diy solar

diy solar

Gas-Powered Lawn Equipment Will Soon Be Banned In Cali, a broad category that includes generators.

The good thing is that these products are being made. They will improve with time. May not cover every application yet but it will come.
 
I have a professional Carbon Dioxide meter and it was really surprising to me how much CO a lawn mower and Generator release when compared to a full size gas vehicle. The Catalytic converters really do a great job at scrubbing out the CO.

As for the laws etc. I was going to get an electric Lawn mower anyway. The Gas ones are just a pain in the rear once they get past a certain age. I ditched the Gas weed whacker about a year ago for a battery powered one and I would never go back to gas. I am looking for a mid priced Lawn mower that has removable battery packs that can do a lot sized lawn. Any suggestions are welcome as most of the mid priced ones I see on Amazon have horrible reviews
I switched out my aging Honda for a Greenworks 80v mower I got from Costco here in Canada. I have a 1/2 acre property so probably cutting about 1/4 acre and I can do it on one charge. The mulching isn't the best if the grass is damp at all. In that case I need to wipe accumulated clippings about 1/2 way thru the cut. Otherwise it's great. The Honda was burning more oil than gas.
 
I have a professional Carbon Dioxide meter and it was really surprising to me how much CO a lawn mower and Generator release when compared to a full size gas vehicle. The Catalytic converters really do a great job at scrubbing out the CO.

As for the laws etc. I was going to get an electric Lawn mower anyway. The Gas ones are just a pain in the rear once they get past a certain age. I ditched the Gas weed whacker about a year ago for a battery powered one and I would never go back to gas. I am looking for a mid priced Lawn mower that has removable battery packs that can do a lot sized lawn. Any suggestions are welcome as most of the mid priced ones I see on Amazon have horrible reviews
I have the Ryobi crosscut since June. It was great for my 1/2 acre lot. Came with 2 batteries at about $550
 
Im revisiting this thread..

My ryobi set (blower/chainsaw/mower) all perform sub par.

The blower "high" switch is a real pain, I've replaced it once already, but it is near impossible to keep it on high. Otherwise it is the best of the three.

The saw seemed great when brand new. I have three batteries and the only one that will not "trip" now very often is the 6ah one that came with the mower. It'll still "trip" though. The other two are mostly useless with it (the one that came with it is one of those).

This leaves the mower. The area I mow is not that large and it frequently dies. If there is any grass under it I have to clear it to get it to restart. The speed also seems to vary far too much. When its "high" it has more power, but, this last a short time. The amount of grass I'm mowing at the time doesn't seem to make a difference on its speed/power.

So, are battery ones ready? No, at least not from Ryobi.

Sure they have "decent" warranties but considering I'd have to warranty all three this seems like a crap deal in the long run. I'll just end up with three tools that won't work right anyways.

Oh, its also the 2cnd saw from them, had to replace the first one right away also... Didn't work right either....

Is it the right direction for humanty to go? Oh yes. But the State of California has passed this despite it not being ready. One has to wonder how much kickback$ was given to them despite it being us who will pay the price.
 
Most of the little I have learned to date about batteried and solar has come from this forum. I never understood why my rechargeable AA batteries could be charged in series in those little chargers. And the other thing I did not understand why those batteries would not last, despite using the charger that came with them. Now I of the opinion that the companies that sell those sets are acting dishonestly and wish they would be held accountable. Again, I am not holding my breath.

Standard would be nice to have, like battery form factor, charge and discharge rates. I would be happy to let industry come up with open standards so a battery from one supplier can be used.in the charger of another supplier and used in the tool of yet another.

I don't know if that is feasible with rapidly changing chemistries and I don't want government dictating those standards. But at the same time I do not trust industry to come up with those standards either.

Maybe government needs to push industry to come up with a standard and force companies to come up with those openstandards, but it seems terribly childish to have to treat multinational companies like that.

I am a big believer in having efficient markets, I understand the frustration people have with the way the market abuses uninformed customers. Government can play a role, but I very much prefer it when industry sets those open standards. Just put a bunch of engineers in a room together with a mandate and it will happen.
 
Im revisiting this thread..

My ryobi set (blower/chainsaw/mower) all perform sub par.

The blower "high" switch is a real pain, I've replaced it once already, but it is near impossible to keep it on high. Otherwise it is the best of the three.

The saw seemed great when brand new. I have three batteries and the only one that will not "trip" now very often is the 6ah one that came with the mower. It'll still "trip" though. The other two are mostly useless with it (the one that came with it is one of those).

