Free of the 2 Stroke Monster.

I've owned a petrol strimmer now for a number of years, I forget exactly, I think I bought it in 2015. It was great when new but over the years, little gremlins have crept in but it has still done its job. 3 years ago, I replaced the crankshaft, as the crank pin snapped on the old one. Quite an easy job to be fair. I've also replaced the priming bulb in that time and the bump feed stopped working, which was a pain when the line snapped (quite often) and I had to take the head apart and feed the line through manually. This could easily add 30 minutes to grass cutting times, we have a big garden and the first few cuts can take a few hours. Winding new line was also a pain, there are 2 tiers of line and holding one, whilst winding the other was an art in itself. I switched to square section line, which didn't snap as easily as the original round profile one, having a little extra 'meat' in the corners. Not to forget the time and mess involved mixing fuel.

At the end of the cutting season last year, I decided I was going to make things simpler as my garden is now becoming a bit of a project, more on that later but sections of it are going to be re-wilded.

I did my research, decided I was going cordless. A long story short, I bought an EGO 38cm, 56v, cordless strimmer. It came with a 2.5ah battery, which did concern me a little, as the runtime was around 30 minutes, depending on load. It has 2 speeds though and will run a little longer on the slowest setting. I need not have worried.

I bought the strimmer in February but only used it for the first time last week. It's a weapon, oh my days. I strimmed what would normally take me close to an hour in about 15 minutes. This used about half the charge, so no worries there. Bearing in mind, this is the first cut of the year too and the grass is at it strongest. I can buy bigger capacity batteries if need be but so far, 2.5ah seems to be ample.

I only needed to bump feed the line once in that time too. Not that I've used it yet but when the line runs out, you just thread new line through the head and it self winds. The torque is mental, I could often feel it pulling against the direction of swing, even on the lowest speed setting.

Over the grass cutting season, I will now save many hours, possibly tens of hours.

I still have the '2 stroke monster', just in case but if the EGO keeps performing as it did last week, I can't ever see me going back to a petrol strimmer.

Don't forget that the battery will "run in" a bit too, so you should get even more run time per charge.

Luckily, all the edges of our pocket handkerchiefs are within cable range and it's only grass edging that needs doing, so our 30 (or so!) year old Bosch will do just fine!

Funnily enough I had no end of issues with two petrol streamers I bought over the past years, so when we came here I ditched the last one and last year treated myself to a Stihl combo cordless unit - base pole with battery attached, extension pole, and a hedge trimming attachment and a trimmer attachment. The hedge trimmer has seen good use and I'm very pleased. I'm shortly going to be trying the streamer, and I have high hopes. If good, I'm going to add the mini-chainsaw pruner attachment and a power-brush attachment for the driveway. I like the system approach, which I've only belatedly come to appreciate.

I actually went the other way from a Karcher battery strimmer to a petrol one
The Karcher was good when new but not long out of guarantee the battery died and wouldnt take a charge
A new battery was nearly as much as i paid for the strimmer so gave up with it
My wife found a two stroke petrol one for free on Facebook
It had been little used but hadn’t been used for a long time stripped it down cleaned out tank and carb and it’s all good now
It came with a lethal metal blade , I changed it for a nylon feed one
Maybe we was unlucky with the Karcher one but did put me off getting another battery one

I have two cordless ones a aldi special that takes plastic blades that constantly fly off a Chinese one from amazon that takes metal blades , it has become a firm favourite machine whizzing round our 3 gardens easily ,
Downside is I don’t think it’s that durable had it 3 years now though and it was that cheap it’s easily replaced .

I went from corded electric lawnmower and strimmer to cordless last year and it's definitely far more convenient. I was worried about them being powerful enough as well, but they absolutely fine. We don't have a huge amount of grass so just went with a budget friendly Mac Allister 36V one (38cm I think) and the strimmer is 18V, but it can also use the lawnmower's battery if needed because it's a dual function 18/36V battery.

I was thinking about getting a battery powered chainsaw to replace the current Stihl petrol one, but it's been so reliable there's no point spending that sort of money. Besides, the run times are still not really long enough for cutting up logs away from the house unless I was using multiple batteries. I've got a corded chainsaw for doing cutting at home as the petrol is a touch loud.

I have 3 Sthil units all 3 battery powered , Lawn mower, Strimmer, High reach hedge trimmer
2 batteries and the charger, Owned now for around 3 years , Never missed a beat.

I've got a cordless and two conventional two-stroke units. The cordless is very handy and light, but it has an on/off switch that is either full revs or off. With the Stihl and Lidl petrol strimmers I can feather the trigger to adjust the rotor speed. This is handy for strimming around hard surfaces as it preserves the cord and doesn't spread the debris as far. Mostly I strim at half throttle or less if I'm strimming against wall edging, stone or concrete.

