Battery Chainsaw

[Ratman]

Looking at the Stihl range for a general use battery saw, mainly to be used when milling to trim up logs etc, any advice on which model ?? 

12” bar would be fine. 

Have the MSA220, love it, have run it on both 12” & 14” bar. On 14” i got about 45mins constant cutting time on anything from 4” up to 12” cuts using AP300S batteries and Stihl 3/8 semi chisel chain, keep it sharp and let it do the cutting and shes a bute!

 

 

 

Can get the promo kits with two batteries and charger for about £800. Got mine last year but only paid £730 i think, so have gone up a bit, but worth it in my opinion.

[dumper]

1 hour ago, Ratman said:

Have the MSA220, love it, have run it on both 12” & 14” bar. On 14” i got about 45mins constant cutting time on anything from 4” up to 12” cuts using AP300S batteries and Stihl 3/8 semi chisel chain, keep it sharp and let it do the cutting and shes a bute!

 

 

 

Can get the promo kits with two batteries and charger for about £800. Got mine last year but only paid £730 i think, so have gone up a bit, but worth it in my opinion.

How long did it run on the 12 inch bar?

[Johnsond]

3 hours ago, Silverhooker said:

Depends how much you want to spend.

Happy to pay the pay for a decent quality tool. The performance and capability is more important to me than price. 

[Ratman]

How long did it run on the 12 inch bar?

The plan was to have another flat out session with the 12” bar on to make a comparison, my theory being that if i dropped to 12” then i should gain extra time with the batteries due to less chain length and drag, possibly a couple of minutes or so 🤷‍♂️............. But, it hasn’t happened yet, i’ve only been ringing up bits and pieces at home so not had a full on session again with it yet. Tbh i only bought it for home for noise reasons, and its been more than capable of anything thats its been required/asked to do at home.

[Witterings]

I bought the Makita DUC 355Z and batteries / charger and thought it worthwhile as I wanted a circular saw and an impact driver as well (any maybe some more garden tools at some stage) so the initial outlay was being split between all the tools.

 

I think it's brilliant for what I use it for which is mainly going out and scavenging wood particularly in areas where there may be walkers, I cut longer lengths around 4ft to keep the battery usage down and bring them home and then use a petrol saw for cutting into log lengths.

 

I also prefer it for things like this weekend reducing a hedge whilst up a ladder, just seems so much easier to use in that situation especially you're constantly start / stop where you're cutting a bit the stopping to move it out the way before doing the next bit.

 

Re the copy batteries ... years ago I had an addiction to flying RC things and each of the batteries was £45/50, China started sending them directly to buyers in the UK and you could get the same for £8 .... the big players initially started trying to scare you with how dangerous Lipo's are (inferring their QC was way better / safer) and they won't last nearly as long as their premium ones.

Think everybody tried the and found otherwise and the all came out of the same factory so never went back the the "premium" .... can't see any reason why these'd be different so I#ll certainly use copies when I need to get some more.

[muttley9050]

Ive tried 2 types of makita battery copies and they were both initially great but both gave up totally and suddenly after about 14 months so stocked up on genuine

[Witterings]

51 minutes ago, muttley9050 said:

Ive tried 2 types of makita battery copies and they were both initially great but both gave up totally and suddenly after about 14 months so stocked up on genuine

 

I'm guessing you have Makita batteries as well to compare ... how long have they lasted in comparison?

 

14 months may not be that bad depending on how much you're using them and if you leave them fully charged for periods of time.

[gmgm]

On 26/03/2021 at 22:07, muttley9050 said:

Ive tried 2 types of makita battery copies and they were both initially great but both gave up totally and suddenly after about 14 months so stocked up on genuine

Long-time lurker, finally joined!  I have the Makita DUC353 chainsaw and similarly, both genuine and copy batteries.  Both of my copy batteries suddenly died and haven't recovered (despite trying the jump-starting trick).  My theory is that the chainsaw/strimmer etc use the batteries fairly intensively, and the copy batteries don't have much (any?) protection built in. 

 

Assuming this is true, then as soon as a copy battery is showing low power, recharge it.  Don't try to eke out the final 10% of juice.

 

My sets of genuine Makita batteries are fine, after over three years of use with the chainsaw and other tools.