Mowing the lawn this afternoon and all the magic smoke escaped from the
mower :-( I wasn't stressing it at all - it's just died (no power, god
awful noise and several of the windings are a charred mess :-/).

This was a 100 quid flymo rotary in it's third season. ~6x12m lawn so nothing
major. Having dismantled it and seen just how crap it is I'm pondering just
buying a cheap and chearful 40 quid job and accepting it will probably only
do this year. I'm reluctant to spend another 100 quid on a flymo model...

Any feel if any of the other brands are any better? There are some Bosch
models for 80 quidish but are they just as crap as the flymo? (and more
importantly, just the same as the MaxPowerUberOwnBrand models that go for
half the price?).

I'm tempted to go cheap and just assume it'll be crap - less chance of
being disappointed

Any recomendations? Previous one was something like the flymo on
http://direct.tesco.com/q/R.200-8936.aspx - want something similar. Petrol
not an option ta - want leccy.

Darren

dmc wrote:

Any recomendations? Previous one was something like the flymo on
http://direct.tesco.com/q/R.200-8936.aspx - want something similar. Petrol
not an option ta - want leccy.

Darren


The Bosch Rotak models are a best-buy in Which? magazine (if that
carries any weight with you).

On Sat, 09 May 2009 17:39:09 +0000, dmc wrote:
This was a 100 quid flymo rotary in it's third season. ~6x12m lawn so nothing
major. Having dismantled it and seen just how crap it is I'm pondering just
buying a cheap and chearful 40 quid job and accepting it will probably only
do this year. I'm reluctant to spend another 100 quid on a flymo model...

Hmm, my Dad had one of those ancient Flymo petrol hover models from way
back - apparently it finally gave up last year. One of the engine supports
had cracked and it was getting a bit unreliable close to the end, but it
must have done close on 40 years of service, which isn't half bad. I'm not
sure if that can be expected from any mower these days, petrol or electric :-(

dmc wrote:
Mowing the lawn this afternoon and all the magic smoke escaped from the
mower :-( I wasn't stressing it at all - it's just died (no power, god
awful noise and several of the windings are a charred mess :-/).

This was a 100 quid flymo rotary in it's third season. ~6x12m lawn so nothing
major. Having dismantled it and seen just how crap it is I'm pondering just
buying a cheap and chearful 40 quid job and accepting it will probably only
do this year. I'm reluctant to spend another 100 quid on a flymo model...

Any feel if any of the other brands are any better? There are some Bosch
models for 80 quidish but are they just as crap as the flymo? (and more
importantly, just the same as the MaxPowerUberOwnBrand models that go for
half the price?).

I'm tempted to go cheap and just assume it'll be crap - less chance of
being disappointed

Any recomendations? Previous one was something like the flymo on
http://direct.tesco.com/q/R.200-8936.aspx - want something similar. Petrol
not an option ta - want leccy.

Darren

There's a very simple way to get a machine thats likely to last well,
if that's all you want - buy an old one. And I mean old.


NT

In article ,
(dmc) writes:


Mowing the lawn this afternoon and all the magic smoke escaped from the
mower :-( I wasn't stressing it at all - it's just died (no power, god
awful noise and several of the windings are a charred mess :-/).

This was a 100 quid flymo rotary in it's third season. ~6x12m lawn so nothing
major. Having dismantled it and seen just how crap it is I'm pondering just
buying a cheap and chearful 40 quid job and accepting it will probably only
do this year. I'm reluctant to spend another 100 quid on a flymo model...

It's a long time since I've seen a Flymo, but I used to have neighbours
with them, and had one myself in a rented house, and they were all crap.
Spent many hours with them in bits, and they aren't intended to be
repairable.

Any feel if any of the other brands are any better? There are some Bosch
models for 80 quidish but are they just as crap as the flymo? (and more
importantly, just the same as the MaxPowerUberOwnBrand models that go for
half the price?).

Find an induction motor one. I've bought two over the last 15 or so years,
and they're still both working fine. You may need to go to a lawnmower
centre. When I last looked at the ones in the DIY sheds, they were all
universal motor mowers like the flymo, although that was 10 years ago.
A universal motor is cheaper, and unsuited for grass cutting.

--
Andrew Gabriel
[email address is not usable -- followup in the newsgroup]

dmc wrote:
Mowing the lawn this afternoon and all the magic smoke escaped from the
mower :-( I wasn't stressing it at all - it's just died (no power, god
awful noise and several of the windings are a charred mess :-/).

