New 80 volt push mowers

FYI - Amazon Warehouse has "Used - Good" string trimmers + battery/charger for $123.56 plus 15% off making them $105.02 with free shipping right now!! I wonder if these have seen much action at all. Most of the stuff I've gotten off of amazon warehouse was just taken out of the box then returned. We'll see! I bought two string trimmers at $138.97.. 8)

https://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/B01CA4PRRO/ref=dp_olp_all_mbc?ie=UTF8&condition=all

http://camelcamelcamel.com/GreenWorks-ST80L210-16-Inch-Cordless-Included/product/B01CA4PRRO
 
I just got a warranty replacement for my Greenworks charger. The original started acting up intermittently, and then stopped charging for good. Took like three days to arrive...great service. Anybody on here feel competent to reverse engineer this thing so folks could use non-standard chargers, and battery packs? I'd gladly ship the dead one, no charge, if you share what you learn.
 
My question is what are the pos and neg in the hall wires.

I think I read that the mower spins at 2800rpm (high)

gogo said:
veloman said:
Yeah I got my motor and parts the other day. The motor looks really good for a mid-drive setup and is only 5lbs. The only question is which hall wires are which? Will have to open up the motor to find out, and I'm a little hesitant to that right now.
You should be able to use the flow-chart for 3-phase combos while using a controller at low power?

What's the shaft diameter and flat length? The internal threads on the shaft is a nice feature.
 
80v Greenworks on sale today
https://www.amazon.com/b/ref=lp_14067131011_gbps_tit_s-3_0082_187912ee?rh=i%3Alawngarden%2Cn%3A14067131011%2Cn%3A14067131011&ie=UTF8&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER&node=14067131011

2ah 144wh battery for $85. Might work for a short range lightweight ebike.
Considering that a dead 2ah battery sold for $40 on ebay recently, this is a good deal.
 
I was back at it today. I made some progress but didn't get it working without the Greenworks battery.

Last time I tried I had positive, negative, and Comm hooked up to my mower controller. The motor would spin for a few seconds then shut off.

I tore apart an 80V string trimmer to see how the battery was hooked up. Noticed the "C" port wasn't connected, but the ohm port was! I hooked up the positive, negative, and ohm terminals of my battery to the controller. Using the supplied handlebar switch for the "throttle", I got the motor to spin reliably. woot!

Now I tried to figure out what the ohm port sent to the controller to get it to run. DMM showed about 5VDC with about 600mVAC. Frequency was about 80Hz. My Fluke 117 doesn't have PWM, which is what I suspect.

I tried to make a back-alley scope with an Arduino and a program called "Processing". - http://www.build-electronic-circuits.com/arduino-oscilloscope/

That worked a little. It doesn't sample fast enough with the analog read. It might with the digital, but I'm going to was to grab a real scope before I try again.

What I suspect the 'ohm' port on the battery may send out is a 5V PWM when it's sourcing current.. The duty cycle could show battery capacity? Current? Or it may just be a heartbeat?
It would really stink if it was a current that had to match the current the controller was seeing.. Probably not worth it at that point.

I tried to replicate it by bitbanging the I/O of a second Arduino. My goal was an 80Hz 98% duty cycle. My code below is the last thing I tried, which was unsuccessful.



The sorry excuse for a scope missing half of more of the pulses..
The left is what I simulated on my arduino, and the right is measured off the battery ohm port when it is running.




Here are pictures of the string trimmer.

To get it apart, pull off or cut the small sticker, then take out all the screws on the outside. Pull the green cover off the back. It might come off without breaking anything if you slightly split open the two black pieces.

