Worx 17/24 volt cordless lawn mower review

TDSolarguy

Hello all
I wanted to give a rundown on my new Worx model WG787 cordless lawn mower. I recived this from Worx on July 6th of this year. I wanted to use my solar system for recharging the mowers 24 volt battery and dump my 16 year old Sears gas powered lawn mower. I'm a lawn care nut and mow about 2800 square feet of lawn. I wasn't sure if this mower would cut that much grass on one charge even though the specs said it would. It weight in at only 50 lbs. Without the battery installed it is a fly weight. It comes with a 6 foot recharging cord and the battery has 3 indacator LED charge status lights. The charging cord also has a single LED that is red when charging and turns green when battery is 100 percent charged. When I charged after first mowing, the battery indicator LED light showed its was still charged on the full mark. No way. It took 10 hours to finish to where the supplied charger turned green. The battery LED and charger did not match. I went by the charger. I also suspect the battery was not fully charged from the factory.

I was pleased that I did finish my whole lawn on the first use of the mower. That was good news. The mower does a great job on my lawn but it takes a little longer then what my gas powered mower did as the Worx is a 17 inch cutting path. More like 16 if you measure the actual blade and not the deck. My gas powered mower was a 20 inch. Slill, it wasn't bad. It has plenty of power to mow my turf. It does not loose power in my thick lawn even when I had the mulching plud installed. Overall, I am happy with this mower. I'll see how long it hold up over the next few years.
Tech notes:
Power input :24 volts
Deck diammeter:17 inch
Cutting diammeter :16 inch
Cutting height: 1 1/2 to 3 1/2 inch
cutting positions: 6
Grass collection bag: Yes
Mulching plug. Yes
Battery Type: Sealed lead acid
Charging time: 8 to 10 hours: Note: Dependes on how big an area you mow.
Charger rating: Input: AC 100-120V-50/60Hz, 15A
Output rating: 24V=15A

Personal Notes. I'm charging with a 300 watt Samlux inverter from a 75 amp 12 volt battery bank and a 100 watt solar panel. When I mow all areas of my lawn, it takes 5 hours to charge the battery.

T D Solar Guy

westbranch

Re: Worx 17/24 volt cordless lawn mower review

did you also charge from grid? would be interesting to compare and it might be shorter as possibly cleaner power...??

TDSolarguy

Re: Worx 17/24 volt cordless lawn mower review

Not yet but thats a good idea. My inverter is a pure sine wave but it's a small one at only 300 watts. Im looking at updating my system with another panel and placing it to the front of my home where it will get better sun at a longer time. Also getting another panel for sure and maybe but most likely an MPPT solar controller with meter.

T D Solar Guy

westbranch

Re: Worx 17/24 volt cordless lawn mower review

there is another issue regarding the charge time... 24 v (nom.) x 15 a = 360 watts... so your inverter is not big enough to charge that battery as fast as the grid. You are only able to put in 12.5a from that inverter. Not a deal breaker but something to watch for.

hth

TDSolarguy

Re: Worx 17/24 volt cordless lawn mower review

Well, one idea I have is to mow my back yard one one day then charge and the front and side on another day and charge. This would off set the length of time issue of charging. I'm going to experiment with this idea. The mowing season is fast coming to an end so I don't have a lot of time to figure this out. I am hoping my upgrades will help as well. It's going to be a big work day project to set up my new upgrades, especially the new pole I plan to put up in the front of my home. If I do need another inverter, then I'll have to cross that bridge. Thanks for the input. Great web site. Not as many flame wars as Iv'e seen on some of the reloading and hunting sites iv'e been on. This site has some great folks.

