Greenworks PRO 16-Inch 80V Cordless String Trimmer (Attachment Capable), Battery Not Included GST80320

This is a fantastic trimmer and I'm beyond happy with it. Granted Troy-Bilt may have lowered my expectations so much anything would have been better, but this trimmer has far exceeded my expectations...Little background - I had a 4-Cycle Troy-Bilt trimmer for MANY years while living on 8+ acres. It was awesome. No mixing fuel, powerful, smooth speed changes, and attachments. I have the trimmer, edger, blower, leaf vacuum, and tiller. With this much land to handle - it got a workout. Eventually the fuel lines cracked/rotted and had to be replaced. Easy to do and it still worked great. Eventually I moved to a neighborhood on a MUCH smaller lot, but took the old faithful with me. Sadly it finally gave up the ghost a couple years later, but certainly owed me nothing (I think I had it for close to 15 years). So I drove right out to Lowes to pickup another. I knew TB had been purchased by MTD I think and there was a good chance the new stuff wasn't great. But I had much less land to care for and really liked the 4 cycle convenience. Got the new trimmer home and HATED it. It ran terrible, there was NO smooth speed up and it would bog down constantly if it wasn't running at full speed and full speed didn't really FEEL like full speed. It could barely drive the leaf blower. It was so bad I thought something was wrong with it because it ran NOTHING like my old one. I took it back to Lowes and exchanged it - the replacement wasn't better. I should have taken that one back but toughed it out. I learned to adjust with how badly the engine ran and when trimming near our fence - ran it at full speed, covering my legs in lots of green bits. But all my attachments worked and once it warmed up it kinda ran OK. It never started easy. < 2 years after purchase, the pull rope gears broke. SO done.Being 2018 I was hoping there was a decent battery powered alternative. After a bunch of research I found this 80V line of tools and decided to give it a try. I only needed the trimmer currently, but the idea of an electric mower appealed to me as well (though the cheap MTD mower I bought when we moved runs like a dream and has never given us trouble - go figure, thanks Briggs & Stratton). But I wanted a trimmer that would work with my attachments which all were in great shape. Could a battery powered unit work with my edger?I had just replaced the blade in my edger, so when the Greenworks trimmer arrived, that was the first task. A new square edged blade is going to be even harder to drive until it wears down to a rounded edge. This thing drove it like a boss! My trimmer had been dead probably 3 weeks so my 'edges' were pretty much gone. So this was an even harder chore than normal and this trimmer mowed through it. Then I put on the included trimmer attachment and trimmed: it made fast work of the, now, heavy grass on the fence edges, all at LOW speed. This trimmer was so solid at low speed, I was able to trim my entire yard and my legs were pretty much clean - not covered in tons of shredded vegetation. Even better - I bump fed trim line MUCH less than I did with the gas trimmer (which I always had to run at higher speed to maintain cutting) With a lot of cement edging - this is huge for me. The trimmer is well balanced, not too heavy, and the 2Ah battery lasted through the entire job (and given how hard I had to edge - wouldn't have surprised me if it hadn't)So a couple things to note:1) This trimmer does take a couple seconds to ramp up to full speed. I suspect this is a design choice, not a flaw. Electric motors can produce a LOT of torque and if the motor hit full RPM when you jammed the trigger - it would possibly over stress internal components or attachments designed for the more laggy ramp up of gasoline trimmers. It's not a huge deal because... this trimmer holds low speed and instantly reacts to changes in trigger position so once it's going, it stays going and you can easily ramp up/down. You quickly get used to it (and it's so easy to maintain cutting speed - you rarely have to ramp up anyway)2) The trimmer also will 'stop' if you overload it to protect itself and the attachments. When I was edging in well overgrown edges with a new blade and pushed too deep (pretty much ALL the way into the ground), it would stop. Pull it up and restart - worked fine. I quickly adjusted the angle and pressure to edge a little slower without overloading it. This again is likely meant to protect the motor, gears, and battery from a stalled motor (which causes huge current spikes in a motor). It was a MINOR adjustment - this thing is that powerful. When I edged again normally a week later - didn't even have to worry about it because the edger flew through it.3) Attachments - I can't speak to other brands, but all my Troy-Bilt attachments fit. It ran the leaf blower at a MUCH higher (and normal) RPM than the gas trimmer did - the gas trimmer always seemed to struggle with the blower. They fit perfectly and there was a ton of grease inside the shaft to lube things up during initial use. You may have to wipe a bit back into the shaft after a couple uses.So I'm thrilled with this! Given how batteries are about half the cost of these electric yard tools, I already have a 2Ah battery - so looking forward to getting a mower with a 4Ah battery and being done with yardwork gas for good! Highly recommended!