It looks like it uses a sensorless motor. It is smaller and uses less FETs. The controller's construction is similar to the mower controller.









 
cool thread. subs
 
Hey Metallover, how long did it take for the motor on other parts to come in after you made your order? Also, do you think adding a different controller to that motor will increase the RPM?? Very curious and I am intrigued on using this motor for an electric vehicle project. :mrgreen:
 
ropower86 said:
Hey Metallover, how long did it take for the motor on other parts to come in after you made your order? Also, do you think adding a different controller to that motor will increase the RPM?? Very curious and I am intrigued on using this motor for an electric vehicle project. :mrgreen:

It took 6 weeks for me to get my order. It may have been faster if everything was in stock when I ordered. I see no problems increasing voltage to whatever you like. If you go ahead to use this motor on a build, post a link in this thread. :D
 
Metallover said:
ropower86 said:
Hey Metallover, how long did it take for the motor on other parts to come in after you made your order? Also, do you think adding a different controller to that motor will increase the RPM?? Very curious and I am intrigued on using this motor for an electric vehicle project. :mrgreen:

It took 6 weeks for me to get my order. It may have been faster if everything was in stock when I ordered. I see no problems increasing voltage to whatever you like. If you go ahead to use this motor on a build, post a link in this thread. :D

6 weeks!!! :shock: That is a long time! I just bought a Greenworks chainsaw 40v digi pro with a 4ah battery, I dismantled it as soon as I got home. The Sad thing is that I ruined the controller within the same week, don't know how but the motor has plenty of torque from testing. I forgot to say I had bought an 80v Greenwork blower early this summer to use for a E-surf board project that did not turn out well due to lack of knowledge at that time. Today, I was testing the 40v chains motor with the 80v blower esc controller and..... :shock:, the RPM had increased tremendously. Yes, the motor did get hot but it was around the bearings. Anyways I will sure update pics and info.
 
It took about 5 days to get my order. 6 weeks was because ML ordered when it was back-ordered.

One thing I would like for the mower is a real mulching blade with teeth. It needs more suction to pull leaves out of grass. I know that will take more power, so they did not venture into such a blade for the mower. If the leaves are sitting on top of thick grass, it mulches great. I did try adding some metal fins on the end of the blades, but they didn't help suction and just drew 40% more power on low speed.

I'm running .095" line on the trimmer and it seems to be lasting quite a bit longer than the .08. I've probably done 50 lawns with one spool of it, 18 feet. The 36v Black & Decker .06 line gets eaten up super fast in comparison. (on the B&D) I don't notice a reduction in run time, but I'm also able to run the trimmer a little slower for the same cutting power. I can't say how happy I am with it. I even do some small lawns (400sq ft) with just the trimmer. I did make an extended debris guard with coroplast and zip ties. I don't understand why they come with such tiny guards. Without one, you can easily get covered in debris.
 
The string trimmer price has dropped to new lows. I couldn't resist, bought another with battery and charger for $109! That's cheaper than buying just the battery. I think I will make an ultralight mower with in, extend the line to 20" cut, fab a little deck with wheels.
 
Spring is here! Almost, at least. I got started with my mower today.

It's not what I'd consider super quiet, but it's half as loud as the gas mower, which is awesome. All the noise comes from the blade, which could only be avoided by a major design change, like multiple, smaller blades, etc.

Things left to do:
-Buy nuts/bolts
-figure out how to mount the controller and battery
-fashion some sort of cover for the motor/controller
-better connect the battery to the controller

The hardest part was drilling holes in the handle to mount the on/off switch. Then even if your holes are right, the parts inside want to fly apart when both halves are apart.

I had to mount the handlebar button on the bottom since the hole in my handle lever is on the left instead of the right.

The rest of it was a piece of cake. Now I need to find a way to dispose of the noise/smell/mess/pollution machine that came off the mower.









 
Kobalt has a 80V lineup, was in the new Lowes store today and saw them.

Its a block away from Home Depot, and Lowes is always empty but I like their selection of bolts and such. Very neatly arranged and bagged in tool box style drawers. I gotta have the inpulse to go their, instead of HD all the time.
 
Hacked!!! :)

I used a real scope this time, I found the waveform is pretty simple. I haven't put much thought into it, but it's got to be battery info, probably LVC. It's 10ms of data every 200ms.

I was able to bit-bang the signal with an Arduino and the motor stayed running for a couple minutes. I'm not sure if it will work for an hour or so, but seems to work so far!

If I can find a 5V rail I can tap into on the controller, I can mount the Arduino to the controller, then just have two bullet connectors for the battery.

This is awesome!



