# Can someone help me figure out if I can use my corded weedeater with a battery in a backpack?



## vankjeff (Jan 28, 2019)

I know this is a weird question. Some may say, "Just buy a rechargeable weedeater.".
But I got a corded weedeater at ACE last year for only $20 and $ is really tight for me right now so I need to make do with what I have.
I've got a battery backup power supply (photo below) that I bought years ago that's designed to protect computer equipment in a power failure a or power surge. I'd had it protecting the server on a small network of PC's that I had at my real estate business that's now shut down. See that at 
https://facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=198194306877559&id=100000609734900&_rdr
The battery backup unit is 10 years old but it was only used for about a year. The wet-cell battery in it can't seem to be charged no matter what I do. I've tried everything I can think to try.
I found replacement batteries at Amazon for only $10-12.
I'm wanting to figure out if it had a good battery in it, would it run my weedeater for the 15 minutes or so that it takes me to trim around everything when I mow my little lawn that only takes me about 10 minutes to mow & bag the grass. Weedeating takes longer though. I wish I still had a gas powered Green Machine weedeater like the ones I had a bunch of back when I had my lawncare business in my Indiana days.
If I can make this thing run on a battery, which I luckily might already have the unit for that has an inverter in it, then I won't need to get out my big, long extension cords everytime and tug it all over the yard & move it halfway thru the job when I go from front yard to backyard & then mess with putting them all away when I get done.
I could just put the battery backup device in a little backpack and use a short cord so that I would be basically "wireless".
The weedeater says on a label 120v 60Hz.
The battery backup unit is a Belkin 375VA model F6H375-USB that says Input 120Vac, 60hz,10a, Output 120Vac 60hz 375VA/200W, 550VA/300W, Total Output Current 10 amps.
The battery in it is a RITAR RT1240 12v 4.0AH. The specs can be found at http://cache-www.belkin.com/support/dl/F6H375-550-USB_Manual.pdf 
The backup unit isn't sold anymore: www.amazon.com/Belkin-F6H375-USB-Protection-Discontinued-Manufacturer/product-reviews/B0001WV08I


I realize this label that's on the weedeater isn't very readable here so I tried to list what it says above in text:


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## hsvtoolfool (Jul 23, 2018)

The key is 4 AH on the battery rating. coupled with the actual current draw for the weed wacker. If the tools draws only 1A (unlikely!), then you can run it for about 4 hours. If I draws 15A (likely!), the you can run it for about 16 minutes (4AH / 15A= 0.27 Hours = 16 minutes). But given battery age and efficiency factors, I'd guesstimate about 10 minutes maximum run time in the real world.

Another factor is the max current output for the UPS which is 10 amps. If your weed wacker draws 10 amps or more, then I'd say your estimated run time is ZERO. You'll trip a fuse or breaker in the UPS.

I'd love to see you do this experiment just to see how close my guess is.


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## LawnRat (Mar 22, 2019)

4ah at 12v is 0.4ah at 120v. You won't like the results. A small car battery with an inverter...should work for a short bit but that would be much heavier to carry than an electric cord.


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## vankjeff (Jan 28, 2019)

Thanks for helping me but first, *if any Admin sees this, why didn't I get a Notification email on this Reply of his?* Do I need to check something to "subscribe" to my own Questions in these Lawn forums? Or did I maybe accidentally unset a Setting in my Profile after my last question (my first) kept bombarding me when new Questions were asked and I tried to solve it myself? I forget what I did but I do remember looking for how to stop it. I need help, please. 😊
As far as amps goes, it looks like mine is pretty weak since the box says it is rated to use only 1.5-amps. The ones I see if I Google "battery powered string trimmers" are all about 3.5 - 5 amps.
So, with that 1.5-amp rating, maybe this is worth a try. It could be a fun experiment that only costs me $10 or so.
I need to ask though since I haven't yet ordered a new battery, can a battery like this just die due to it sitting unused & probably uncharged for about 9 years? If you think about it, the thing is basically new but I've tried everything I can think of to get it to charge or to even light up any of the 3 lights on top. There are 2 buttons, 1 unlabeled and 1 saying Reset and I've tried tapping either in any order or holding them both or tapping 1 then holding the other. Nothing does anything. To me, that tells me that the battery is dead. I've even left it sitting plugged in (recharging?) overnight several times.