T D Solar Guy

bmet

Re: Worx 17/24 volt cordless lawn mower review

I believe what Westbranch is saying is that you will under-charge this battery with your current system. 12.5A in / 15A out does not equate to 100% charge.

westbranch

Re: Worx 17/24 volt cordless lawn mower review

Bmet, that is part of what I was getting at. The other part is, not knowing just how his charger works, he may be getting a slower and longer charge due to the lower amps, which may not keep the sulphation at bay, an accelerated slow battery death. the grid recharge should show if there is a tme difference

bmet

Re: Worx 17/24 volt cordless lawn mower review

Could this mower's battery develop a memory at the 12+ volts?

Brock

Re: Worx 17/24 volt cordless lawn mower review

A little off topic, but in our 36v black & decker I added lead from each of the 12v sla batteries out. About every third time I use the individual lead and charge them with a Deltran battery tender charger to make sure each battery is truly topped off. I am not sure how "smart" the stock 36v charger is and so far after three seasons now I haven't had any problems.

ggunn

Re: Worx 17/24 volt cordless lawn mower review

bmet wrote: »

Could this mower's battery develop a memory at the 12+ volts?

I did some research a few years ago on the so-called "memory effect" for batteries a few years ago and found it to be mostly a myth.

BB.

Re: Worx 17/24 volt cordless lawn mower review

Yep, It was satellite nicad batteries that used the same about of energy every orbit.

The nicad battery would grow very large crystals at the charged/discharged interface in the battery media. Large crystals have less surface area and could not deliver rated current if the battery was discharged past that point.
-Bill

BB.

Re: Worx 17/24 volt cordless lawn mower review

That was the exactly same amount of energy every orbit. Doing post from phone.

No random amount of usage would create that battery large crystal interface.

Bill

bmet

Re: Worx 17/24 volt cordless lawn mower review

The reason I posted the question, is because this effect happened to a brand-new power tool battery. I did not fully discharge that drill before placing the battery back in the charger. It would never fully recharge after that, even though it was new.

inetdog

Re: Worx 17/24 volt cordless lawn mower review

bmet wrote: »

The reason I posted the question, is because this effect happened to a brand-new power tool battery. I did not fully discharge that drill before placing the battery back in the charger. It would never fully recharge after that, even though it was new.

1. What kind of battery? That makes a big difference.
2. Won't fully recharge? Not likely. But will not discharge giving its full capacity? Maybe. If that is the problem, and it is a NiCad, then a controlled discharge into basically a short circuit for a long time will get past the memory effect boundary and let the cell be recharged and recover. CAUTION: For a battery made up of multiple cells in series, this kind of discharge to zero can damage cells if they have different capacity for some reason.
3. One time of recharging "too soon" should have no effect whatsoever, so maybe you just have a defective battery pack.

TDSolarguy

Re: Worx 17/24 volt cordless lawn mower review

Wow, This is growing legs. I just don't have enough info about the battery that came with my Mower. It's charging cord looks like a Lap top charging cord and the wire going into the battery is very small at about the size of a cell phone charging wire going into a small hole like on a cell phone. I just cant see that many amp's going through that small of a wire. The battery is small also. About the size of a small tractor battery that you see in the Mart stores in the battery section. It has a handle on the top. Wish I had more info on it but the manual isn't all that detailed about the battery specs.

I am going to charge it with my wall outlet and time it. I'll even put my Watts up meter on it and see what I have. I'll do the same with the Inverter charging the battery. The only other way I know of would be to put a clamp meter around the wire from both setups. At any rate, I happy with it. It's does a great job of mowing.

T D Solar Guy

TDSolarguy

Re: Worx 17/24 volt cordless lawn mower review

OMG. I typed the wrong spec on my original post. It is 1.5A and not 15A Sorry about all this.
On the good side of all this, my Inverter is fine for charging this.

T D Solar Guy

westbranch

Re: Worx 17/24 volt cordless lawn mower review

so is that the input or output of the charger that is 1.5A? betting output...

tks

TDSolarguy

Re: Worx 17/24 volt cordless lawn mower review

It reads
Charger Rating Input AC 100-120V-50/60Hz 1.5A
Output:24V==,1.5A

T D Solar Guy