No load current


Running w/o comm line hooked up to the battery


The signal




The code -I edited this since I tested it!!! This code may be wrong!! I will post code I know works later, and probably delete the old code to avoid confusion
Code:
#define PIN          6 // use arduino digital pin 6 (arbitrary)
#define NUM_PULSES  41

uint16_t pulseLow[NUM_PULSES] = {
   400, // one 400us pulse to start
   200, // three 200us pulses
   200,
   200,
   100, // fourteen 100us pulses
   100,
   100,
   100,
   100,
   100,
   100,
   100,
   100,
   100,
   100,
   100,
   100,
   100,
   200, // three 200us pulses
   200,
   200,
   100, // five 100us pulses
   100,
   100,
   100,
   100,
   200, // no distinct pattern
   100,
   200,
   200,
   100,
   200,
   100,
   100,
   100,
   200,
   100,
   100,
   200,
   100,
   200,
   200
}

uint16_t pulseHigh[NUM_PULSES] = {
   100, // 24 100us pulses
   100,
   100,
   100,
   100,
   100,
   100,
   100,
   100,
   100,
   100,
   100,
   100,
   100,
   100,
   100,
   100,
   100,
   100,
   100,
   100,
   100,
   100,
   100,
   500, // one 500us pulse
   100, // 15 100us pulses
   100,
   100,
   100,
   100,
   100,
   100,
   100,
   100,
   100,
   100,
   100,
   100,
   100,
   100,
   0,   // last pulse is the 190ms pulse, do that separately
}

void setup()
{
    // set pin 6 to an output
    pinMode(PIN, OUTPUT);
}

void loop()
{
    // write the data, takes 10.3ms
    for (uint8_t i = 0; i < NUM_PULSES; i++)
    {
        digitalWrite(PIN, LOW);
        delayMicroseconds(pulseLow[i]);
        digitalWrite(PIN, HIGH);
        delayMicroseconds(pulseHigh[i]);
    }
    
    // delay for (200 - 10.3) = 189.7 ms
    delayMicroseconds(700]);
    delay(189);
}
 
Is your blade height correct? Matching the height was a challenge on my customer deck (which was just a piece of wood). I now have the other motor on a Homelite deck and it matches.

I've been putting a ton of use on the Greenworks mower. 45-55 lawns a week now. Probably over 600 total. It's a good motor, no complaints from it, and I've been mowing some really tall grass. The auto kill switch has saved the mower on many occasions where I've hit something solid. The motor instantly shuts down, thankfully. I read that the new 82v commercial line has a turbo button for extra power. I think those are only sold through dealers.

The 80v batteries aren't all that high c rate. Without measuring actual voltage, I can tell there is a bit of sag on the blower and mower. Definitely noticeably less power on the mower than my a123 pack. Granted, it's only a 2ah pack. Capacity seems to be doing fine, run time hasn't degraded as far as I have noticed.

I'm a bit annoyed that Greenworks has a 60v line now too. As if they think there is a need for something between 40 and 80v. I much rather see a larger 30-40" commercial mower from them. My guess is that Lowes told them "we have the 80v Kobalt lineup, so make us a 60v if you want us to carry yours." The Lowes store I was at had a big display for all the Kobalt and Greenworks cordless models. But no 21" deck blades. Ordertree has them. I'd also love a high-lift blade from Greenworks. Not holding my breath though.

Metallover - do you think it's possible to charge the stock batteries with just an 82v supply, not in the stock charger? I'll probably try soon. I suppose it can't really hurt anything.
 
That's a ton of mowing!!! Great news it works so well! I've got no clue on blade height yet, I think it will still be a few weeks before the grass will be long enough to mow up here.

My guess is you would be able to charge with a normal 84V supply It seems like the main power leads go straight out to the pin outside the pack, however IIRC someone found in the 40V pack the leads went through the internal BMS.

I was wondering if I could charge a 20S LiPo pack with the Greenworks charger, that might be more of a challenge. The charger uses all 4 pins of the battery. Maybe one could use a logic analyzer or something to log the data over a charge cycle and figure out what's going on.

If you need more chargers, I have 3 and only plan to use 1 or maybe someday 2, message me if you want me to send you one, sounds like you could really use it!


I got the 80V chainsaw yesterday. Seems like it will work great. I am planning on trying it this weekend, we'll see how it goes. It was heaver than I expected (14lbs with battery). I hope it is quiet enough to run without ear protection, not sure tho. I'm definitely not a chainsaw expert, but it seems well made. It has a chain tensioning that pulls out of the handle.