This was a 100 quid flymo rotary in it's third season. ~6x12m lawn so nothing
major. Having dismantled it and seen just how crap it is I'm pondering just
buying a cheap and chearful 40 quid job and accepting it will probably only
do this year. I'm reluctant to spend another 100 quid on a flymo model...

Any feel if any of the other brands are any better? There are some Bosch
models for 80 quidish but are they just as crap as the flymo? (and more
importantly, just the same as the MaxPowerUberOwnBrand models that go for
half the price?).

I'm tempted to go cheap and just assume it'll be crap - less chance of
being disappointed

Any recomendations? Previous one was something like the flymo on
http://direct.tesco.com/q/R.200-8936.aspx - want something similar. Petrol
not an option ta - want leccy.

Darren


Buy my old Hayterette..build like a tank..not leccy tho.

pondering just buying a cheap and chearful 40 quid job and accepting
it will probably only do this year.

Works for me. Ditto leaf blowers / garden vacs. Built to last a year and a
day. Buy cheap, salvage the copper content, bin it buy a new one.

Al.

Find an induction motor one. I've bought two over the last 15 or so years,
and they're still both working fine. You may need to go to a lawnmower
centre. When I last looked at the ones in the DIY sheds, they were all
universal motor mowers like the flymo, although that was 10 years ago.
A universal motor is cheaper, and unsuited for grass cutting.


How do you recognise this from the outside?

--
Andrew Gabriel
[email address is not usable -- followup in the newsgroup]

In article . com,
Jules writes:
On Sat, 09 May 2009 17:39:09 +0000, dmc wrote:
This was a 100 quid flymo rotary in it's third season. ~6x12m lawn so nothing
major. Having dismantled it and seen just how crap it is I'm pondering just
buying a cheap and chearful 40 quid job and accepting it will probably only
do this year. I'm reluctant to spend another 100 quid on a flymo model...

Hmm, my Dad had one of those ancient Flymo petrol hover models from way
back - apparently it finally gave up last year. One of the engine supports
had cracked and it was getting a bit unreliable close to the end, but it
must have done close on 40 years of service, which isn't half bad. I'm not
sure if that can be expected from any mower these days, petrol or electric :-(

My parents bought a Sears petrol mower when we lived in the US in 1965.
I used it until 1995. It was still working, and the Briggs and Stratton
engine (2.5HP or 3.5HP, can't recall now) was perfect, but the steel
bodywork was cracking, and I had visions of a catastrophic failure
with bits of mower and blade flying in all directions. The blade had
caught one bit of loose steel ducting, and ripped it off. I was
unaware until a few seconds later when I heard it land on the other
side of the road, and even then, I didn't realise for a few moments
that it had come from the underside of the mower.

--
Andrew Gabriel
[email address is not usable -- followup in the newsgroup]

In article ,
"newshound" writes:

Find an induction motor one. I've bought two over the last 15 or so years,
and they're still both working fine. You may need to go to a lawnmower
centre. When I last looked at the ones in the DIY sheds, they were all
universal motor mowers like the flymo, although that was 10 years ago.
A universal motor is cheaper, and unsuited for grass cutting.

How do you recognise this from the outside?

You can't. Need to check in the instructions/specifications,
or if you're in a specialist lawnmower centre, ask the staff.
Both my induction motor mowers are German (different makes
though).

Induction motor mowers tend to be less power than the same
size universal motor mower. This is because the induction
motors used seem to be more efficient (the energy goes into
the grass cutting, and not making the motor red hot).

--
Andrew Gabriel
[email address is not usable -- followup in the newsgroup]

dmc wrote:

Any recomendations? Previous one was something like the flymo on
http://direct.tesco.com/q/R.200-8936.aspx - want something similar. Petrol
not an option ta - want leccy.

Oh well in that case your answers are easy. Yes, they're all crap. All
electric mowers are crap. All rotary mowers are also crap, but perhaps
slightly less crap when powered by petrol. Sometimes they are a
necessary evil since they do work where a cylinder mower will not and
they cost less than a decent flail mower.

But if you want a decent mower at a reasonable cost then get one with a
petrol engine. Even "cheap" brands such as Power Devil and Sovereign are
way better than electric mowers, especially better than Flymo which
really are the pits.

