D cell can probably manage nearer 100A. It will get hot!

It is probably one reason why their batteries don't last...

Surely lighter equals weaker?

I think the 18650's are rated for 20A continuous, 30A peak, and I suspect it'll take most at the point of stalling.

OP here.

Thanks for a very useful discussion. I conclude that - horses for courses - a cordless isn't the horse for my course [yet].

I do have a small (40cm) B&D cordless which is now about 5 years old. With the enormous strides in battery and other electronic technologies, I wondered if they now make a cordless which combines great power with lighter weight. It seems that they don't.

Thanks a lot for all the opinions!

John

Postscript of dubious value:

My particular "course", as I said in the post, is that I do *a lot* of hedges: I cut the hedges in three gardens (mine and two others); the total length must be about 200 yards, counting two sides in a few cases; the average height overall is over 6 feet. The hedges are [thinks] cotoneaster, beech, hazel, [ivy], hawthorn, blackthorn, and the damned holly (which must make up half the total: what a bastard that is to trim, especially when you're half-way up a ladder).

Going up (and down) the ladder, is the worst thing, these days: joints and legs.

All these hedges are very mature, and therefore have thicker branches to cut at intervals, in different places. Hence, I chose a cutter which has a wide tooth spacing - 26mm in this case. Even when the branch is somewhat thicker (within reason), sawing at it with this trimmer will deal with it.

As I said, it's a Bosch 55-26 - 55cm blade, 26mm tooth spacing. Also as I said, it "blazes" through all this hedging. I only cut most of the stuff once a year, but in my own garden I do some every growing month, the rest just twice a year. (And always outside the nesting season of course.)

From the discussion, my gut feeling was right: nothing compares to mains power [coming into a powerful cutter].

Of course a 4-stroke petrol would be more powerful (and free of those reels of cable), but my work nowhere near justifies that kind of cost. Furthermore: even a 4-stroke is noisy, but a 2-stroke is absolute hell - for the user, and for the neighbours. I have never considered using a petrol cutter.

Yes. A bag of s**te when you're used to a good quality petrol machine.

Bill