This leaves the mower. The area I mow is not that large and it frequently dies. If there is any grass under it I have to clear it to get it to restart. The speed also seems to vary far too much. When its "high" it has more power, but, this last a short time. The amount of grass I'm mowing at the time doesn't seem to make a difference on its speed/power.

So, are battery ones ready? No, at least not from Ryobi.

Sure they have "decent" warranties but considering I'd have to warranty all three this seems like a crap deal in the long run. I'll just end up with three tools that won't work right anyways.

Oh, its also the 2cnd saw from them, had to replace the first one right away also... Didn't work right either....

Is it the right direction for humanty to go? Oh yes. But the State of California has passed this despite it not being ready. One has to wonder how much kickback$ was given to them despite it being us who will pay the price.
Wow, my experience cannot be more the opposite. I have the brushless 40 volt power head and the leaf vacuum, and the 22” dual bladed mower. The power head and leaf vac have 3 or 4 seasons behind em, the mower only one. Like I said above I have a 1/2 lot with about I gues 300 or 400 foot of fence around the back. I use a gator head, a 6.5” edger, and a blower attachment on the power head, and have never had a problem with it clipping. It will do it once in a great while if I try to rush the edger in real dry dirt, but only rarely

i was never able to get the mower to clip

the only complain I have is the chargers don’t like heat. I have them in a solar shed and if it’s over 100 or so they won’t charge. I solved that with a camp fan which I tun off a 12 to 5.5 volt converter
 
Hmm… the mower I use is the ryobi 22” push mower… I got it used from the ReStore in Charlotte for $25 no charger or battery… I bought a 5Ah battery/charger combo on eBay for $50 and it has been great. The stupid handle switch is in a terrible position, and I had to block it with a paint stirrer, but the mower has been fantastic. I want the new model with twin battery connections, mine has only one, with a slot to store a spare… tantalizing…
I let my grass grow TALL before mowing, so I abuse the poor mower, but it rarely stalls, and handles my lawn.

I also have a pair of newton mowers, a 36v and a 24v… fun to tinker with, but overall poor performers. The ryobi has been great.

I got my mom a 40V (she already had a trimmer and a few other 40v tools) kobalt self propelled, but she didn’t like it… I then got her a 120V battery powered self propelled mower off eBay for a song, and it’s been a real trooper.
 
I love my Makita leaf blower.. 2x 18v batteries only last about 20 minutes on full power, but that's plenty for me.

Just bought their weed wacker too but haven't had a chance to test it out yet because winter hit.

I think I'm going to swapping all my Dewalt tools for Makita in the future.

Banning the generator engines is kind of stupid. I understand the lawn care equipment, but the whole point of the generator is for emergency use.. They should have included an exception in the law.

What about the radio controlled toys? I know they have some good electric ones, but the gas powered stuff is where the real impressive performance comes.
 
2x 18v batteries only last about 20 minutes on full power
To my way of thinking if all you need a leaf blower for is just twenty minutes you don’t need a leaf blower you need a rake. That’s one of my issues with cordless yard tools.
Another is ‘the masses’ judge them subjectively. Take a landscape contractor around here and the anemic underpowered cordless stuff won’t even make it through a morning. There’s a LOT of power in a tank of gasoline. And it’s cheap.
 
To my way of thinking if all you need a leaf blower for is just twenty minutes you don’t need a leaf blower you need a rake. That’s one of my issues with cordless yard tools.
Another is ‘the masses’ judge them subjectively. Take a landscape contractor around here and the anemic underpowered cordless stuff won’t even make it through a morning. There’s a LOT of power in a tank of gasoline. And it’s cheap.
I just use the blower to clear clippings from the walk and drive after cutting, and tokeep the patio clean. Leaves are either for bagging, or as you suggest raking, but we don’t have that many trees inside the fence
 
To my way of thinking if all you need a leaf blower for is just twenty minutes you don’t need a leaf blower you need a rake. That’s one of my issues with cordless yard tools.
A rake would have taken an hour and doesn't work nearly as well with pine needles. We have oak, maple, and pine here.
We also use our leaf blower to clean our gutters. I made an extension tube out of PVC pipe and added an elbow to the top.. We just walk along under the gutter with the elbow over the gutter and it blows it out clean. Using ladder and having to move it every 4 or 5 feet, the gutters used to take 45 minutes to clean, now its a about a 10 minute job.