Dave Osborne wrote:

The Bosch Rotak models are a best-buy in Which? magazine (if that
carries any weight with you).

Well, it should indicate which ones to avoid (ie. avoid the Which? best
buys).

"Steve Firth" wrote in message
.. .
dmc wrote:

Any recomendations? Previous one was something like the flymo on
http://direct.tesco.com/q/R.200-8936.aspx - want something similar.
Petrol
not an option ta - want leccy.

Oh well in that case your answers are easy. Yes, they're all crap. All
electric mowers are crap. All rotary mowers are also crap, but perhaps
slightly less crap when powered by petrol. Sometimes they are a
necessary evil since they do work where a cylinder mower will not and
they cost less than a decent flail mower.

But if you want a decent mower at a reasonable cost then get one with a
petrol engine. Even "cheap" brands such as Power Devil and Sovereign are
way better than electric mowers, especially better than Flymo which
really are the pits.

In what way are petrol ones better?

brass monkey wrote:
"Steve Firth" wrote in message
.. .
dmc wrote:

Any recomendations? Previous one was something like the flymo on
http://direct.tesco.com/q/R.200-8936.aspx - want something similar.
Petrol
not an option ta - want leccy.
Oh well in that case your answers are easy. Yes, they're all crap. All
electric mowers are crap. All rotary mowers are also crap, but perhaps
slightly less crap when powered by petrol. Sometimes they are a
necessary evil since they do work where a cylinder mower will not and
they cost less than a decent flail mower.

But if you want a decent mower at a reasonable cost then get one with a
petrol engine. Even "cheap" brands such as Power Devil and Sovereign are
way better than electric mowers, especially better than Flymo which
really are the pits.

In what way are petrol ones better?


Power. You are limited to about 3KW which is about 4bhp.
You can't cut a lot with that.

On Sat, 09 May 2009 11:29:12 -0700, meow2222 wrote:
There's a very simple way to get a machine thats likely to last well,
if that's all you want - buy an old one. And I mean old.

Such as:

http://www.dself.dsl.pipex.com/MUSEU...ower/mower.htm

brass monkey wrote:

In what way are petrol ones better?

They're more powerful, less messing about, it's impossible to cut the
non-existent cord and you don't have to fiddle about trying to keep the
cord out of the way of the lawn mower. In general the grass boxes are
bigger and the mowers can be self-propelled which is a real benefit
unless your garden is the size of a handkerchief.

For years my wofe insisted on having electric lawnmowers for some weird
reason. Then eventually she let me buy a petrol mower. After a couple of
days she was asking me why we had messed about with electric mowers for
so long.

The nagatives with a petrol mower is that you have to learn how to start
it and some people just down seem to be able to work a recoil starter.
And those who can start one usually just drop the handle after starting
then wonder why the handlle breaks so easily.

The only thing that killed off my previous petrol mower was the cost of
a new carburettor after the old one failed. It was actually cheaper to
buy a new mower.

Steve Firth wrote:
brass monkey wrote:

In what way are petrol ones better?

They're more powerful, less messing about, it's impossible to cut the
non-existent cord and you don't have to fiddle about trying to keep the
cord out of the way of the lawn mower. In general the grass boxes are
bigger and the mowers can be self-propelled which is a real benefit
unless your garden is the size of a handkerchief.

For years my wofe insisted on having electric lawnmowers for some weird
reason. Then eventually she let me buy a petrol mower. After a couple of
days she was asking me why we had messed about with electric mowers for
so long.

The nagatives with a petrol mower is that you have to learn how to start
it and some people just down seem to be able to work a recoil starter.
And those who can start one usually just drop the handle after starting
then wonder why the handlle breaks so easily.


You can get little walk behinds with electric starters now..

The only thing that killed off my previous petrol mower was the cost of
a new carburettor after the old one failed. It was actually cheaper to
buy a new mower.

Well you obviously don't buy the sort that I do.
Even the little Hayterette I bought for a couple of hundred 30 years ago
cant be replaced much under £400.

And the ride on was a couple of grand.

The Natural Philosopher wrote:

Well you obviously don't buy the sort that I do.

Well no, I wouldn't. I'm not a tit.

In article ,
The Natural Philosopher writes:
brass monkey wrote:
"Steve Firth" wrote in message
.. .
dmc wrote:

Any recomendations? Previous one was something like the flymo on
http://direct.tesco.com/q/R.200-8936.aspx - want something similar.
Petrol
not an option ta - want leccy.
Oh well in that case your answers are easy. Yes, they're all crap. All
electric mowers are crap.

