Electric lawn mowers
 

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I have a john deer 111 riding mower with a blown engine. any ideas on how to convert it to elec? I'm guessing instead of having a pto to activate the blades( that may suck the batteries down fast) i could just use a pulley off a ele. motor that runs the drive and blades at the same time. I wonder how many batteries i need, i could cut the front lawn, charge, then next day cut the rear lawn.

Check evalbum.com for electric lawn tractor examples.

My parents have an electric mower - but AC powered through a plug :)

I do have an electric mower, powered through by 110.
Its much quieter, and much cheaper than gas. plus, very little maintenance.
The blade is a couple inches shorter, though, so it might take a little more time to cut.
+I use renewable energy, so it helps keep the carbon in the loop.

sorry for the 2x post.
I also meant to say that my friend has a 24V batter mower and it is terrible.
It runs out of power all the time; at best he can cut his yard in two charges.
he does have a larger than normal yard though, but sometimes it takes up to 4 charges to cut the grass.

My dad had one of them two bladed blue corded ones, I thought it was a great idea.

My grandma had a battery one, it was heavy and didn't run quite long enough to do the whole lawn.

We currently have a fancy push reel on a 1/4 acre lot.

If your yard is small enough for a corded lawn mower go for it. Every spring you plug it in, squeeze the lever and it just whirs to life. Outside of blade sharpening they are extremely maintenance free. In 14 years I've yet to cut the cord. The grass is about 65x25' in the front and 24x40' in the back. At 10cents per KWH, my WattsUp meter shows that it costs 1.5 cents to cut the front and a penny for the back and that's going over it twice when I do it.

We have an older Toro 16inch cut 12 volt battery opowered mower. I got it at a garage sale over 15 years ago, used it a bit, and then it sat in the shed until we started using it again 5 years ago. Used the old battery the first summer, then got a new battery which is now on its 3rd summer. The battery is a small one, almost as smalll as some riding mowers use for the starting battery. We can mow about 20 min to a half hour on a charge. We replaced the original charger with a new maintenance charger which I am sure helps with keeping the battery in better shape. It cuts better with a really sharp blade, of course, and doesn't do real well in very tall thick grass. But, we have acres to mow, including yard, orchard, and around the garden, and the electric one does well for all the trimming and small jobs. I am looking for one of the old GE ElecTrak mowers, though, as I think that would be just the perfect tool for the job at our place.

And we charge with solar and wind generated electricity, too.

you can get new rings and put them in yourself, pretty easy job to do. just so you know, you can get a 20" cut gas push mower for around $60 new. could probably find a used pushmower for less than that.

i know lowes also sells push reel mowers. might want to check into that. its free to run besides the electricity used to sharpen the blades once every 3 years...

I've got a corded electric mower that I use on the main lawn in front of the house. Picked it up at Goodwill at the beginning of this season (back in March when the grass started growing). I paid $30 for it - Black and Decker. It's worked great so far.

I use either my tractor w/bush hog (Yanmar 1610D 4x4, 3 cyl diesel) for the rest of the lawn or my little Scotts rider (17hp/42inch deck). The rest of the lawn is about +/- 2 acres. Tractor works best for the mucky portions as well as clearing the acreage in the woods.

All in all, I cut as far as my 100' extension cord will let me cut. Love the electric mower because its quiet and no exhaust fumes to stink up my clothes!!