Well sort of, My Old Gas Stihl Weed Eater has a coil issue among other issues. And among the many tools I have to have is a big weed eater to keep up on the property maintenance. Friend have been telling me for a year that I should get one of the bigger Stihl Battery powered trimmers to add to or replace the old gas trimmer with. So on my town run the H&R Agri Power to drop the gas one off for a refurb, I bought the biggest battery powered trimmer they had on the wall and a battery upgrade to the longer run time battery. The upgraded battery had 20% charge out of the box, enough to play with. I got 18 minutes run time on the 20% cutting on the low setting. I have to admit that I am impressed with the power and torque at the head. I let the Broom grass and giant ragweed get out of control around the Krap Kave and in the 18 minutes of run time at 20% charge I whacked every bit of that mess down and had enough battery to get around the Cabin before it was a dead battery. I Hate string heads and string is pretty much useless to me, so I swapped the string head out for a Poly Blade Head. This particular head model has the clamps to put a pair 8" strings into to assist the poly blades if I want to add it. The Battery at full charge I am told has a 40 minute run time on low and takes 45-50 minutes to recharge. I am going to run it on a full charge today and reserve final judgment on it until then. But I suspect from the initial playing with that I am going to like it. I held off on buying 2 more batteries and a second charger until I worked it hard. What I DO NOT like so far is the weight and balance. It weighs twice as much as my gas job, with all of the weight on the back. I rarely used the shoulder strap on the gas job, this one I will use the shoulder strap! I typically do the trimming every two weeks and it takes a 8-10 hour day to get it all done. I average 150-160 hours per year through the mowing season on the weed eater. With the ponds and lake that will probably bump up to 210-220 hours per year keeping the bank vegetation trimmed to the water line and keeping the backside of the big pond dam under control, it is just to steep to mow side ways and going up and down mowing is not a option since the little pond is at the base of the back side of the big pond dam. Not so steep though that I couldn't get a thick bedof grass and blackberries established on it. But the only way to keep it knocked down is a weed eater. Along the tree lines I get thousands of little hickory, oak, sassafras and persimmon saplings that sprout up and more stumps than is feasible to mow around and a String trimmer head just gets the string wrapped up on the saplings, the poly blades whack right through them. All total I have $1200 tied up in this one. I did buy the 3 year extended full replacement warranty for $250 included in the 1200. My working theory is that if it last and works as advertised that it will pay for itself over time with the gas and oil saved. And now I am going to head out to the big pond and see how far I get on knocking that tall thick grass on the point banks down before the battery peters out.
It would be interesting to most of us who weed trim more modestly in the great outdoors to learn your findings about the new battery-powered super Stihl, but also your opinions on the name brand trimmers you've owned from total crap weed trimmers to usable crap with some repair admonitions to the best crap for heavy duty use.
If you have any questions about crap, then you are asking the expert! On a more serious note, there will always be a time and place for hand, battery, corded, and gasoline powered tools. As a Prepper, I plan on having some of all...if not all of all!
Can't say for large land usage, as I don't own anything near as big as Kamp Krap.....but I've owned a Greenworks 40v mower, string trimmer and blower for ~10 years now, to mow the 1/8 acre my house in Texas is on, and been happy with it. Especially nice is the ability to get outside early on a Saturday morning, and NOT piss your neighbors off, running a gas mower, while the outside temperature is only in the 70's! Battery powered mower just sounds like an electric fan blowing, and you can be right outside their window, without bothering them.
Was making a post and had to run when the storm alarms went off. LOL we started getting hammered with 70-80 mPH winds before I could get back in and save and shut things down for the grid power going down (It is a given here) and the Generators kicking on. Will work on it again when this beast of a storm has passed over
And is just me or does that map look like a monster getting ready to eat my farm LOL We are in a bad spot for this between those two protrusions. LOTS of rotation in the sky all around us!
My Dad had an acre of lawn. When I was small he bought a used self propelled 42" lawn mower from a local golf course and repaired the motor. Then he took some scrap metal and some wheels from a go-kart and made a sled he hooked up to the mower. We rode that thing chariot style for years.
It passed with not much damage other than a few little limbs down and limb the size of a tree that flew 75 feet before crashing to the ground. Hearing from friends on the CB North and South of us go hammered pretty hard with patches of shear winds.
