Overall the concept of the battery powered weedeater is right up my alley. This is a nice balanced weedeater that does what I intended it to do. The disappointment comes as this is going into my third season with this machine and the battery is deader than a doornail. It will cost me [$]labor to have a new battery. The handle does not come with the battery and must be serviced to put in the new battery. I paid [$]for the whole weedeater three years ago. I refuse to pay over [$]to replace a battery. This machine is being ditched and I will go back to the electric.
Batteries take forever to charge and last 8-10 mins a piece. Takes me 3 days edge and weedeat because of having to stop and charge the batteries. The machine does not like to feed the string and has low RPM’s for cutting weeds.
We’re on our second one of these. The first one stripped the plastic drive gears after about two months. My lady loves it… It’s light enough for her to use, so I try to keep it in service.
But, we are on our second batch of 4 batteries. To keep up with usage we bought three B&D “Fire Storm” chargers ’cause they are supposed to do the job in much shorter time.. (1 hr or so…) The chargers do their job, but the batteries continue to fail after eight or nine months…
As an old USAF instrumentation tech, I know the limits on NiCad batteries… If you intend to use this trimmer, plan to spend more on batteries per year than the original cost of the item.
I initially did not consider this product because of the review here, but then discovered a neighbor had it and liked it. I tried hers, and then bought my own. Our front lawn had not been edged for some months, and it was a heavy duty job to do it. This trimmer did it with no problem at all. It’s handy to use and switches easily and conveniently between the optimal positions for edging and for normal weed-eating/trimming. It comes with two batteries; in this heavy use I got about 25 minutes from the first, and then finished job in ten more minutes with the second. Batteries switch in and out easily also. The main downside is that it takes about 5 hours to charge the battery, more time for the initial charge, according to the instruction book which I followed. Others who get less running time from a battery perhaps did not charge for enough time. This is not an issue for me, as I won’t use it more than once a week, and a battery can be left in the charger for days without problem, and charged before it runs out entirely, according to the instruction book. But if you have a large enough lot that you would need more than 45 minutes or so of use each time you used it, it might get frustrating. [...]. I have just put it away to use some day when a replacement is needed, as two batteries provide plenty enough time for our normal use.