I would have agreed with you, until I discovered the two German
induction motor mowers I have now.

All rotary mowers are also crap, but perhaps
slightly less crap when powered by petrol. Sometimes they are a
necessary evil since they do work where a cylinder mower will not and
they cost less than a decent flail mower.

But if you want a decent mower at a reasonable cost then get one with a
petrol engine. Even "cheap" brands such as Power Devil and Sovereign are
way better than electric mowers, especially better than Flymo which
really are the pits.

In what way are petrol ones better?


Power. You are limited to about 3KW which is about 4bhp.
You can't cut a lot with that.

It's probably a fair comparison between a petrol and universal
motor mower like the flymo. But it doesn't work as a comparison
between petrol and induction motor, but then neither does a
power comparison between universal and induction motors, because
the induction motor torque profile is perfect for grass cutting,
whereas a universal motor is exactly the wrong torque profile
(and it seems the universal motors used are always crap efficiency).
I found the cutting power of a 3.5HP petrol to be the same as a
1.5kW induction motor (although to be fair, the petol did have
a 10% larger cutting area). Again, this may be because the
torque profile of a petrol engine isn't as good for grass cutting,
although not as bad as that of a universal motor, and to some
extent mitigated by the speed/trottle feedback loop.

--
Andrew Gabriel
[email address is not usable -- followup in the newsgroup]

explained on 10/05/2009 :
Thus spake dmc ) unto the assembled multitudes:


Mowing the lawn this afternoon and all the magic smoke escaped from the
mower :-( I wasn't stressing it at all - it's just died (no power, god
awful noise and several of the windings are a charred mess :-/).

This was a 100 quid flymo rotary in it's third season. ~6x12m lawn so
nothing major. Having dismantled it and seen just how crap it is I'm
pondering just buying a cheap and chearful 40 quid job and accepting it will
probably only do this year. I'm reluctant to spend another 100 quid on a
flymo model...

Four years ago I bought a rotary petrol mower (some obscure rebadged
Chinese make) from Focus, for 89 quid, expecting at that price for it to
last only a couple of seasons at most. Still going strong, does a great
job, and always starts on the first 'pull'. The plastic fuel tank did
spring a leak last year but that was easily fixed with some plastic repair
goo. Changing the oil is weird though: you remove the filler plug and tip
the machine upside down to drain it out of the filler hole...

We have about a third of an acre to be cut, some of it quite rough and
due to the underlying clay, it can get quite boggy.

Over the past twenty years we have gone through a whole series of
mowers, with none of them proving to be long term up to the job
reliability wise, or very long lasting. We started with a small
electric cylinder type, which didn't last a season. We then got a large
electric hover, that managed about three years before the motor burned
out, followed by a JAP engined hover which lasted a little longer. It
started to fall apart and its hover skirt wore out.

The last one was a B&S engined, self propelled 4HP rotary. The rear
plastic wheeled drive of that slipped on the grass, and the under the
skirt drive belt and pulleys would choke up continuously with grass -
so the drive was never much help and we gave up on it and just pushed
it. It still runs fine and cuts well, but not capable of tackling a
first cut of the season due to constant stalling from overloading. Last
year it was so very wet, it was only possible to cut it a couple of
times.

We decided last year our next one would be a ride-on. We looked at the
cost of yet another self propelled rotary and found they were about
£300 for something of a respectable size. The cheapest new ride on
about £1200. These have quite small wheels and would likely still get
bogged down unless it was very dry. We then started looking at second
hand ride on small tractor style ride on types and found a retired guy
out in the wilds selling them all, irrespective of make or model, at
between £500 and £700 - this was a couple of weeks ago. He buys in part
exchanges, does a quick refurb and resells them. We ordered one, he
agreed to deliver, then said he had another which might suite us even
better. It did, a bit narrower and Direct Collect, so we agreed to
that.

What we have now is an MTD 4140, 14HP 7 gears with automatic Transmatic
drive, electric start, with a 30" cut single blade - not really much
bigger overall than the 4HP self propelled one, but it does the job in
just a fraction of the time and for the first time it is fun :-) An
easy 15minutes ride around, versus at least an afternoon's struggle
with the alternatives. You can even empty the collector without getting
off it.

