5 factors that influence battery choice on your mower

Factors that influence mower battery endurance:

• Lawn hardness
• Drive speed
• Reel adjustment
• Lawn incline
• Regenerative cartridges

1. Find out if your lawn is soft or hard

There are various types of lawns when it comes to hardness. If the grass is cut low with a regular verticutting, it is usually harder – or so-called faster. Taller lawns with more thatch are soft, slow, and have more resistance against the mower. There is a visible difference if you throw a golf ball and it stops immediately – or keeps rolling a few meters. This resistance plays a significant role when it comes to energy consumption of a battery-powered mower.

2. How fast do you want to walk while mowing?

When mowing with Electra, you have a choice of speed variation between 0 and 5.3 kph (0 and 3.3 mph). If you want to extend the battery life during one mowing, do not use the maximum available speed. Lower driving speeds extend battery life by a few minutes. With the type of batteries that Swardman Electra is equipped with, the voltage drops more slowly, and this also means a slower discharge. For example, even a one-minute pause for emptying the basket will help to level out the voltage and thus to increase the amount of mowing time.

3. A well-adjusted cylinder mows well and saves energy

Another factor that influences battery life is the quality of adjustment of the reel and bedknife. Similarly, you would need to use more energy to cut with dull or non-adjusted scissors than with a sharp pair. The better quality of the cut, the longer will your battery last.

4. Lawn incline influences battery life

The longevity of the battery is significantly affected by the incline of the lawn. The steeper the hill, the shorter the battery life. For this reason, we have prepared a navigation table that can help when choosing the most suitable battery type.

5. Work with regenerative cartridges is more demanding than mowing

Verticutting, removing thatch and dry grass and the use of a rotary brush usually consume more energy than standard cutting with a reel. The rules stated above apply for the regenerative cartridges as well. However, the correct working height adjustment is much more important here. The deeper you go, the faster the battery runs out of power. The discharging speed also vary; it depends whether you are verticutting a lawn that is hard and dry or a regularly irrigated sandy layer. Of course, the verticutter blades will need to do more work to cut through a compacted soil profile than through a wet soft soil; this can also have a significant impact on battery life.