I played with a Stihl 57 and 60 they are the small consumer models that have a 11" cut and weigh 7.5 pounds with a 23-25 minute run time on a charge. Would be nice machines for a small property or in town lot. The price tags on those are much more wallet friendly as well........ I want to say they were like $230ish. I ran the 135 (Not only the Biggest H&R had but the biggest stihl makes in battery powered) Through 4 charge cycles today. It does run 44-46 minutes on a charge with the 300S battery running on Low Power Setting. I found nothing that Low would not zing right through. I did run one charge on Medium and run time dropped to 33 Minutes. It takes closer to 90 Minutes to fully recharge NOT 60 Minutes. The hair over 14 pound weight and it being not so well balanced lets your arms and shoulders know you worked I might get the handlebar kit for it. I think that would help A LOT with the balance issue. What is KRAP Anything where MTD is the parent company This is just my personal opinion but I HATE Stihl Chainsaws I have never had anything but problems with them. Only Husqvarna Saws for me That being said I would not own any trimmer other than Stihl gas or battery powered. I can speak much to the String part of the trimmers. The first thing I do is take the string head off and but either circular saw head or a poly blade head on. It takes me like 2 minutes to put 3 new poly blades on...... I might fight with the string head for 30 minutes. I do have 2 string heads but they are the ones that have the clamps that hold a 8" length of string. I use them for doing the fence rows as the fence annihilates the poly blades real fast. Friend has a mowing company and he runs a like 30 year old Ryobi trimmer that predates MTD buy out Ryobi's North American operations..... Well their Subsidiary Company buying it out. I am always amazed looking at how many brands that used to be OK to Great that MTD is the parent company of now days Brands I will recommend are Stihl, Husqvarna, Kubota, Kioti, Shock Mahindra, Woodford/Iowa for hydrants, Grasshopper and Skagg. I had a 40hp Mahindra for a couple of years and it was actually a decent tractor for the price. I traded it even for a subcompact Kioti that was also a good machine but downsized and sold off everything but the Kubota BX22E BX25D Massey 285UK and Oliver 1855. Going to go into some hard times for the next 4 Months Mrs Krap applied for SSD and got pretty much instantly approved and checks start coming in November. Catch is she had to retire ASAP from her Gov Job the Pension Checks start coming in 12 weeks. We bring in about equal income but I am not a pillar of stable regular income. I bring in Big Chunks when I sell grain or Cattle. I won't have grain to sell until harvest and no cattle will be finished until December. That is the bad news. The Good news is she will get a $42,000 lump for the time SS goes back and between her Pension and the SSD she will actually be bringing a couple hundred more per month that she was working FT. We have gone since last November with her on Medical leave using her accumulated sick time........ Yeah she had 9 months worth of sick time saved up and another 8 Months worth of Vacation time she never used that will be another lump for her that comes with the Pension in 12 weeks. But for that 12 weeks all we have is what I get per month on the Cell tower leases which works out to around $2500 per Month after I set aside taxes on it. Sounds good but we are averaging $1750 per month in Medical Co Pays. We both have tax sheltered retirement investments but the Taxes and Penalties for using that money before age 65 is very prohibitive. We spent our $300,000 cash stash last year on the projects and tools for the projects before the Cancer. Would have played that different if we could see into the future Our saving grace here is that I had my whole life policy that I could surrender for its cash value. I replaced the whole policy with a $500,000 Term policy with much lower annual premiums. She expected to have to go through the SSD denial and appeal and the Months long Process. She did not expect to apply and 10 days later be approved for full benefits and have to submit her retirement papers within 5 business days of the SSD Approval. I had already taken the BX25 Loader and the Box Blade to fabricator, and had the Water and electric trench dug and TBH was looking at the insurance money as play money and bought a bunch of tools I have needed to replace for a while. I have to have a functional weed eater or things turn into a over grown mess fast here. So after paying for all that stuff I have $5500 of the insurance surrender money left + the $2500 per Month for the tower leases to get by on for the next 12 weeks.......... which is really $750 per Month after I pay co pays. LOL I don't care who you are, if you lose $8800 per month of income you are going to feel it. So $750 per month ain't gonna cut it, along with the co pays there is the travel cost and meal cost for the weekly long distance medical treatment and the 2 days per week shorter travel trip of 150 mile round trips for chemo and testing. That eats that $750 up fast. So I have been booking light dirt work and land clearing jobs for M5660 and the BX25D Backhoe and cutting cattails and grass down to the water line at a couple of ponds. Thus the new expensive weed eater that doesn't drink gas or oil. I won't have the parts to fix the gas weed eater for 2 more weeks and I need to be making money with a weed eater the next two weeks. The first around a pond job pays $1600 so pays for the weed eater and gives me the money to buy a second battery and charger for it. After that the weed eater is all profit and I have 5 pond jobs lined up for it