The whole thing is much more robust, much easier to service and you
don't get covered with grass when using it. It is designed to be
capable of a much larger acreage, so it should last us a very long
time. It is about 5 years old, with no signs of any real wear and they
cost new about £2,200.

--
Regards,
Harry (M1BYT) (L)
http://www.ukradioamateur.co.uk

Al wrote:
pondering just buying a cheap and chearful 40 quid job and accepting
it will probably only do this year.

Works for me. Ditto leaf blowers / garden vacs. Built to last a year
and a day. Buy cheap, salvage the copper content, bin it buy a new
one.

About 10 years ago our Flymo died (one of many) and SWMBO went to Argos &
bought one of these
http://www.argos.co.uk/static/Product/partNumber/7302323/Trail/searchtextLAWNMOWER.htm

It was badged Power Devil at the time.

I berated her about wasting money at the time. Wrong again. Bloody thing
won't die! Been used every year and bear in mind we tend not to get round
to mowing until the grass is too long, so its had a lot of stick.

Ours has an induction motor, don't know about the Challenge version.


--
Dave - The Medway Handyman
www.medwayhandyman.co.uk

Steve Firth wrote:
The Natural Philosopher wrote:

Well you obviously don't buy the sort that I do.

Well no, I wouldn't. I'm not a tit.

And you don't have 1.5 acres to cut either.

Dave Osborne wrote:

The Bosch Rotak models are a best-buy in Which? magazine (if that
carries any weight with you).

I have one, and find it both efficient and manoeuvrable.

Chris
--
Chris J Dixon Nottingham UK


Have dancing shoes, will ceilidh.

The Natural Philosopher wrote:

Steve Firth wrote:
The Natural Philosopher wrote:

Well you obviously don't buy the sort that I do.

Well no, I wouldn't. I'm not a tit.

And you don't have 1.5 acres to cut either.

No, I have 14. See previous comment about "tit".

On Sun, 10 May 2009 15:21:33 +0100, Steve Firth wrote:
And you don't have 1.5 acres to cut either.

No, I have 14.

Not all with a little walk-behind mower though, I assume ;-)

On Sun, 10 May 2009 10:55:05 +0100, Harry Bloomfield wrote:
We decided last year our next one would be a ride-on. We looked at the
cost of yet another self propelled rotary and found they were about
£300 for something of a respectable size. The cheapest new ride on
about £1200. These have quite small wheels and would likely still get
bogged down unless it was very dry.

That seems like a lot. You can get a new ride-on here for $1000 with 42"
cut which looks pretty reasonable (and they actually discounted them to
$800 a few weeks ago - I went out for a box of nails and almost came
home with a new mower

B+S engine, but I don't recall the HP now - but it certainly wasn't
something where I thought it'd be an issue.

it does the job in
just a fraction of the time and for the first time it is fun :-) An easy
15minutes ride around, versus at least an afternoon's struggle with the
alternatives.

Yeah, takes me a couple of hours with our current ride-on, largely because
it's ancient and cuts really badly, so I keep having to go back over
spots. I'm really regretting not buying one of those $800 ones...

cheers

Jules

Jules wrote:

On Sun, 10 May 2009 15:21:33 +0100, Steve Firth wrote:
And you don't have 1.5 acres to cut either.

No, I have 14.

Not all with a little walk-behind mower though, I assume ;-)

No, as posted previously that's mowed with a 55HP tractor fitted with a
1.85 metre wide flail mower. The garden is still fairly large though.

The Nitwittical Philosopher's point such as it is, is bunk. Hayter
mowers don't contain many parts made by Hayter. They are assembled from
the usual collection of bits from the same makers as anyone else. So
Hayter use Briggs and Stratton engines, which are exactly the same ones
fitted to Power Devil and Sovereign mowers. They use the same
carburettors and spares for the engines will fit models across different
manufacturers. Hence it doesn't matter that he paid £400 for his mower,
the engine is cheap enough to be fitted to a £80 mower and for the maker
to turn a profit.

The view that one should pay five times more for a mower in order that
it makes economic sense to pay £100 for a carburettor is one for which
the logic escapes me. Given the interchangeability of parts it's
probably cheaper to buy a Sovereign or similar cheap brand and
transplant the engine to the Hayter than to pay for it to be repaired by
a Hayter agent. TBH since I don't see Hayters as being particularly well
built I found it to be easier to swap the entire mower for a new one.
The old one had lasted since 1990 and the failure was trivial - the push
button pump for priming the carburettor had failed. However the part
isn't available as a replacement it has to be the entire carburettor.

