Allotments 4 All
Produce => Edible Plants => Topic started by: sjg12 on July 02, 2005, 13:09:47
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Just to let you know Argos are selling Extreme Petrol Strimmers 34cc for £46.61 down from £69.99 cat no 721/6897.
Yep i missed the JCB one but have got this one, am going to try it this afternoon.
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Hope you've had fun with your strimmer :) - we looked for a cheapie petrol one a few weeks ago and couldn't find one so we bought a rechargable one - sounded great as it has two batteries and promised 60 minutes strimming BUT its useless for the allotment. It'll only work for about 15 minutes :(. sounds like you got a good deal
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Clairenpaul - Glad we're not the only ones ;D In addition to buying the rechargeable one (which like you was useless on the lottie), we ended up hiring a petrol one from HSS! Hoping the rechargeable might just be able to cope with strimming the paths and edges! :-\
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If it promised 60 minutes and you only get 15 you are entitled to return it for a refund
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My rechargeables (hedge trimmer and strimmer) will do the job but they're far from ideal, and one of the (interchangeable) power packs in knackered after a year. I'm not too impressed, and I'll be looking to replace them next year. As long as they'll do my hedges for this year, that's my real concern; a sharp slasher does most of my weed felling better than a strimmer would anyway.
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I haven't heard a good word about the cordless ones yet - unless somebody knows different? ;)
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had a go with it Sat evening and it's excellent, was running for over an hour taking some paths down that were about 3 foot high in grass and weeds, then went home and had a play in my garden with. definitely worth £46.00.
I was looking at a rechargeable one before i found this one but have never had the stated time out of any of my rechargeable tools, i suppose they do the time tests in ideal conditions not jungle conditions??
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The good news is that I managed to get hold of one, the bad news is there are 4 screws missing from it >:( Ah well we will see what tomorrow brings ::)
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Having read this, think I'll invest in a goat......?! ;D Lottie
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I can't afford a strimmer or a goat ??? Have make do with hand shears. I'll end up with pecs like Arnie Schwarzzeneger (or however you spell it) (I wish). I hope to politics don't come with the muscles. Always prided myself on being left wing. ;D
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we have had rechargeable one for few years and it is great for the garden but useless at the lottie. We have recently bought a Stihl petrol strimmer just for the lottie and it is fab but was not cheap at £100.
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Every time this subject comes up I chip in, having also gone the route of a rechargeable strimmer which was found to be hopeless, and ending up with a petrol strimmer.
One of the chaps up at our lotties has just been given a rechargeable one for Fathers' Day and I am just hoping his is better than mine was for lasting... After 6 months of only being able to strim grass (it wouldn't even cut nettles) the batteries on mine were down to 5 minutes of so-so charge.
They really are an utter waste of money in my opinion, and this would seem to be borne out by the other comments here!
moonbells
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I too bought a rechargable strimmer for the allotment: a Bosch one. I have 3 foot high couch grass etc and find that it does the job ok. As stated previously, the charge doesn't last all that long but by the time mine wears down, my arms are getting tired anyway. I think that the trick is when strimming long grass is to start near the top of the growth and steadily work your way down to the grass gradually reducing the height of the offending growth. Wish I had bought a petrol one though, especially as the cost of some of them are less than my electric one.
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That's pretty much how I feel about mine, except that I didn't see any cheap petrol ones last year, while mine was very cheap. It'll do for the moment.
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I've got a Stihl strimmer. Very effective. Very noisy. Sometimes having a petrol tank strapped to my shoulder makes me nervous...
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Don't smoke!! :o
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...or go too near wasps' nests with it, as I discovered last year...!
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You need at the very least NiMH battery packs to have any chance of a decent rechargeable power tool. When I looked for the cheapest driver drill with NiMH batteries it was just shy of £200 :o. Anything with NiCAD batteries will be cheap but ultimately useless with a small charge capacity and a short battery life. NiCADs have a memory and can be damaged easily without you knowing and will accept a limited number of charges before they are useless. NiMH don't have a memory and are much more reliable and can be recharged 1000+ times as well as having twice (maybe three times) the capacity of the NiCAD cells. You need to charge and discharge new batteries a couple of times until they realise their full capacity which may help a little. Also never discharge completely. As soon as it starts to die remove it and recharge it fully. If you have a half charged battery use it until it starts to die and recharge it. Always avoid putting partially charged cells into any kind of rapid charger. Overcharging will shorten the life. With a cheap product the charger will be pretty dumb and could ruin your batteries in no time unless you take care to discharge them. More expensive chargers have clever electonics and monitor the state of the batteries and may even cycle the batteries through to fully discharged before recharging.
For rechargeable tools I suggest you choose your batteries first. You need to shop for a good deal on high capacity NiMH battery packs. Once you've found some you can get at reasonable prices and with a high capacity you know your replacement costs. Then shop for the tools that use the batteies you've selected. Go with a deal that includes extra batteries. I found a Makita drill driver that came with 3 NiMH cells. Those three cells to replace cost more than the drill/driver bundle. It's a rip off I know but my 3 cells are good for 1000+ charges and runtime is over 1hr per charge. It's worth charging the batteries every 6 months if you havn't used them as they will discharge over extended periods in storage.
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I was told a battery should be totally discharged before recharging in particular m/phone batteries as they will last longer that way :-\
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When a battery starts to die on you that is pretty much totally flat. On a driver drill the rpm drops off noticably towards the end and you should stop at that. Don't eek every last drop of power by resting the cell and using the tool again and again until it's completely dead. It won't kill the battery but it's not recommended. Eeekin every last drop of power out of batteries is to be reserved for caving emergencies only ;D
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;) I will try that in future ;D Thanks Ed ;)