Lawn mowing without cables and the smell of petrol – This is only possible with cordless lawnmowers. So far, most models have been more of a replacement for the electric mower. The new cordless lawnmower HRE 42 Honda offers the B SD as an alternative to the petrol mower.
With a price of 1430 Euro including charger, the new cordless lawn mower from Honda is in the price range of the upmarket petrol mower and is therefore the most expensive cordless lawn mower on the market.
For the price, the Honda offers 42 cm cutting width, central cutting height adjustment and a wheel drive. What is special, however, is the new battery concept from Honda. While most other cordless lawn mowers work with lead-acid batteries, uses Honda NiCd battery cells. They are in the form of three packs with twice 14,4 volts and once 9,6 Volt permanently installed under the hood of the lawnmower.
The advantage over a lead-acid battery is that the NiCd cells require less maintenance. While a lead-acid battery must never be over-discharged, because the cells then destroy themselves over time, a NiCd battery also takes a long time when discharged, for example over winter, not bad. It's also much faster to recharge. Honda usually supplies a 3 hour charger. From spring 2003 A Sprint charger should also be available, that the battery even in just 38 fully recharges in minutes. However, it also costs the proud price of 525 Euro. Is this purchase worth it?, every user must
Surprised, how well the Honda cordless mower handles tall grass.
decide for yourself. A removable battery would certainly have been cheaper. He would also have the advantage, that you can almost 37 kg heavy lawn mower would not have to be transported to the socket every time. Because of the built-in battery, we can only recommend the device, if a socket is available at the storage area of the lawnmower.
Operating the Honda HRE 42 B SD is, apart from the side-placed connector for the charger and security key, pretty easy. The cutting height can be adjusted to six levels from a central lever 1,8 to 7,5 Set cm height. When you don't want to stress your lawn too much, however, you should forget the two bottom shots and cut it a little longer.
To start the device, a safety button must be pressed and then the launch bar moved up to the handle. A second bar switches on the wheel drive, which a pace of 2,9 km/h. Unfortunately, the Honda only offers one speed. For older people, this can already be too fast, boys, it is usually too slow for sporty hobby gardeners.
Depending on the condition, a battery charge should last for up to 500 square meters of lawn are enough. In our test with a short, but on very dense lawns we could not understand this area performance. After just under 400 square meter the battery was always empty. It was surprising, however, how well the cordless lawnmower can handle taller grass. The built-in electronic control tries, keep the engine running at all times.
At a glance: ten cordless lawnmowers
Cordless lawnmowers do not need petrol or a mains cable for the power connection. They offer the independence of a petrol mower without the smell and noise. Nevertheless, they have found only a few buyers so far. Many manufacturers have withdrawn their cordless lawn mowers from the market in recent years, most of them only sell one model anyway. Only Wolf-Garten offers a very extensive cordless mower program with a total of six models.
The main reason for the low acceptance is the limited battery capacity, which only enables the mowing of a few hundred square meters of lawn, even if most lawns are not nearly as big. However, many manufacturer specifications only apply to short lawns. With high grass and particularly dense lawns, only significantly smaller areas can usually be mown with one battery charge. The battery then has to be recharged. Who has a second battery pack to change, can mow twice the area in one go. Otherwise you have to wait until the next day for most models, until mowing can continue. Only the Honda can be recharged in three hours. There's even a 38-minute charger.