I ended up with a Power Devil self-propelled mower. It's too early to
say how long it will last, but it has done three years so far hence if
it lasts another couple it will work out cheaper per year than a Hayter.

Jules presented the following explanation :
On Sun, 10 May 2009 10:55:05 +0100, Harry Bloomfield wrote:
We decided last year our next one would be a ride-on. We looked at the
cost of yet another self propelled rotary and found they were about
£300 for something of a respectable size. The cheapest new ride on
about £1200. These have quite small wheels and would likely still get
bogged down unless it was very dry.

That seems like a lot. You can get a new ride-on here for $1000 with 42"
cut which looks pretty reasonable (and they actually discounted them to
$800 a few weeks ago - I went out for a box of nails and almost came
home with a new mower

The ride on's seem to be mostly of US import into the UK. Until
recently even the second hand tractor types fetched over £1,000. I had
not come across the even smaller scooter style until this year and was
initially thinking of buying one of those new, until we came across the
second hand tractor style we actually bought.

--
Regards,
Harry (M1BYT) (L)
http://www.ukradioamateur.co.uk

Harry Bloomfield wrote:

We decided last year our next one would be a ride-on.

A ride on? For 1.3rd of an acre? You're as daft as my neighbour who
bought a ride-on for the same amount of land.

As to self-propelled mowers costing £300 coughollocks. They start
around £100. Even Homebase sell them at £140.

Steve Firth coughed up some electrons that declared:

Harry Bloomfield wrote:

We decided last year our next one would be a ride-on.

A ride on? For 1.3rd of an acre? You're as daft as my neighbour who
bought a ride-on for the same amount of land.

As to self-propelled mowers costing £300 coughollocks. They start
around £100. Even Homebase sell them at £140.

And buying a reasonably powered petrol push mower makes a cutting the grass
on a 100' x 75' property (grass all round) painless compared to using a
crap electric that a) can't cut anything except 2" bone dry grass; b)
involves the faff of an electric cable that always gets in the way.

Point: a decent normal mower takes 70% of the effort out of the job even
before worrying about powered or drive on

Tim S wrote:

And buying a reasonably powered petrol push mower makes a cutting the grass
on a 100' x 75' property (grass all round) painless compared to using a
crap electric that a) can't cut anything except 2" bone dry grass; b)
involves the faff of an electric cable that always gets in the way.

I agree with you and for that sort of area powered doesn't help. In fact
you spend more energy fighting the powered mower that you would pushing
an unpowered one. After all lawns in general do not look like the alps
so it's not hard to push a mower around.

Steve Firth wrote:
Jules wrote:

On Sun, 10 May 2009 15:21:33 +0100, Steve Firth wrote:
And you don't have 1.5 acres to cut either.
No, I have 14.
Not all with a little walk-behind mower though, I assume ;-)

No, as posted previously that's mowed with a 55HP tractor fitted with a
1.85 metre wide flail mower. The garden is still fairly large though.

The Nitwittical Philosopher's point such as it is, is bunk. Hayter
mowers don't contain many parts made by Hayter. They are assembled from
the usual collection of bits from the same makers as anyone else. So
Hayter use Briggs and Stratton engines, which are exactly the same ones
fitted to Power Devil and Sovereign mowers. They use the same
carburettors and spares for the engines will fit models across different
manufacturers. Hence it doesn't matter that he paid £400 for his mower,
the engine is cheap enough to be fitted to a £80 mower and for the maker
to turn a profit.


The one part Hayter DO make, or used to, was the actual CAST chassis.

This has seen 14 years of service plus. It hasn't bent., or rusted through.


My Ride on is equipped with the same B&S enegine everybody else uses.
That's not what makes it good though. What makes it good is the massive
steel deck, and the simplicity of servicing it.

You are in fact proving my point. The make of engine is irrelevant.
Because its a small part of the machine. What counts is how the rest is
put together.



The view that one should pay five times more for a mower in order that
it makes economic sense to pay £100 for a carburettor is one for which
the logic escapes me. Given the interchangeability of parts it's
probably cheaper to buy a Sovereign or similar cheap brand and
transplant the engine to the Hayter than to pay for it to be repaired by
a Hayter agent. TBH since I don't see Hayters as being particularly well
built I found it to be easier to swap the entire mower for a new one.
The old one had lasted since 1990 and the failure was trivial - the push
button pump for priming the carburettor had failed. However the part
isn't available as a replacement it has to be the entire carburettor.


