Electrified Lawn Care

I just ordered the mulching kit for the AMP. I'll let you know how well it does in a few weeks.

I have a small update about cutting time problem with the AMP which I will also update when I get the results from the mulching kit.

Expect an update in a few weeks.

 

Yes. By default the AMP mower shoots the grass out the right hand side of the deck. I really don't know what would be more efficient for longer run time or even if they would be the same but I wanted to get the mulching kit so I would be able to do more cutting without backing up or having to miss parts of the sides of objects because of the discharge on the right.

 

I can no longer recommend the Ariens AMP electric riding mower. The more I use it the more I can see that this thing just is not built right. You would figure that a company like Ariens thats been building mowers for quite a while would know how to build one. I'm not talking about the electric part of the mower but the mower as a mower. As an electric mower is OK for their first attempt but as just a mower its just poorly designed for general maintenance.

Problem 1.
To sharpen the blades you must remove the deck. In order to do that you have to remove 6 pins. Thats not hard at all. Since this is an electric mower you must disconnect the wires from the blade motors. This is where poor design comes in. The wire connectors are located in a very hard to reach area in the back/bottom of the mower. These connectors are zip tied in a way that you must clip the zip ties. Since there is no slack you must have long arms and small hands to do the unclipping and pulling. This makes the job of sharpening the blades very difficult because you have to disconnect them then reconnect and use new zip ties to secure the cables.

I had to remove the deck because I bought the mulching kit and needed to install it. The next problem I ran into was that the steel plates that fit in the mower to keep the grass inside did not fit all the way. I had to bend them a little to line up the holes to screw in the bolts.

The next problem I had was that the instructions said the bolts that bolt onto a triangle shape in the center of the deck had to be placed with the nut inside the triangle. This wont work at least with my tools. Since the bolt was a rounded head the only way to tighten its was with the nut. So I had to put the nut on the outside instead of the inside. I don't see this being an issue since it does not look like it will interfere with anything since its outside the cutting chamber.

The next problem I had after installing the mulching kit was that one of the blades was hitting the side of a triangle shape thing in the center of the deck. To fix this I reseated the blade and just for good measures I took a hammer to the triangle thing to try to dent it inward to make more clearance.

In the end I got the mulching kit installed and working.

Problem 2.
One of my battery sub packs outgassed and bloated. I'm currently in the process of getting this replaced under warranty. Now your supposed to be able to replace the batteries as need and it should be very easy to do so. Well apparently they made it so you cant replace the batteries. I'll explain. There is a bracket that secures the batteries in place. This bracket is secured by a rounded head bolt and nut. The rounded side of the bolt is under a plate. Since you cant use a wrench on that side anyway there is no use of making it have a hex head. This is one of those bolts that have a square fitting under the head to fit in a square hole. This makes it so you can tighten the nut with only one wrench. Well some jack hole decided it would be a good idea to press the top of the nut and the top thread of the bolt. Normally you do this on things you want to permanently secured and never removed. Well thats all good if these are some miracle batteries that last forever. Well I need to remove one. I eventually backed the nut off the bolt while having to keep the bolt pushed up on to the square hole in order to keep the bolt from turning. In the end the nut is now rounded and I still cant use the bolt since the top threads are damaged. I'm going to have to go to Lowes to get a replacement. Or better yet I should make Aires replace it.

Only get this mower if you want an electric and don't mind spending some money on making it better. Like LiFePO4 batteries and nuts and bolts that acutally work. I don't know what to do about the cables yet.

 

That small hill is about 20-25 degree slope. You would think it should make it up it but 48v combined with the hydrostatic transmission and it just does not have the power.

 

OK I have an update about the Ariens AMP for those of you that are interested. I have some surprising news that may leave me disappointed for spending more money. I wont know for sure until I get my grass cut a few more times.

Here is a link to the new information.
CleanMPG Forums - View Single Post - Electrified Lawn Care

 

I finished my second cut with the new batteries and things are looking good.

I was able to cut my whole yard again and I still had about 43v under load at the end of the cut. Which should be good for another 5-10 minutes of cutting.

So it looks like my old batteries were bad all along. The AMP can cut up to an acre and since you can now purchase an AMP for about $2k I would now recommend it again. I still hate that it has some of the other issues I mentioned in my review but since a good battery pack can cut up to an acre I think that and the new price out weighs the other small issues.

I'm back to recommending it. At least for now. As long as nothing else comes up I will give an end of year review.

For more details visit CleanMPG Forums - View Single Post - Electrified Lawn Care

 

I expect the batteries to last about 300 cycles since I am deep cycling them. My guess would be 4 years at most with my experience with SLA batteries.

As far as cost I have not priced the ones from Ariens but if you build your own from the same type of SLA batteries it would cost about $700 at $35 per battery and thats not including shipping. I'm guessing you can easily reuse the wires and fuses from the original batteries.

Personally I'm going to upgrade to LiFePO4 batteries which should last the life of the mower but they cost a lot more. For an example the current price of 110Ah Thudersky LiFePO4 that I found is about $169.75 per cell. You would need 16 cells for a total of $2716. Plus you would need some wire, a fuse, and some connectors. The 110Ah cells would let you mow up to about 2 acres by my estimates. You could go with the 60Ah cells at $104.76 per cell for a total of $1676.16 but that would leave you with less cutting time than the stock SLA batteries.