I picked up this lawn mower recently on Amazon for $199.99. It's sold by a company named Greyson Products that apparently is the reincarnation of Turbo Garden, which disappeared some time ago after promising to introduce some Li-Ion battery powered lawn mowers that never materialized. This mower has a 15" blade with an all plastic deck, and is supplied with a single 40 volt 5 Ah battery. There is also a larger model that sells for $299.99 with a 19" blade and a metal deck that is supplied with two batteries. Both mowers claim to have brushless motors.
The mower batteries are made by LG Chem, which is a reputable manufacturer of Li-Ion batteries based in Korea. It's anybody's guess where the lawn mower and battery charger are made, since there are no labels or markings whatsoever on any of the parts to indicate country of manufacture. There are just labels with the letters "GP", which presumably stand for Greysen Products.
The product arrived in a plain brown box and the only documentation is a double sided printed sheet and two single sided addenda. Although the product description says it includes a "mulcher", this is incorrect, since there is no mulch plug and what is referred to as a mulcher is simply the rear door that covers the discharge port into the grass box and that has a gap at the bottom to redirect the clippings into the ground. So, what we have here is a mower that can bag or rear discharge the clippings, but definitely not a mulcher.
The grass box is made entirely of rigid plastic and arrived disassembled in 3 pieces, 2 bottom halves split vertically down the middle that snap together, and a third top piece with tabs that are snapped into slots in the bottom section that was a total bear to assemble. It was like playing whack-a-mole, where I'd get one set of tabs lined up and another set would pop out of place. After a 20 minute struggle, I managed to get the danged thing assembled, but not before one of the tabs at the front had slipped out of its slot and broken off when it got bent over. Once assembled it can't be disassembled, so I threw out the box, since even if I wanted to return it, a much larger box would be needed and the cost of shipping would be astronomical.
I charged the battery for about one hour until the four green lights on the battery were lit and started up the mower to test it out on my back yard. I hadn't gone more than 50 feet before both rear wheels fell off. At first I thought that maybe the wheels had not been properly bolted to the axles, but upon closer inspection it became apparent that the wheels themselves had fallen apart. The wheels consist of two plastic pieces with an inner hub that is attached to the axle and an outer part press fit on the hub that had separated. I attempted in vain to glue them back together with contact cement and Super Glue, and finally settled on a combination of fender washers and smaller nut washers to secure the wheels although they are now very sloppy and the left wheel sags inward to the point of rubbing lightly on a plastic strut that is part of the wheel height mechanism.
On my second outing the mower developed an intermittent shutdown problem, where it would suddenly shut down for no reason and then restart after about a second delay. One time it shut down completely with the same audible and tactile click that occurs when the bail bar is released, and it would not restart for a few minutes. I then tightened all the screws that hold the two halves of the start switch / bail housing together, and the problem has not recurred since then so perhaps it's just a loose connection or a flaky switch.
I've been using this mower as a leaf vacuum, and in this capacity it does a great job. It completely fills the box, which has a full indicator flap and a comfortable handle. The box is also very easy to empty, since the front opening is as just as large as the rear of the box. The mower also has an incredibly low minimum heat setting of about 3/4", which makes it a great hard surface vacuum.
The mower weighs under 30 lbs w/o the grass box installed, and the box adds another 3.8 lbs. Run time on a full battery charge is easily more than 30 minutes and Greysen Products claims an average of 40 minutes, which seems credible based on my experience.
IMGP1935.jpgIMGP1942.jpgIMGP1941.jpgIMGP1940.jpgIMGP1939.jpgIMGP1938.jpgIMGP1937.jpgIMGP1936.jpgIMGP1934.jpgIMGP1943.jpg
The mower batteries are made by LG Chem, which is a reputable manufacturer of Li-Ion batteries based in Korea. It's anybody's guess where the lawn mower and battery charger are made, since there are no labels or markings whatsoever on any of the parts to indicate country of manufacture. There are just labels with the letters "GP", which presumably stand for Greysen Products.
The product arrived in a plain brown box and the only documentation is a double sided printed sheet and two single sided addenda. Although the product description says it includes a "mulcher", this is incorrect, since there is no mulch plug and what is referred to as a mulcher is simply the rear door that covers the discharge port into the grass box and that has a gap at the bottom to redirect the clippings into the ground. So, what we have here is a mower that can bag or rear discharge the clippings, but definitely not a mulcher.
The grass box is made entirely of rigid plastic and arrived disassembled in 3 pieces, 2 bottom halves split vertically down the middle that snap together, and a third top piece with tabs that are snapped into slots in the bottom section that was a total bear to assemble. It was like playing whack-a-mole, where I'd get one set of tabs lined up and another set would pop out of place. After a 20 minute struggle, I managed to get the danged thing assembled, but not before one of the tabs at the front had slipped out of its slot and broken off when it got bent over. Once assembled it can't be disassembled, so I threw out the box, since even if I wanted to return it, a much larger box would be needed and the cost of shipping would be astronomical.
I charged the battery for about one hour until the four green lights on the battery were lit and started up the mower to test it out on my back yard. I hadn't gone more than 50 feet before both rear wheels fell off. At first I thought that maybe the wheels had not been properly bolted to the axles, but upon closer inspection it became apparent that the wheels themselves had fallen apart. The wheels consist of two plastic pieces with an inner hub that is attached to the axle and an outer part press fit on the hub that had separated. I attempted in vain to glue them back together with contact cement and Super Glue, and finally settled on a combination of fender washers and smaller nut washers to secure the wheels although they are now very sloppy and the left wheel sags inward to the point of rubbing lightly on a plastic strut that is part of the wheel height mechanism.
On my second outing the mower developed an intermittent shutdown problem, where it would suddenly shut down for no reason and then restart after about a second delay. One time it shut down completely with the same audible and tactile click that occurs when the bail bar is released, and it would not restart for a few minutes. I then tightened all the screws that hold the two halves of the start switch / bail housing together, and the problem has not recurred since then so perhaps it's just a loose connection or a flaky switch.
I've been using this mower as a leaf vacuum, and in this capacity it does a great job. It completely fills the box, which has a full indicator flap and a comfortable handle. The box is also very easy to empty, since the front opening is as just as large as the rear of the box. The mower also has an incredibly low minimum heat setting of about 3/4", which makes it a great hard surface vacuum.
The mower weighs under 30 lbs w/o the grass box installed, and the box adds another 3.8 lbs. Run time on a full battery charge is easily more than 30 minutes and Greysen Products claims an average of 40 minutes, which seems credible based on my experience.
IMGP1935.jpgIMGP1942.jpgIMGP1941.jpgIMGP1940.jpgIMGP1939.jpgIMGP1938.jpgIMGP1937.jpgIMGP1936.jpgIMGP1934.jpgIMGP1943.jpg
Aucun commentaire:
Enregistrer un commentaire