I have never actually beyond a valve re-grind needed to service that B &
S engine at all. Its on its original carb.




I ended up with a Power Devil self-propelled mower. It's too early to
say how long it will last, but it has done three years so far hence if
it lasts another couple it will work out cheaper per year than a Hayter.

I can only speak of that particular Hayter, that has done 30 years with
no major work on it. Not even regular servicing.

Steve Firth wrote:
Harry Bloomfield wrote:

We decided last year our next one would be a ride-on.

A ride on? For 1.3rd of an acre? You're as daft as my neighbour who
bought a ride-on for the same amount of land.

As to self-propelled mowers costing £300 coughollocks. They start
around £100. Even Homebase sell them at £140.

Yup. And you can buy a washing machine for £200, and you can buy a Miele
for £700.

Why do so many people here say the Miele is cheaper in the long run?


After all, the motors are probably exactly the same as the motors in
every other washing machine..;-)

In article ,
Harry Bloomfield writes:

We decided last year our next one would be a ride-on. We looked at the
cost of yet another self propelled rotary and found they were about
£300 for something of a respectable size. The cheapest new ride on
about £1200.

Seem's that Alan Duncan's ride-on cost him £598 to be serviced.
Sorry, I mean it cost _us_ £598 to get it serviced...

--
Andrew Gabriel
[email address is not usable -- followup in the newsgroup]

wrote:

So that's an at-least-19-year-old electric Flymo still working, so they
can't *all* be crap. Perhaps this one was the last of the line of
non-crap ones before Flymo's design team decided on a drastic change of
direction.

For some values of "not crap' I suspect. Flymos can keep working for
years. They make a noise, they scare the grass a bit, they cut to an
unevena and unpredicatable height and you have to cut the grass several
times a week rather than once a week or month.

On Sun, 10 May 2009 17:37:50 +0100, Harry Bloomfield wrote:
That seems like a lot. You can get a new ride-on here for $1000 with 42"
cut which looks pretty reasonable (and they actually discounted them to
$800 a few weeks ago - I went out for a box of nails and almost came
home with a new mower

The ride on's seem to be mostly of US import into the UK.

That might explain it, then - maybe the mower's the same rough price as
here, but you're getting screwed for huge shipping costs :-(

Until
recently even the second hand tractor types fetched over £1,000. I had
not come across the even smaller scooter style until this year and was
initially thinking of buying one of those new, until we came across the
second hand tractor style we actually bought.

The wife's brother has one of those scooter ones, but it has to be a good
20 years old, maybe older; they must have been around for a while (at
least this side of the Pond). It does surprisingly well, but doesn't
exactly feel stable compared to a proper ride-on, even on level ground
(we've got some pretty steep ditches here, and I have to sit with my
backside hanging out over the back wheel even on the ride-on; I suspect a
scooter type would just keel over)

(Today's task is to check the ride-on over; it's been laid up over Winter,
but I'll need to start cutting in the next week or so)

cheers

Jules

In article ,
Steve Firth wrote:
wrote:

So that's an at-least-19-year-old electric Flymo still working, so they
can't *all* be crap. Perhaps this one was the last of the line of
non-crap ones before Flymo's design team decided on a drastic change of
direction.

For some values of "not crap' I suspect. Flymos can keep working for
years. They make a noise, they scare the grass a bit, they cut to an
unevena and unpredicatable height and you have to cut the grass several
times a week rather than once a week or month.


I've been perfectly happy with the performance of the Flymo we had - it
cut the grass fine for us. I'm just reluctant to replace like for like
as the build quality was crap. Scarily so. A bit of hunting around seems
to turn up plenty of others claiming this generation was crap (motors seem
keen to let out their magic smoke) and also plenty of people reporting the
bosch is good. I think I'll go for a Rotak which appears to get good reviews
(yes, it's still an electric mower but we don't all have multiple acres to
boast about on here).

Can't find out if it has an induction motor - which suggests not I guess.
It apparantly has a Bosch "PowerDrive" motor. No idea what that means
(beyond marketing cobblers) but apparantly it's a "hi-torque motor" and
"With the Bosch Powerdrive system, power is at its greatest at low speed.
If the blade speed is reduced, the power increases automatically"

Sounds great. See you all on here is 2.5 years time bitching about crap
bosch mowers

Cheers all.

