I've got to run 300 miles south for several days to attend to some family matters. There's little connectivity in the swamp, so posting will be even more diffident.
1
I'm a rich white guy, so I switched to all-electric garden tools. I am not sure I agree with electric cars, but electric law mower is 100 times better than the gasoline-powered one, especially if you have 2 batteries that can be swapped.
Posted by: Pete Zaitcev at Sun Jun 20 12:45:45 2021 (LZ7Bg)
2
Pete, do the batteries for the lawn mower come with a warrantee? I've had some bad luck with tool batteries forgetting how to hold a charge, and those things are expensive. Might just be the brand (Ryobi), but I'm wary of electrics as a result.
Posted by: jabrwok at Sun Jun 20 14:16:08 2021 (T4WaI)
3
After my second string trimmer refused to start and stay running after a winter int he garage, I've kinda given up on them. "Use fuel without Ethanol" the manual says, to absolve them of any guilt. As if you can get any. E10 is a reality everywhere, design for it!
Posted by: Mauser at Sun Jun 20 19:57:42 2021 (Ix1l6)
4
Mauser, I've been told you can get gas without ethanol, but it's boutique pricing.
The ethanol, I'm given to understand, basically varnishes surfaces in the carburetor and that somehow keeps the engine from starting. You can supposedly devarnish the surface but it seems like it's less work--but more expensive--to replace the carb.
The people I've seen talking about it were using slightly bigger stuff like lawnmowers and chainsaws. I don't know how directly this would apply to a string trimmer, but I've also only ever used electric string trimmers.
Posted by: Rick C at Mon Jun 21 08:35:04 2021 (eqaFC)
5
All batteries lose capacity and eventually die. But indeed I found that lawnmower battery (I have Ego) gets old a little quicker than a cellphone. My main Ego battery lost about 40-50% over a period of 3 years. I have a 5-year-old iPad that still has 70%. My current cellphone still lasts 2-3 days, while before it lasted a week or almost that long. It is about as old as my lawnmower battery too, so the same rate of aging. BUT. I only mow the grass once every two-three weeks. And I keep the battery in garage, where the temperature swings are not as extreme. So it seems like the battery management controller built into the lawnmower battery is not as good as one in the cellphone. It is also possible that its thermal environment is not conductive to long life.
Posted by: Pete Zaitcev at Mon Jun 21 18:44:47 2021 (LZ7Bg)
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The pure gas is often available where you can find boaters, although the prices aren't great. According to pure-gas.org, there are two stations in Everett, WA.
Posted by: Pete Zaitcev at Mon Jun 21 18:50:15 2021 (LZ7Bg)
7
Yeah, it's too late for my two dead trimmers. (Hmmm, I'd have to get the pure gas, and them mix in crappy 2-cycle oil). Although I've had thoughts about grabbing one of my 1 hp electric motors from my BattleBots days and hooking it up. The one issue being the lack of a speed controller meaning that it will try to go from 0 to 5000 rpm in an instant.
I've heard another part of the problem is the fuel pick-up tubing swells up in the ethanol.
Posted by: Mauser at Thu Jun 24 00:49:08 2021 (Ix1l6)
8
In the case of my gas mower, ethanol made my fuel tank crack into two halves by eating the glue. However, the seam line was horizontal. So everything worked fine as long as I didn't fill it more than halfway. It kept it like that for about 10 years. I bought it in 2003, California went from MTBE to Ethanol some time later, and I switched to an electric mower in 2018.
Posted by: Pete Zaitcev at Fri Jun 25 15:36:24 2021 (LZ7Bg)
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