Great product

Let me start by saying, I love the Greenworks Pro 80v tool lineup! I've purchased every 80v tool except for the snow blower... don't really need it here in TX. The string trimmer and all the other tools are working well and have good power and reasonable run times on the 2Ah battery. The lawnmower really needs the 4Ah battery, as I've only been getting ~ 23 minutes of runtime out of the 2Ah batteries in the mower. But, my grass has been kind of high both times I mowed, causing the mower to stay revved up most of the time I've been mowing. The mower revs up automatically when under higher load (i.e. deeper grass). The 4Ah battery lasts much longer. Haven't put the stopwatch to it (while it's in the mower), but it's probably doing @ 45-50 minutes or so. Not bad at all... Just wish it was a little more affordable!The 4Ah battery is just a little too heavy for the handheld 80v tools. Not a big issue though, either use a shoulder strap or just swap between 2 of the 2Ah batteries. Given that they fully recharge in ~ 30 minutes, you can pretty much keep on going. On hot days, 90+ degrees, the batteries will typically have to cool in the charger for up to 5 minutes before charging will start. The battery packs have an integrated temperature probe and the temp data is communicated to the charger in some manner of operation. The charger has an integrated fan that does a great job of keeping things cooled off... It blows air through the battery pack.Now onto the issues I've encountered... sorry GreenWorks, but you guys made some dumb design choices. I've communicated these issues to you, but don't have much faith that anything will be changed.The 18" 80v chainsaw, 2 issues I've noted, but first, some praise. The chainsaw has plenty of power and cuts really well. As good as any similarly sized gas chainsaw I've used. No noise or fumes in your face!!! Love electric chainsawing!!! Great work in making it powerful and capable. Love the fact that it revs up under load like the lawn mower. I'm sure this really helps add to the total cut time available from the batteries. I had problems for a while with throwing the chain often, not sure if something could be improved in the design or if it's mainly due to me just needing to use more finesse. I've worked to be less sloppy with how I'm cutting and that has helped a lot with keeping the chain in place. Now onto the issues I've noted;1st Issue - The chainsaw turns itself off after only 15 seconds of idle time. Who decided this was a good idea? How does this make it safer or save battery power? It doesn't! So why the 15 second auto-shutoff? You know how annoying this is when I'm limbing a tree or a felled branch and having to move around and reposition branches and what not. Even though I never sit the chainsaw down, it always seems to turn off between trigger pulls! 1 minute would have been a reasonable auto-off time delay, but 15 seconds is just plain dumb and annoying. I'm always having to stop, to let go of the chainsaw to reach up to turn it back on... thanks for designing in a very annoying and useless feature!!!2nd issue - the motor drive chain sprocket has a plastic retaining lip that I guess is supposed to help keep the chain on the sprocket. I got the bar/chain in a bind as a limb pinched it and the chain broke this retainer piece off. I kept going and used the chainsaw for several days afterwards, without issue. But not impressed with how this piece broke off or with the fact that it is plastic!3rd issue - chain lube oil tends to leak out, at least when it's between 80 - 100 degrees outside. Maybe it doesn't leak as much in cooler weather when the oil is a bit thicker? Not uncommon for self-lubricating chainsaws, but annoying nonetheless. Wish it could be less leaky or that GreenWorks would include a hard shell case. I have to keep the chainsaw in a paper bag (to absorb the oil) inside of a plastic bag (to keep the oily paper bag from transferring the oil to my trucks interior carpet). Guess I need to just go and buy a hard case.Trimmer issues;1st issue - could have just a little more power and rev up quicker. I'm quite sure both these very minor issues were specific design choices to maximize battery life, so I can overlook them. But, for the size/weight, it seems like the unit is only achieving ~ 85% power output. And yes, I am running it in the higher power mode by pressing the high power toggle button. Just wish high power mode was a wee bit more "high power". Run time is great though! I would sacrifice a few minutes for a little better deep grass/weed cutting performance.2nd (serious) issue - stupidest design decision I've seen!!! The motor output shaft to cable drive shaft coupler is simply hot pressed onto the motor output shaft. AND the coupler is totally cylindrical!!! No splines, no flat area, it's not pinned, it's not keyed, it's just completely smooth and cylindrical, same as the motor output shaft. This is JUST PLAIN STUPID!!! A LOT of power is being transferred by this coupler and your brilliant design engineers have decided that a perfectly smooth hot-pressed on coupler is never going to slip or crack (as mine did) and then spin in place??? If you had chosen a splined or flat area or pinned or keyed coupler desing, the chance of slippage would have been practically eliminated, even if a coupler crack developed. You guys are going to be repairing or replacing a LOT of these units until you change the motor coupler type! There's no way this current hot-pressed perfectly smooth coupler is going to work under strain of load. You made the trimmer attachment capable... How well do you think the coupler is goining to stand up to someone using a tiller attachment? Change this ASAP or you're going to be fixing the vast majority of these units! I've included pictures of the couple that stress fractured in my first unit. See for yourself what I'm talking about. I'm just wondering how long my second replacement unit is going to last. I'll update this review when it fails too.So in summary, great lawn care tools, with good power (maybe great power, haven't compared competing lower voltage competitor's offerings yet). Good battery life which will only improve over the next few years as battery chemistries/designs continue to advance. But no need to wait... battery life, cycle time, initial costs, etc., combined with resulting tool performance all currently FINALLY beat what you can do with gas powered lawn care tools. GreenWorks Pro 80v lawn care tools definitely provide cost savings, with serious advantages in ease of operation, with no mess, fumes, engine maintenance or starting hassles! I'll never buy another gas powered device... the era of the battery operated lawn care tool has finally arrived in my opinion!!! Fix the design flaws and dumb design decisions GreenWorks and you'll take the market by storm!Don't forget to check out the pics of the seriously stupid design choice in coupler utilized on the string trimmer.