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## g-man (Jun 15, 2017)

In the control panel, board preferences, posting, you can default to notify you by default. You can also turn it on in you original post. You can subscribe to this thread. You will also get notified if the poster mentions or quotes you.


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## LawnRat (Mar 22, 2019)

vankjeff said:


> ....
> As far as amps goes, it looks like mine is pretty weak since the box says it is rated to use only 1.5-amps. The ones I see if I Google "battery powered string trimmers" are all about 3.5 - 5 amps.
> So, with that 1.5-amp rating, maybe this is worth a try. It could be a fun experiment that only costs me $10 or so.
> I need to ask though since I haven't yet ordered a new battery, can a battery like this just die due to it sitting unused & probably uncharged for about 9 years? If you think about it, the thing is basically new but I've tried everything I can think of to get it to charge or to even light up any of the 3 lights on top. There are 2 buttons, 1 unlabeled and 1 saying Reset and I've tried tapping either in any order or holding them both or tapping 1 then holding the other. Nothing does anything. To me, that tells me that the battery is dead. I've even left it sitting plugged in (recharging?) overnight several times.


It won't work, don't waste your money.

Amps at 12v is 1/10th of what the amps at 120v would be. Your weedeater, with *~1.5-amp @ ~110v* is equal to an 18v rechargeable weed eater with about 10 amps. Or a 12v weedeater with about 15 amps. Neither of these exist, I don't think. Yours would be comparable, in power, to maybe a 40v ryobi. Your UPS battery, at 4 amps @ 12v...would only power a 120v weedeater with 0.4 amps...which wont work.

Yes, your old battery is dead. They last maybe 3-5 years, used or not, just like a car battery. I have a shelf full of old UPS backups I can use to "clean" generator power to sine wave. Their batteries are dead too. Some are larger than a big computer tower...those, if they had a good battery, could probably do what you want, but they weigh over 150lbs. They are designed to keep a server running for about an hour. The small UPS you have only has enough power to send a signal to your personal computer, via ethernet usually, to save documents and shut down immediately.

It wont work, save your money.


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## vankjeff (Jan 28, 2019)

Thanks for jumping in quick. Luckily I'd put off ordering a battery from Amazon while I figured out what to add to the order to get it up to $30 or $35 (whatever the current deal is for Free Shipping if you aren't a Prime member).
By the way Mr. Site Admin, this site has a bug. If you start typing a Reply down in the Standard area and then you decide to use this one by clicking [FULL EDITOR & PREVIEW] that allows all the optional stuff, it then says in green above it, "*The submitted form was invalid. Try submitting it again."*
I assume that you or anyone can replicate it doing this but if you can't, I'd be glad to do it again and then tell you anything you want to know.
I just tried doing it again so that I could get a PrintScreen to put here and it didn't do it. So maybe forget it?
Even though I know so little about electrical stuff, just the basics, it has baffled me about a 120v motor running on a 12v battery. But I know it must be possible to convert since this box was made to run a PC as it shuts it down in a power failure but only if you have the software in the PC, which I don't have anymore.
But I've seen an ad on TV lately that one of the newest pickup trucks has a 110v outlet in it.
So, you saved me from buying a $12 battery to see if it would work and then trying to decide if it's even worth the $10-12 trying to return it to the vendor that Amazon had send it to me. Who knows, the return shipping might eat up half that.
That's cool to learn that amps (?) at a different voltage after conversion somehow is then changed mathematically by the ratio that the voltage was converted. I think that's an accurate way to say your "Amps at 12v is 1/10th of what the amps at 120v would be".
So, what makes a battery die to where it won't hold a charge anymore? Maybe it differs with wet cell & dry cell batteries? This one is a wet cell & it says in it to dispose of it properly, whatever that is. 
Maybe that's what the ELECTRONICS RECYCLING events I see are all about out here in southern California? Do I just take it there if I'm really that concerned about a little pollution?
As far as my *not getting any email Notifications of Replies*, I think I found the Setting in my Profile that I must have set wrong a few months ago after I had asked my very first question in a Lawn Forum and then I kept getting bombarded whenever somebody asked a new Question.
Maybe if someone would just Reply to this, I'll see if the Setting I changed has fixed that. 
Thanks everybody. Have a great 4th of July. This is how my Settings had been on the Notifications tab. You'd think that I'd automatically be Subscribed to a Question that I ask so maybe some spam filter is grabbing any emails? I know I got really sick of all the Notification emails I was getting a few months ago when I was trying to kill the moss in my front yard in another Question:


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