 
I have charged my two 40v greenworks packs through the negative and positive leads. I was a little worried about the heat on the packs so I stopped doing that, but they charged fine that way.
 
Thanks for the offer on the charger. I have two and rarely charge between jobs. I have 4 2ah batteries which last me about 10-12 jobs trimming and blowing. Sometimes I'll bring it into a place I'm eating lunch at to charge.

I may want to charge them at home a bit slower than 2c to prolong their life.
 
I have a dead Greenworks 80v 2ah battery in case anyone is interested in the shell with the bms/electronics. For the longest time I was looking for this, but don't need it now that I'm not mowing lawns anymore. (ebay seller sent me a dead battery) PM if interested
 
Metallover said:
I got the 80V chainsaw yesterday. Seems like it will work great. I am planning on trying it this weekend, we'll see how it goes. It was heaver than I expected (14lbs with battery).

Get one of these. It allows my wife to use the weed whip with the 4 Ah battery.

https://www.greenworkstools.com/shop-by-tool/battery-chargers/battery-harness
 
I'm just bumping this thread in case anyone is still messing with this stuff. Looks like Metallover and veloman haven't been active lately.

I've been looking for information on running 40v greenworks tools with my 48v ebike batteries.
https://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=102461

I just bought a 40v digipro trimmer as my first tool to experiment with. It powers up and runs with one of my 48v ebike batteries but stops and beeps after ~10 sec as others in this thread describe with other greenworks tools used with non-greenworks batteries.

From what I can read it's hard to do, from what I can tell metallover may have been able to code an Arduino to send necessary signals to get the 80v motor controller to run, and it sounds like veloman just used components from scrapped greenworks batteries to send the signals to get his lawnmower motor controllers to work.

My main interest is to be able to buy the tools alone without the cost of greenworks batteries, and then use them with 0.5-1 kw ebike batteries in a backpack and get a nice long runtime.

If anyone can share more specific info than what's been previously posted on how to make this work I'd really appreciate it. Coding an Arduino is a little over my head at this point but if someone can point me to detailed instruction it might be a fun challenge. Also if anyone has a line on 40v digipro BMS that might work for spoofing the tool let me know too.

Thanks!
 
Hello JesseW!

I found a file on my computer called "batterySimulatorWorking.ino". I will post it below. I bet this would work for anyone that wanted to try it, although if it doesn't work we'll need to go back to square one with an oscilloscope.

Running an Arduino is not too hard if you're willing to buy one.

You could by an Uno or Nano (other 5V models would work too!)
https://www.amazon.com/LAFVIN-Board-ATmega328P-Micro-Controller-Arduino/dp/B07G99NNXL/ref=sr_1_9?keywords=arduino&qid=1572873748&sr=8-9

You will need to power it somehow.
- If you can find a 5V rail somewhere on the controller, that would work.
- If you have a little "power bank" that charges cell phones, that would work.
- You can also use a buck regulator, however it might be hard to get a cheap off-the-shelf unit that runs up to 80V down to 5V - https://www.amazon.com/s?k=5v+buck+regulstor&ref=nb_sb_noss_2

Once you get it, just hook up GND to battery ground and pin 6 up to the battery signal wire.
Download the Arduino IDE and copy/paste the code, select your board and hit upload. It should be that easy! There are many YouTube tutorials on how to do this.
You will have to manage your own low voltage cutoff.

One last note, if anyone wants to further decode the Greenworks signals, for any tools, you should be able to use this software and this logic analyzer to do so, for only $12!! I have used this setup before to measure signals.
https://www.amazon.com/HiLetgo-Anal...ds=logic+analyzer&psc=1&qid=1572875093&sr=8-3
https://www.saleae.com/downloads/

Code:
// written 3/27/2017

// Endless-Sphere
// Metallover
// New 80 volt push mowers
// https://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=79384&start=75

// This is a rudimentary way to get a Greenworks 80V controller to operate without the proprietary Greenworks 80V battery.
// You can use any battery you like. As a note, make sure you manage your own low voltage cutoff now!

