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Afternoon all I was intrigued and succumbed to Fleabay temptation a couple of years ago and bought a 2nd hand 536i XP with 4 Amp battery and charger. Perfect? Gawd no. Frustrating? On occasion, yes. But overall, good enough to go for the 535i replacement. Summary of what I've found in 2+ years of use below. Good things: 1 Ease of use. Just brilliant. Hold down start button for maybe 2 secs and go. No choke, no pulling anything, no ear-muffs etc just get to work. Chain brake exactly the same as a petrol motor except the warning lights come on to remind you that its on. Best bit? If there is a problem, your groundie can shout and you can hear him. 2 Maintenance. The oil tank holds enough for about 3 or 4 (4 Amp) battery recharges. Other than re-charge the batteries (I should say I use a slow 80w charger out-of-hours to lengthen battery life), sharpen the chain and maintain the bar, just keep the air intake clean. That's it. 3 Motor overheat cut-out. Got to admit this was the most frustrating bit about the saw. But I accidentally came across the solution. I was running it with a pair of 4 Amp batteries which I would charge with a QC330 rapid charger. I never managed to empty a fully charged battery before the other was charged up. But if I was chogging down a tree and getting near to bar length (14" bar), I had to be really careful not to push it too hard because the motor would cut out and then take a while to cool down and recommence operations again. The frustration was in a number of ways: the on light sometimes flashed before cutting out for a second or two and sometimes did not. On one occasion it cut out after I had finished cutting!!! It would then refuse to play for anything from 10 secs to a couple of minutes. No rhyme or reason as far as I could make out, although I did notice that this happened more often if the battery was losing its charge. The fix? The older of my 4 amp batteries passed away (sniff) and I replaced it with a 5.2 Amp. OMG what a difference! No cutting out, no matter how long I cut for or how big the timber, truly a revelation. Bad things: 1 Bar life. I seem to have got through a lot of bars. 4+ in the last year alone. I don't think I am unusually heavy on my kit since nothing else has a similar problem and this issue is compounded by the fact that it is much harder to get hold of pattern replacements since not many people are using these saws. 2 Weatherproofness (is that a word?). Early on in our time together it rained hard and the saw was out in it. I had been using it up a tree earlier in the weather and it had been fine but then it just refused to play. I brought it indoors, pulled it apart, dried it off and left it alone for a few days and it started up again and has been fine ever since then. But I am now quite fussy about bringing it when the rain starts. 3 Its electric. I know, this is a bit odd but,,,, There is something missing about a chainsaw that doesn't make a racket: it just doesn't seem as dangerous somehow. When I first got it I found myself not bothering with c/saw kit when I used it. When I stopped to consider it, this is nonsense. Chainspeed is 20m/s ie more than quick enough, as I found out (another story) but the lack of noise lulls you into a false sense of security. 4 Robustness. I am a bit of a Husky fan and so also have a Mk 1 550, 2x 562's and a 572 (plus a rebuilt Stihl 076 AV, again, another story) but the 536 does seem more plasticky and less robust than the petrol saws. Having said that, other than the water resistance and bar issues as mentioned above, nothing else has let go or broken. So the 536 is to be relegated to be a chipper saw and I am ordering a new 535 with another 5.2 Amp battery. Going for a 12" bar this time. Cheers Andrew

Which out of Makita or stihl (I have ap300 and ar 3000 battery or I have the Makita lxt batteries) i want a new small battery saw just for pruning/ very small take downs and logging small trees (clear up probably drop the small tree with petrol machine. has anyone used both or any of the battery ones that could give some opinion please? Thanks