now over the next 3 Months that pay between $500 and $1200 each and two underbrush clearing jobs for the tractors and chainsaws a 8 acre lot and 11 acre lot at $700 per acre. I REALLY did not want to come out of my semi retirement and start doing hot jobs for other people again but if I don't we are going to have a real hard time in the short term. Long term everything will be fine LOL I just blame Mr Murphy and his damned law. And I should have held some of the liquid cash in reserve last year instead of spending it all The idea was to spend it, get the projects done and start refunding it except everything went sideways before we could start refunding it. All things considered we could be a lot worse off. I am fortunate to have to tools to go out and bring in some cash and to be in good enough health now myself to do the work. we have a container full of food and can tap the gas and diesel reserves to stay mobile and working. I know what dirt floor poor is, I grew up that way on the Rez and spent a good while barely getting buy after leaving. TG the Army taught me how to properly wipe my backside with a MRE finger tip portion of toilet paper Swore a Oath to myself way back that I was going to get out of being poor and in a position where I would never have to worry about where the next meal would come from. No one has ever given me a damned thing other that opportunities to improve my own condition by working hard and earning it. LOL I was a very good car thief in my teens but that would have been a very poor long term career choice and not a skill set I will fall back on now What I really wish I had gotten done is the solar system done, I have the frames built, the battery bank set up, the charge controller and inverter set up and a whole 4 panels mounted on the frame with no cable even going to the combiner box yet. I do have the generator rigged to the battery bank to keep them charged up for emergency power and the generators rigged into the disconnect boxes to auto fire when the grid electric goes down. LOL I just can seem to find the week or two needed to mount the panels and cable them up and to the combiner boxes. When all put together and functional it will be a nice 50KW system, right now it is a frame and system with all but 4 of panels stacked on pallets under tarps in the old winter hog pasture LOL. No electric, propane or diesel bill for the next 3 months would have been real nice. Now when I am not Driving Miss Daisy (Joke me and Mrs Krap have) I will be working off the farm. So still can't find the week or two until early winter, which will be better than handling those hot ass panels in this heat! Why go with land clearing and pond edging? No overhead beyond time and fuel. Cost nothing to add a rider to Corp. Insurance to cover it. VS running one of the food trailers that I would have get inspected and permitted and spend a couple thousand on stock and then contact all of the events I used to do and book whatever I could scrounge up. Or pay the crazy ass fees every town is charging for food trucks and trailers to set up. LOL One town that used to charge a $20 daily mobile vendor fee is charging a $300 daily Mobile Vendor Fee now. Gotta sell a whole lot of food to break even there now. On the other hand put the tractors on the GN go to the job site, do the work, collect the money and go home. What I don't like is being off the farm and out of yelling distance from Mrs Krap on job days. It is not uncommon for her BP to drop because the side effects of the chemo dehydrate her, or her potassium and Magnesium levels to fall out the bottom and her hands turn into balled fist she can't straighten out and mad dash to the ER to get IVs going. She can't even use her phone when the forearms and hands seize up. So that worries the hell out of me being off the farm when I can check on her every hour or so. I have a couple of friends that want to help out but Mrs Krap does not want anyone seeing her in he current state. Bald and under a 100 pounds is not how people remember her last year And everyone has the same shocked OMG expression when they see her now. Then it gets more awkward from there. Sorry went off on a tangent again Easy to do when something consumes most of your mind.......... I hate everything about this cancer! It taints everything to one degree or another.
Our electric future looks bright. The future: This is the yard power expo. Last year. None of the gasoline powered shit caught fire or if it did it was put out so quickly that it didn't draw any attention. The fire department couldn't put out that flaming pile of batteries, they ended up burying it and allowed it to smother and burn out. Also that fire fighter should have had scuba and definitely not been down wind of the fire. Best bet is let it burn and spray the area around the fire so it doesn't spread. Several hundred gallons of water followed by dry chem wouldn't put it out. More water, then a burning metal extinguisher, still won't go out. Let it burn that way the chemicals it puts off in the smoke like hydrochloric acid hydrofluoric acid hydrogen sulfide goes straight up and away from people.
My deer hunting buddy runs milwaukee electric saws, trimmer and pole saw. Likes the stealth they provide. Me and my old boss pretty much dis a whole 60' elm with a milwaukee electric saw. Big 12.0 AH batterys were handy then. Had to get a big stihl to do the base though.
I have a little cheap Walmart brand one I got on clearance came with a 2ah battery that's more like a 1ah and bought a 4ah that might be a 3ah on a good day. I'd be pissed if I paid full prices. It will cut a lot of green wood. But I'm cutting a lot of kiln dried hardwoods. So that means carbide chains and oilers set to kill.