Darren

dmc wrote:

(yes, it's still an electric mower but we don't all have multiple acres to
boast about on here).

The more important thing with a petrol mower is how easy they are to use
compared to the electric ones. I can only guess that you're keen on
electrics because you've never used a petrol mower. If you get a chance,
before you buy another elctric, try using a petrol mower.

BTW, if it's misplaced "green" sentiments that make you want an
electric, think again. Or at least think about where the electricity
comes from.

In article ,
(dmc) writes:
In article ,
Steve Firth wrote:
wrote:

So that's an at-least-19-year-old electric Flymo still working, so they
can't *all* be crap. Perhaps this one was the last of the line of
non-crap ones before Flymo's design team decided on a drastic change of
direction.

For some values of "not crap' I suspect. Flymos can keep working for
years. They make a noise, they scare the grass a bit, they cut to an
unevena and unpredicatable height and you have to cut the grass several
times a week rather than once a week or month.


I've been perfectly happy with the performance of the Flymo we had - it
cut the grass fine for us. I'm just reluctant to replace like for like
as the build quality was crap. Scarily so. A bit of hunting around seems
to turn up plenty of others claiming this generation was crap (motors seem
keen to let out their magic smoke) and also plenty of people reporting the
bosch is good. I think I'll go for a Rotak which appears to get good reviews
(yes, it's still an electric mower but we don't all have multiple acres to
boast about on here).

Can't find out if it has an induction motor - which suggests not I guess.
It apparantly has a Bosch "PowerDrive" motor. No idea what that means
(beyond marketing cobblers) but apparantly it's a "hi-torque motor" and
"With the Bosch Powerdrive system, power is at its greatest at low speed.

That's an excellent description of a universal motor.

If the blade speed is reduced, the power increases automatically"

I think all uncontrolled motors do that, automatically.

What you really care about is the torque profile.
An induction motor has high torque up near its free running
speed, which means it keeps running near its freerunning speed
when under load. Conversely, it has low starting torque, but
that doesn't much matter (can be considered a safety advantage).
A universal motor has high torque when it's significantly
slowed (and highest when stalled). Actually, you have to
reduce its speed to get any power/torque out of it, and thus
the speed will drop considerably as the load increases.

Yes, the power consumption is greatest at low speed (stalled,
in fact), but so what? Your primary concern is the torque at
high speed.

Another benefit is that an induction motor is about the right
speed to be direct drive, whereas a universal motor is going
to be too fast and need some gearing down (except maybe on
a really tiny mower?), which is extra complexity.

TBH, I really struggle to see why they bother making universal
motor mowers. I can only imagine it's because a universal
motor is something guaranteed to wear out (brushes), which
gets repeat sales. I've heard universal motors are cheaper,
but I can't see why.

One thing with both my induction motor mowers - when new, they
had a feature which stops the motor very quickly when you
release the handle. That died in both cases in about a year,
and they just freewheel to a stop now. I'm not too sure how
you do electric braking with an induction motor. With a
universal motor, you just apply a resistance across it, or
short it and use its own resistance. I do have some mains
induction motor control boards which do electric braking,
so I must go and look at how they work. They generate quite
a hum from the motor when braking and they don't do it by
reversing the motor, as it stops (and continues humming)
without going into reverse if you keep the brake on.

--
Andrew Gabriel
[email address is not usable -- followup in the newsgroup]

In article ,
Steve Firth wrote:
dmc wrote:

(yes, it's still an electric mower but we don't all have multiple acres to
boast about on here).

The more important thing with a petrol mower is how easy they are to use
compared to the electric ones. I can only guess that you're keen on
electrics because you've never used a petrol mower. If you get a chance,
before you buy another elctric, try using a petrol mower.

No, I've used many many petrol mowers. I've also serviced plenty when I
worked at a garage. Petrol is pain as I have to store a can of it
somewhere. That somewhere is in the same shed as all the kids toys etc etc.
Just can't be arsed. An electric that does what I want will be fine.
It's not a huge garden. I hate mowing. SWMBO will only use an eletric mower.
We all win :-)

BTW, if it's misplaced "green" sentiments that make you want an
electric, think again. Or at least think about where the electricity
comes from.

nope, not in the slightest.

Darren