I also use the leaf blower to clean the zero turn mower after cutting the grass. Again, a job that would take 20 to 30 minutes to do by hand, now takes less than 2 minutes, and the blower does a much better job.

Another is ‘the masses’ judge them subjectively. Take a landscape contractor around here and the anemic underpowered cordless stuff won’t even make it through a morning. There’s a LOT of power in a tank of gasoline. And it’s cheap.
I understand where you're coming from, really I do. One of my closest friends is a landscaper who's main business is cutting grass. He uses his equipment more in one day than I use mine all summer long. There is no way a battery powered anything is going to work for him...

But they're getting there! I agree with you the technology isn't quite ready for commercial use yet.. the bats just don't last long enough.. but that's changing. I give it another 3 to 5 years.

I should address something else.. While the electric stuff of yesterday might be under powered for commercial use, that's only a little bit true today. Trust me, everything I buy is commercial duty.. I run a Ferris IS2500 zero turn mower, Stihl weed whip, Stihl hedge trimmers, and have both Stihl and HusqvarnaXP chain saws. Its all commercial duty hardware. When I buy tools, I just copy what the businesses use..

Is my blower as powerful as my friend's RedMax EBZ8550? NOPE.. but its about 75% of it.. and that's pretty good considering I'll never have to fix another damn carburetor or replace another fuel line or fuel filter.

They're close.. not quite ready for you guys who use these tools for a living, but they're getting there...
 
We also use our leaf blower to clean our gutters.
I have 145m (475') of gutters to blow out, plus the rooftops as well, in particular two of the buildings are skillion flat metal roofs. This is an absolutely vital task, especially for Summer bushfire protection. Only takes one stray ember. But also for keeping the gutters clear for our inevitable downpours.

I could not contemplate doing that job with an underpowered blower. I would prefer to vac it rather than blow the crap onto the ground/garden below but that requires industrial equipment the gutter cleaning pros use (a truck/trailer with a powerful generator driving a vac hose system).

There is ~330m (>1000') of fence line to keep clear with brush cutter plus of course all the mower and garden edges and tree surrounds. Fortunately we don't need to do most of the boundary as much of it is bushland.

My blower, chainsaw and brush cutter are all Stihl units. Of these the chainsaw is probably the one unit which could be swapped out now for an electric option. But what's the point? The chainsaw is the unit used the least and looked after it will last 25 years.

If I could be certain an electric brush cutter and blower were up to the task then I'd consider the change. But I'm not convinced they have the power, runtime or durability I would expect, especially considering their cost. I would love to charge their batteries from my off-grid solar PV system though!

Gave my Yamaha backup generator a run yesterday, good to ensure it will be ready should we need it (we are in storm season, a cracker blew through last night). The generator used to be our main power backup but now it's mostly for redundancy, a backup to the off-grid solar/battery power backup system I built. But good to know that if an outage is extra long and the weather poor, then the generator can charge the batteries. It's an efficient use of the generator as 2 hours of generator ~= 8 hours of backup energy in the batteries. Better than the generator puttering along for 8 hours.

I also use the leaf blower to clean the zero turn mower after cutting the grass.
I used to do that but for convenience I tend to use my air compressor instead as it is located where I park the mower.
 
If I could be certain an electric brush cutter and blower were up to the task then I'd consider the change. But I'm not convinced they have the power, runtime or durability I would expect, especially considering their cost
They want you to buy these things because they want you to subsidize their durability testing AND actually they don’t really care because they want you to have enough related batteries and other tools to just go buy another bare tool in a year or two when it dies.

I worked at a very busy “Large Retailer” and you start to form an opinion based on the returns and disposition of the unhappy customer returning said anemic and frustrating NOT precision cordless yard tools.

But most people don’t buy value anymore. The wise man saves money and buys good things while the foolish man spends his money as fast as he receives it. That’s in a book somewhere.
 
I could not contemplate doing that job with an underpowered blower. I would prefer to vac it rather than blow the crap onto the ground/garden below but that requires industrial equipment the gutter cleaning pros use (a truck/trailer with a powerful generator driving a vac hose system).
I think its worth pointing out that these same EXACT concerns were expressed when the cordless drills first came out..

Under-powered, won't last long enough, etc.. the exact same concerns.. and yet, they are the standard today. Only for the most heavy duty jobs does anyone use a plug-in drill anymore.. The other 99% are all handled by cordless tools now.

I think we can expect the same with the lawn tools shortly.. very shortly..
 
I think we can expect the same with the lawn tools shortly.. very shortly..
I hope so.

