Battery Power for Lawn equipment -- is it time?

Some RC engines are started with a hand held motor or drill. Don't recall the brand, but I saw a weedwhacker that could use a drill for starting.

Grease up the blade or bar?

Friction with the wood is going to heat up the saw. I'm sure people have seen scorch marks on sawn wood at times. That heat expands the blade, so it is now pressing against the wood in the cut made while the blade was cooler. Then the wood itself might be expanding from the heat. Not a problem was gas or a corded model, but might be just too much for a battery model. Dull blades and chains mean more heat as they take longer to make the cut.

Even with proper lubrication, that heat will transfer from the chain to the bar. Since narrow kerf means less loss, the chain teeth are probably the same thickness as the bar to begin with. For further fun, the metals used for the bar and chain could have different expansion rates.

If the saw was simply bogging down from a lack of power, it shouldn't be binding in the cut. In the case of bogging, rocking the saw in the cut, so it isn't cutting as much wood at once should help.

 

Almost all of the modern chainsaws are equipped with auto oil mechanism. The first step in using a new chainsaw is to fill the bar oil reservoir and confirming that the oil is being dispensed to the bar by running the saw a few minutes without cutting anything. As such, it is very unlikely to have a lack of bar oil that caused the battery chainsaw to stall.

It simply does not have enough power to overcome the friction caused by a larger log, in my case ~12 inches. This means out of 16-inch bar ~75% of the tooth on the cutting side of the bar is in contact with wood material. When it stalls, I can move the bar back and force and retrigger again to complete the cut, just as you can see in this video. It is a SunJoe battery chainsaw, but it stalls in the middle of the cut and the guy simply has to move the bar back and force and retrigger the saw to get it going. My experience was very similar for my battery chainsaw and this never happened on the corded chainsaw. (see at time 7:27)

EDIT: After seeing the video above, I am thinking of getting Milwaukee M18 Fuel Chainsaw, but that's ~$400 with battery and charger. If I need to buy other battery tools for this system, it may be worth to try but for now, I am set with a new string trimmer and all other hand tools (Ryobi One+ system).

 

Mine is getting stuck in the cut. It stops cutting then I cant get it out of the cut. I tried spray lubricating the bar but no better. have to wiggle the hell ouyt if to get it out of the cut. If I thner go around to the other side of the limb it will cut much better in the same cut so very confused. Not a chainsaw expert by any means. A wedge would work but never have ever needed a wedge on an 8 or 10 inch limb before..

I got my new chain in today and will install it and use it Saturday. I hope it helps. praying it helps.

Thank you.

 

Sound like in your case, you are actually having the chainsaw bar binding by compression. Were you cutting a tree standing or log that is under tension?

I found a better video demonstrating the problem I experienced with my battery chainsaw. This video is actually reviewing the exactly the same chainsaws I bought, Oregon cordless and corded chainsaws. Although the guy reviewing the cordless chainsaw is satisfied with its performance, you can see in the video that the cordless chainsaw struggles to cut through the dead oak log 7-8 inches in diameter. See the chainsaw stalls at about 1:31 and again at 1:54. This never happens with the later cut with the corded chainsaw starting at 3:46. The complete cut time was 1m10s for the cordless vs 20s for the corded.

 

It was the chain.

I looked around for a chain and Oregon makes an updated chain and they say it’s much sharper. Is it ever....the saw now tears through 12 inch wood like it’s butter. Very impressed.i

I knew it was the chain when I took the Oregon Advanced Cut chain out of its box and saw it was razor sharp compared to the one on my saw. Different looking chain too it looks slimmer than the stock chain.

When I bought the saw on eBay for $200 it said new in the box came in the original box and it was spotless tags still on it so can’t see how the chain got so dull. It was dull on the very first cut I made. Just would not cut.

Anyway Thanks to everyone on this thread for all your help and suggestions I’m back in the chainsaw business!

 

Glad to hear you got it squared away!

In other biomass heating news I invested in a kindling cracker. I'm really impressed. It's very easy to use and has delivered impressive results.

 

Oh yeah no more axe swinging almost fun now! There's the craziest wood splitter machines on YouTube basically death machines. But some are very clever.

I miss a fireplace. Not many houses down here have one.

 

Been cold and damp. Told hubby I would split some kindling yesterday and we could light a fire in the fireplace.. I took the axe and nearly cut off my forefinger. Guess my shoulder is not quite healed as I have never come that close before.....Never did have that fire. But the Seahawks won, so....

 

Aaaaand the Pats and the Saints lost.

Great Weekend to forget about Lawn Equipment for a while!!!

Glad you didn't get the finger....

Oh...wait... I didn't mean....

 

Looks like CA is phasing out of gas powered gardening tools.
California’s latest pollution push: Banning gas-powered mowers and blowers - SFChronicle.com

 

So, just an update. The giant tree I had removed as mentioned back in posts 221-229 is now firewood. I spent all day yesterday with a very large rented log splitter. The temperatures have been extremely mild, so we went for it.

We fed a few 33" rounds through the thing, some took as many as 6 cracks with the bonus blade gadget.

I don't usually get to work with tools like this, so even though it was a ton of work and right now every muscle is hurting, it was kinda fun.

I did not rent the conveyor attachment for it, though in hindsight I probably should have.

Now this is far outside the power capability of a battery-powered tool, but it might not always be. I'm starting to see a few gadgets that allow for a higher discharge from the battery than you'd be able to use from a 120v mains line.

Beautiful machine, really worked well.

 

That's cool!! Brings back fun memories of splitting wood with my father-in-law. He had a big old John Deere with a huge splitter and crane mounted on the PTO. Didn't do six at a time, though. And no conveyor. It was a much more fun and productive way to get exercise than a treadmill.

 

I would double-like that if I could! We had a friend who died a few years ago who used to do that as a serious pastime. He had a crusher and big hopper in his garage and used the proceeds to support several missionaries. Whatever you're doing with it, I'm glad you're picking up after the slobs.

 

During the past several weeks while I was occupied with figuring out all sorts of other lockdowny things, my grass got really long.

Whenever that happens, I know my me-powered reel mower will not touch it. In the past I've gone to borrow a friend's gas mower, then get the length down to what I can maintain with the reel. But this didn't seem like a good time to go visiting and borrowing stuff, so I went to Home Depot and came back with their cheapest Ego rotary mower. I went with Ego because I already have a few other Ego tools and a battery and a charger. I didn't get the 'bare tool' version, so now I have two batteries and two chargers. It's been several years since my earlier purchases, so that's probably not a bad thing.

As I was unboxing it in the driveway, I had a neighbor snarking (from more than 6 feet away), did I think it would be able to handle "that rainforest"?

I didn't know what to expect myself, so I just said I had both batteries charged and we'd see what happened.

Turned out it did the whole job on one charge of the 280 Wh battery, LED never even changed color from green. I never heard it so much as slow down. (In fairness, I think that's because it feedback-controls the motor speed.)

So far as I can tell, the answer is 'yes'.

 

Awesome!!

I deployed my robot mower on the "big" lawn about a week ago and it's doing great. I'm now about 3 days late for a first manual mow of the "little" lawn.

I love hearing electric landscaping success stories. If it weren't for the 'ronapocalypse I'd probably be out looking for one of those Ryobi tractors like @Georgina Rudkus recently acquired.

 

Used it twice, now.

It's exceptional. The torque is amazing. I have no trouble climbing a 60 % grade. The old gas powered mower would bog down and slip on wet grass going up the hill.

Not needing gasoline of the smell of exhaust residue in the garage after each use is just great.

 

no mowing here yet, still winter. 3" of snow saturday