battery chainsaw

[Arran Turner]

What are the brand that do the battery powered chainsaws, was reading a mag with them in but i cant remember the brand, they are for professional use and have a battery backpack. I think they were french or german made?

 

Thanks folks

 

Arran

[Willu1700l]

Hi, Stihl now do a battery powered chainsaw

[Daniël Bos]

these?

 

Pellenc Selion C20 eco-friendly battery chainsaw | F R Jones and Son

[Arran Turner]

these?

 

Pellenc Selion C20 eco-friendly battery chainsaw | F R Jones and Son

 

Yes thanks bud, that was bugging me so much

[Pedroski]

The Stihl MSA160BCQ is good, as is the Oregon one but that isn't available here yet. We tried the Pellenc stuff a few months back, and to be honest, while it's nice in a way having the battery pack on yer back, it soon becomes a pain in the arris when you want to manoeuvre in and out of stuff, climb etc. You have to switch off and disconnect, then reconnect and switch on.... it's a hassle. Also, the cable gets caught up in stuff. ALSO, one of the pieces of equipment we had on demo were the Pellenc hedgecutters. Again, a nice idea, and they're light to handle, but the balance point of the long one is completely wrong with far too much of the weight out at the end and nothing to counterbalance it. ALSO, the mechanism at the hedgecutter end for adjusting the angle is crap - it's a moulded nylon ratchet type mechanism with a hand screw to clamp it down. The Stihl and Husqvarna are both much much better.

 

The final deal breaker for us with the Pellenc stuff is the cost. The rep was going on about savings in fuel over a year, but when you think about it, the real world difference is probably nothing. In fact, it would probably cost more to own and operate the Pellenc stuff. They wanted £4k for one battery pack and charger, a short hedgecutter and a long pole hedgecutter. They do a blower attachment which is feeble as feeble can be, yet costs getting on for £800. Think how much Stihl or Husky stuff you can get for that sort of money, and how much fuel you can buy, and it just becomes a joke. The price has got to come down, and the equipment has got to get better to match Stihl and Husky. Sure, there are some benefits, like you're seen to be green and you can operate in school grounds with kids in class. I'm looking into the possibility of getting green grants pay toward the equipment.

 

The Stihl MSA160BCQ chainsaw is something like £400-£500 all in, and I think represents pretty good value. Sure, the run time on one charge isn't as good as the Pellenc, but with fast chargers and access to electric (genny, inverter or mains) I don't really think it's such a big deal.

[Pedroski]

Forgot to add, to the Pellenc chainsaw price from FR Jones of £795 + vat (£954), you need to add on the price of the backpack batteries - the cheapest being £660 + vat (£792) and the most expensive being £1486 + vat (£1783). So you're in £1700 min for an electric chainsaw. Whereas the Stihl MSA160BCQ you're in for £400 inc battery, charger and vat. You can buy 4 of them for the price of 1 Pellenc!

[morten]

Forgot to add, to the Pellenc chainsaw price from FR Jones of £795 + vat (£954), you need to add on the price of the backpack batteries - the cheapest being £660 + vat (£792) and the most expensive being £1486 + vat (£1783). So you're in £1700 min for an electric chainsaw. Whereas the Stihl MSA160BCQ you're in for £400 inc battery, charger and vat. You can buy 4 of them for the price of 1 Pellenc!

 

I wonder how long the batteries last, before they loose their capacity. My experience from laptop PCs and battery-powered drills is, that the battery capacity is halved after 3 years, or so. It makes it a lot more expensive than petrol powered tools in the long run, if you have to write off the battery costs in 4-5 years.

[Pedroski]

If I remember correctly, we were told that the battery should last 4 or 5 years, but who knows. Pellenc claim 800 charge/discharge cycles for most of the batteries, 1200 for the most expensive one, and I know we got a day and a half of hedgecutter use on one charge, which is good. But looking at the quality of the connectors and everything else, I can't really see the equipment lasting long enough that you'd make use of that many charge cycles anyway. And an added complication is that the battery packs contain a computer that reads info about the load on the tool, battery state and all that sort of thing, which is then read by the Pellenc engineers at service time..... just seems unnecessarily complicated.

 

That Stihl MSA 160BCQ will do 150 cuts through 4x4 on one charge - if you translate that to work on trees, that's one hell of a lot of cutting per charge, and then you've only got a half hour charge time or something anyway (the Oregon Powernow claims to do 250 cuts in 4x4). The Pellenc, while holding charge for a long time thanks to the massive back pack battery, needs charging overnight. So if you do get low on charge, unless you have another £1000 battery pack for back up then you're knackered. And yeah, Pellenc can go on about the environmental friendliness of the "80% recyclable" battery packs, but the Stihl packs are recyclable too - any Li-Ion pack is recyclable.

 

What I think could be great though, would be a small top handle... battery version of Stihl MS201T. That would be brilliant in the trees. Instant on/off, low noise, no fumes in yer face....

Edited February 7, 2012 by Pedroski

[Jonesie]

Just had these in a week ago, it's taken me a while to get them up here on the website. With build in powersharp as standard.

 

Oregon PowerNow battery chainsaw, with battery and charger. | F R Jones and Son

 

[plank_pusher]

if you can wait a little while longer, 'APPARENTLY' the new husky electric top handle will be released at the APF and i should think that the rest of the range will soon follow