// If someone wanted to improve this code, they could:
// Use interrupts or a pwm to generate the signals
// Dig deeper into the Greenworks algorithm to determine what the different signals mean
//    - How does the LVC work, would it be worth relaying ours so the mower shuts off?
//    - Does anything the battery sends tell the mower to speed up in thick grass? Probably not...

#define PIN 6

void setup()
{
    pinMode(PIN, OUTPUT);
}

void loop()
{
    digitalWrite(PIN, LOW);
    delayMicroseconds(400);

    for(uint8_t i = 0; i < 3; i++)
    {
        digitalWrite(PIN, HIGH);
        delayMicroseconds(100);
        digitalWrite(PIN, LOW);
        delayMicroseconds(200);
    }

    for(uint8_t i = 0; i < 14; i++)
    {
        digitalWrite(PIN, HIGH);
        delayMicroseconds(100);
        digitalWrite(PIN, LOW);
        delayMicroseconds(100);
    }
    
    delayMicroseconds(100);

    for(uint8_t i = 0; i < 2; i++)
    {
        digitalWrite(PIN, HIGH);
        delayMicroseconds(100);
        digitalWrite(PIN, LOW);
        delayMicroseconds(200);
    }

    // 5 
    for(uint8_t i = 0; i < 5; i++)
    {
        digitalWrite(PIN, HIGH);
        delayMicroseconds(100);
        digitalWrite(PIN, LOW);
        delayMicroseconds(200);
    }

    // 1 500us pulse
    digitalWrite(PIN, HIGH);
    delayMicroseconds(500);
    digitalWrite(PIN, LOW);
    delayMicroseconds(200);

    // 1 500us high, 200us low
    digitalWrite(PIN, HIGH);
    delayMicroseconds(100);
    digitalWrite(PIN, LOW);
    delayMicroseconds(100);

    // 1 100us pulse
    digitalWrite(PIN, HIGH);
    delayMicroseconds(100);
    digitalWrite(PIN, LOW);
    delayMicroseconds(100);
        
    // 1 100us pulse, 200us low
    digitalWrite(PIN, HIGH);
    delayMicroseconds(100);
    digitalWrite(PIN, LOW);
    delayMicroseconds(200);

    // 1 100us pulse, 200us low
    digitalWrite(PIN, HIGH);
    delayMicroseconds(100);
    digitalWrite(PIN, LOW);
    delayMicroseconds(200);

    // 1 100us pulse, 100us low
    digitalWrite(PIN, HIGH);
    delayMicroseconds(100);
    digitalWrite(PIN, LOW);
    delayMicroseconds(100);

    
    // 1 100us pulse, 200us low
    digitalWrite(PIN, HIGH);
    delayMicroseconds(100);
    digitalWrite(PIN, LOW);
    delayMicroseconds(200);

    // 4 
    for(uint8_t i = 0; i < 4; i++)
    {
        digitalWrite(PIN, HIGH);
        delayMicroseconds(100);
        digitalWrite(PIN, LOW);
        delayMicroseconds(100);
    }

    delayMicroseconds(100);

    // 3 
    for(uint8_t i = 0; i < 3; i++)
    {
        digitalWrite(PIN, HIGH);
        delayMicroseconds(100);
        digitalWrite(PIN, LOW);
        delayMicroseconds(100);
    }

    delayMicroseconds(100);

    // 1 100us pulse, 100us low
    digitalWrite(PIN, HIGH);
    delayMicroseconds(100);
    digitalWrite(PIN, LOW);
    delayMicroseconds(100);

    // 1 100us pulse, 200us low
    digitalWrite(PIN, HIGH);
    delayMicroseconds(100);
    digitalWrite(PIN, LOW);
    delayMicroseconds(200);

    digitalWrite(PIN, HIGH);
    delayMicroseconds(100);
    digitalWrite(PIN, LOW);
    delayMicroseconds(200);

    digitalWrite(PIN, HIGH);
    delay(190);
}
 
Metallover, I tried your code on an Arduino and hooked it up to my 60 Greenworks brushless blower and it didn't work. I wonder if the 60V batteries need different signalling. I did hook up an LED to the Arduino pin 6 and could see slight flickering so I'm pretty sure the code uploaded and is running. Anybody have luck using this on a 60V brushless tool?
 
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