DEWALT FLEXVOLT 60V MAX* String Trimmer, Brushless, Two Speed, 15-Inch, 3-Ah Battery (DCST970X1)

This weed wacker is very strong, the next step would be a brushwacker with a blade. The good: -- enough power to cut down weeds up to waist high if the weeds are not too woody. -- has variable control so that light weeds can be trimmed easily and effectively. This trimmer can trim from light flimsy weeds all the way to dense almost brush weeds. Cons: -- the DeWalt string head is useless and jams way too often. After one use I replaced the DeWalt string head with Husqvarna T35 537388101 (indeed, I bought 3 of them eventually to have prewound spools when the line runs out in the middle of wacking). The T35 Husqvarna just goes and goes and goes without problems. -- the weight is a little high for some folks, there is no shoulder strap. I am happy with the DeWalt trimmer line and have only used the DeWalt line except for the initial Husqvarna line. The DeWalt trimmer line does not jam in the T35 even when randomly hand wound. This is important, carefully winding line is such a waste of time and some trimmers seem to only work well with well wound line. I get about 45 minutes from a 9AH FlexVolt battery with perhaps 50-80% of the time actually wacking heavy weeds, averaging knee high. After two of these batteries are depleted, the unit weight is fatiguing, the wacker plus 9AH battery is fairly heavy albeit well balanced. I tried the suggested alternate DeWalt guard to reduce getting covered with bits of weeds, and I was disappointed-- this alternate guard might be OK for a suburban yard with sidewalks, but the guard just gets in the way with heavy weeds-- and if you only have light weeds, well, you don't need this weed wacker. Switched back to the original shield and wear long sleeves, chainsaw chaps, and mask due to poison ivy. With the original guard one is guaranteed to be covered in bits of weeds, from head to toe particularly the lower legs. Regardless, the original DeWalt guard works very well in heavy vegetation. Use: 12 acre pocket farm, this trimmer plus a Stihl gas brushwacker, the latter for the heavy woody bushes. If those are not sufficient, there is the DeWalt battery chainsaw followed by a Stihl gas chainsaw.

I have several hour's worth of mowing where my lawn mower and walk-behind trimmer cannot easily (safely) go. Mostly due to steepness of slope and uneven ground. About two years ago, I got the flex-volt chainsaw and was impressed with its power and battery life. The thought of a second battery was tempting, but the price was daunting, so I waited until the need for a new trimmer was imperative. The trimmer with battery and charger is not that much higher than the battery alone. So far that looks like a good move. (After at least 20 chainsaw battery discharge / recharge cycles with no obvious battery degradation, I have some confidence in the investment. Admittedly, the reports of battery problems and the local absence of customer support are somewhat troubling. My own experience with De Walt tool repair has been that a new power tool can be bought for less than the cost of even the most minor of repairs. To say nothing of the time required. In fairness, these tools far out-lived their three year warranty under fairly heavy use. Because of the many reports of bump-feed reloading issues and the absence of an effective debris shield I ordered the package deal for a real shield, better hub, and string. I plan to swap out the hub when it is empty. (I'll see if it can be reloaded in a shop setting as a useful backup. If not then, "good bye.") The hub and string arrived shortly after the trimmer. The shield is supposed to arrive soon. So. I had a few hours of heavy trimming to do. More overgrown than I like to see. It did great! The bump-feed worked flawlessly; the string was reasonably durable; plenty of power on the "low" setting. The battery lasted for the whole job. And yes, I looked like I'd been spitting into the wind of a mower discharge. The only justification for this I can think of is to wonder about the balance issue of a real shield, which may become heavy when loaded with a buildup of wet debris. (I'll be reporting on this when I review the large shield.) So far, so good. Update: Almost one year later. I finally used up the trimmer string that came with the unit. Turns out that the replacement string I bought was not that difficult to install and at least initially bump-feeds out just fine. The instructions and illustrations could be better. I could never find an arrow on the thing, but there was a short projection that allowed for correct alignment when feeding in the new string. I'm attempting to attach some pictures of an air filter I built to protect the motor from overheating after the air inlets almost instantly become clogged. These are not that easy to clean after every half hour of use. One of the pictures shows the air inlets, after maybe twenty hours of heavy-duty mowing, when I removed the filter for the first time. Perfectly clear! Warning: If you try this, do not tape over the exhaust port, which is right in the natural base of this attachment. Quite probably a white sock and a rubber band would do the same. I finally got some pictures to attach. A simple fix for a heavy, wet mowing issue. I was lucky not to burn up this motor before seeing what was going on.

Just used the DeWalt 60v weedeater to do my whole yard and also in back of my house along the creek and then did my sister-in-law's yard on ONE CHARGE! And still had plenty of power after an 1:30 of weed eating! This thing is awesome! DeWalt's "Power Without Gas" tools are going to make the world switch to electric power. After reading the other reviews, I can't understand why they want to run it wide-open for 30 min flat. There is absolutely no reason to run this thing wide-open all the time. This thing has plenty of cutting power just running it about 1/2 power and save the battery. It will easily cut 3 foot tall grass along a creek bed at 1/2 power, much less wide open to cut a little grass along a sidewalk. What is wonderful is NO STINKING SMOKE, NO HEAT, NO ENGINE NOISE, NO GAS, NO OIL and NO pulling on that #$% gas-powered weed eater a dozen times when it won't start. The ONLY slight negative, the charger that comes with this is pretty weak. I would recommend investing in DeWalt's flexvolt fast charger. DeWalt's fan-cooled flexvolt "fast charger" is fantastic. It will charge batteries in 1/2 hour. You can use the charger that comes with this to charge your other DeWalt batteries...or use as a back-up. I LOVE all of DeWalt's brushless tools. Look for their Made-in-USA tools.

Work perfectly... powerfull.... charge is quick and I have a tons of time to trim my grass... Thanks !

impressive. this thing has power... a lot of it. I gladly got rid of my gas powered string trimmer. It is heavy but well balanced. Battery life is actually pretty good, should last for someone up to 20K square feet lot without problem.

Used couple times to cut grass in yard, nice and powerful. No more gas!

First of all, this thing is powerful. I can take it and bury the head in weeds, and it clears them out no problem whatsoever. I spend most of my time in low setting simply because the high setting be overkill, resulting in more thrown debris. That brings me to my second topic: the guard. The guard around the action end is completely insufficient for normal use. You MUST wear safety glasses with this guy, and pay close attention to what is on the left side of the head because that's the side that is spinning TOWARD you, and that stuff gets constantly thrown into your left foot and shin. Like, literally, the stuff to the left comes directly straight back at the same angle as the shaft and completely misses the vestigial guard - who thought that was a good idea? My last point is about weight. Now, this isn't too heavy to pick up and do spot clearing here and there, but the weight of this guy is definitely noticeable. It's not something you'd want to use for half an hour straight without switching it up. I got it on Amazon.ca in April 2017 for 248.00 CDN.

I purchased both the Dewalt lawnmower as well as this string trimmer. The mower has decent performance except for pretty bad battery life: I cannot even do my entire (small) lawn with it. In contrast, this string trimmer is really excellent. I am very very pleased with it.