What do these Kobalt 80V or Greenworks 80V units weight?? How many hours run time do you get? We also run considerably larger string that what this machines come with and it takes power to spin.
My subjective recollection is that they're very slightly heavier than Stihl gas units - the greater weight of the battery offset by somewhat more plastic vs metal (which is longevity/duty cycle related of course). I see from online reviews the Kobalt, with original trimmer head on, is 13 lbs including 2.5 Ah (200 Wh) battery. The Stihl is 10 lbs, plus call it 1 lb when close to full of gas. That feels plausible. That extra 2 lbs is on the end near your waist, where it's held mainly by your carrying strap; it would be a lot more annoying if it were on the business end.
I've seen promises of 40-50 mins nonstop run time for the trimmer for a 2.5 Ah battery, with normal 0.08 line I assume.
Your use of 0.155 line is new to me and I've stored it for reference. How thick twigs can the 0.155 handle?
It feels like we're dealing with different vegetation types. I can see trimmer-with-thick-string working very well where you have thick grasses with small bushes, blackberries, brambles, etc. Too much for 0.08 string but thicker string presumably lets you clear it with slow and steady sideways motion. For us, we don't have solid vegetation groundcover. What we have are hawthorne bushes and sumacs in clearings, and baby oaks and maples -- woody stuff with stems up to pinky size -- forming a forest understory. I have my doubts any string will work well on that, and we're not doing steady side-to-side clearing where width of path cleared would be crucial. We're walking along hitting specific stems for the most part. Hence the steel (Renegade) blade works fine. But I'll see if I can get my hands on some thicker line and give it a whirl! Always happy to try new stuff.
With our usage pattern in mind (sporadic not nonstop use), for a half-day, I take 2-3x 2.5 Ah batteries. I may only use one if all I do is brush-cut stems here and there, but I may need all 3 if I'm doing a lot of polesawing, pushing the capabilities of the polesaw setup with 4" thick stuff. There are larger (4 Ah??) batteries but they're heavy and I prefer swapping out. There are also 2.0 Ah ones, but they don't last as long, in fact delivering less than 80% operating time (=2.0/2.5) before the power gets low.
If your gas setup works for you, I think the battery setup still lags a bit in comparison, unless you have a compelling reason to switch. We want the quiet, and not to futz around with 2 stroke engines and spilt gas on clothes, etc. With those extra factors, I think it's good enough, but not quite equally good yet. Which means it may well be in 3-5 years!