Touch wood I've never had a problem with either of the two-stroke engines. They start up every spring despite being abandoned for 6 months or so. I'm using the same bottle of two strike oil I bought over 6 years ago and the older Lidl one is a real beast going through the rough areas.

The wife’s just bought a worx 40 volt battery mower ,arriving on Friday will update if it’s used before the weather changes

Sounds like I was unlucky with our Karcher battery strimmer, with everyones experience here with battery powered gardening equipment
at the moment we have 2 petrol lawnmowers one for the garden and one we use at the allotment for communal grass areas near our plot
The one for the garden came from Lidl and is excellent, the allotment one is another freebie that I fixed up

Well, getting close to the end of grass cutting season, probably 2 cuts left at most, hopefully.

As for the strimmer, well it's still going strong and hasn't missed a beat. At a rough guess, it has probably saved me 20 hours plus, maybe even more as I've not kept count. All I know is, it is now possible to cut the back garden in under an hour, including strimming. I feel the battery is performing better now too, not that it was bad to begin with. I've not used a full reel of line yet either, the 2 stroke monster would probably have been on its third rewind by now. The bump feed still functions but I am more careful with that than I was with the old strimmer.

All in all and as far as grass strimming goes, a much more pleasant experience. Hopefully, it will continue to be so for a few more years yet.

Dale. said:

Well, getting close to the end of grass cutting season, probably 2 cuts left at most, hopefully.

As for the strimmer, well it's still going strong and hasn't missed a beat. At a rough guess, it has probably saved me 20 hours plus, maybe even more as I've not kept count. All I know is, it is now possible to cut the back garden in under an hour, including strimming. I feel the battery is performing better now too, not that it was bad to begin with. I've not used a full reel of line yet either, the 2 stroke monster would probably have been on its third rewind by now. The bump feed still functions but I am more careful with that than I was with the old strimmer.

All in all and as far as grass strimming goes, a much more pleasant experience. Hopefully, it will continue to be so for a few more years yet.

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Nice one. My MacAllister 36V lawnmowever is still going strong and is still very quiet, as is my MacAllister 18V strimmer I've got. The auto bump is very handy. No cable to slice through means that I can even deploy my slave labour to cut the grass, although not really slave labour, more like them earning their keep! lol

My only concern is making sure I remember to remove the battery before going near the blade area. With the corded ones it's already driven into me to unplug before doing anything, but I find it easier to forget with the cordless that the battery is still connected!

Update on the worx 40volt mower ,it’s superb we have bought an extra two higher power batteries and it whizzes round the gardens .. with battery life still left at the end

A very interesing thread as I have a Tanaka 2 stroke strimmer. I have had it for years and it is still doing well but the bit that spins and has the line coming out of it wearing out - I can still use it but it is getting more awkward and I cannot get spares for it now as it is so old, so I know I'll have to replace it at some time.

I have, without any knowledge, been biased against cordless ones thinking they would not be as powerful as my petrol one, which seems very strong(it uses 2.4mm line). I use it on rough steep ground with a lot of of couch grass, plantains, with some brambles and gorse. It can't tackle the strongest brambles and toughest gorse, but slices through everything else.

I'd not thought about Clive's comment that his cordless one is either full on or off. I find the variable speed available from my petrol one very useful.

A lot for me to think about and thanks to everyone who contributed here - very useful.

Dave

May be Dave that the head on your Tanaka 2 stroke strimmer can take a generic nylon feed head , im not an expert on such things but maybe the thread at the end is a standard size and you can bolt on a new feed head
Agree about the speed control being variable its so handy when i use it at the allotment for tiding up , don’t always want a full on speed

Just of note, my EGO strimmer is variable speed, from a very slow spin to high speed, that you control with the trigger. There's also a 2nd mode above that, that is twice as fast and also, can be controlled by the trigger. Mode 2 uses more battery quicker. Up to now, I've only had a need to use the lower setting.

I moved into a house with a small garden 6 years ago and ditched the petrol strimmer for lowest power dewalt strimmer (takes 18v batteries, same as my dewalt per tools). It been fine for the garden and allotment.

For the fields where I keep my bees thistles and nettles are a problem around the hives. The strimmer is not powerful enough to cut these so I have a dewalt brush cutter which takes 54v batteries the same as my dewalt circular saw. The brush cutter has a cutter with metal blades and makes short work of nettles and thistles. The only thing I don’t like about it is that the shaft does not fold (like the strimmer) so not quite as easy to store in my small shed.