I have many fine battery powered hand tools (drills, drivers, saws etc). But they all replaced mains electric cord power tools, not petrol powered tools. As such the provision of electrical power from a lithium battery for tools of this scale wasn't such a stretch.

So yes the hand tools have got there and very well. But corded brush cutters, mowers and blowers just, well, suck. Underpowered and limited range/portability. Yard tools need a fair bit more oomph than you can get from a hand tool.

They are OK if you have a courtyard / small garden but mostly they are little better than shed dust collectors. Some are getting pretty OK, e.g. the smaller chainsaws. If the yard you have is modest they are probably going to be good enough.

But at my place these yard tools require a fair bit more power and run time and work in somewhat harsher conditions compared with my hand power tools. The performance is certainly achievable with battery tech but it's a more difficult challenge and the price will be correspondingly high.

The lack of a battery connection standard is frustrating. I mean we can buy universal design AA batteries or C cells or 9V cells etc for small electrical items but for a power tool you get locked into one manufacturer or end up with a plethora of chargers and batteries. Meanwhile my yard tools don't give a stuff which petrol station I get my fuel from.
 
The lack of a battery connection standard is frustrating. I mean we can buy universal design AA batteries or C cells or 9V cells etc for small electrical items but for a power tool you get locked into one manufacturer or end up with a plethora of chargers and batteries. Meanwhile my yard tools don't give a stuff which petrol station I get my fuel from.

Perhaps for now, there is a hole in the market for 'battery converters'... Maybe some aftermarket manufacturers could start making more simple adapters for converting (example like 18v Dewalt battery > 18v Milwaukee tool, etc)...

 
Actually, it's because Texas decided to be on their own and then decided it wasn't worth the money to design the power plants and wind farms to work in sub zero weather. They have windmills all over the world where it gets colder than Texas got. Texas just has a mis managed power system.

Federal regulators warned Texas 10 years earlier this could happen. Texas ignored them because they wanted to go on their own! Because they wanted to stay unregulated, they also had no tie ins to other states to import electricity. The "Go Green" people didn't do anything. Texas was on their own and made their own faulty decisions.

210 people died in Texas due to the power issues...but who counts deaths in texas these days LOL
Actually, TX had the generating capacity and asked for an emissions waiver.

However, the head of DOE and Biden decided to play political games instead, not granting the waiver. That is where the blame lies, politicians playing power games that cost the lives. I don't care what party you belong to, much of what is happening in this country is all about politics and power grabs.
 
I have 145m (475') of gutters to blow out, plus the rooftops as well, in particular two of the buildings are skillion flat metal roofs. This is an absolutely vital task, especially for Summer bushfire protection. Only takes one stray ember. But also for keeping the gutters clear for our inevitable downpours.

I could not contemplate doing that job with an underpowered blower. I would prefer to vac it rather than blow the crap onto the ground/garden below but that requires industrial equipment the gutter cleaning pros use (a truck/trailer with a powerful generator driving a vac hose system).

There is ~330m (>1000') of fence line to keep clear with brush cutter plus of course all the mower and garden edges and tree surrounds. Fortunately we don't need to do most of the boundary as much of it is bushland.

My blower, chainsaw and brush cutter are all Stihl units. Of these the chainsaw is probably the one unit which could be swapped out now for an electric option. But what's the point? The chainsaw is the unit used the least and looked after it will last 25 years.

If I could be certain an electric brush cutter and blower were up to the task then I'd consider the change. But I'm not convinced they have the power, runtime or durability I would expect, especially considering their cost. I would love to charge their batteries from my off-grid solar PV system though!

Gave my Yamaha backup generator a run yesterday, good to ensure it will be ready should we need it (we are in storm season, a cracker blew through last night). The generator used to be our main power backup but now it's mostly for redundancy, a backup to the off-grid solar/battery power backup system I built. But good to know that if an outage is extra long and the weather poor, then the generator can charge the batteries. It's an efficient use of the generator as 2 hours of generator ~= 8 hours of backup energy in the batteries. Better than the generator puttering along for 8 hours.


I used to do that but for convenience I tend to use my air compressor instead as it is located where I park the mower.
Sthil sells battery powered devices as well…
 
Maybe some aftermarket manufacturers could start making more simple adapters for converting (example like 18v Dewalt battery > 18v Milwaukee tool, etc)...
I'm not sure that will work. Apart from the energy controls, there are likely different battery management and monitoring systems.
 
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