Battery powered chainsaw

   / Battery powered chainsaw #1,121  
My only gas saw I have now is a Husky 395xp which has compression relief bulb which I have to use to even pull the cord. I have both left and right bad rotator cuff and rt ruptured bicep and bad fingers plus had hip replaced last year so i'm not in the best shape to be cutting firewood especially with gas chain saw.
 
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   / Battery powered chainsaw #1,122  
Amazing that with all the small/smart battery technology, nobody has tried to make an electric start, gas powered chainsaw.
Or maybe one that utilizes a power cord from a truck or tractor 12V outlet to hook up to the saw’s starter to start it. Then there’s no dead battery issues. Almost everything on wheels has a 12V outlet now, right?

Then all you need is any vehicle with a 12V battery in it to start the saw.

Someone told me McCullough might have had this decades ago.
 
   / Battery powered chainsaw #1,123  
Amazing that with all the small/smart battery technology, nobody has tried to make an electric start, gas powered chainsaw.
You already named the main problem, the weight of any battery sized sufficiently for years of trouble-free usage. Also, excepting the big boys over 75cc, most are too easy to pull over to make that any primary obstacle for most new saw buyers. A lot of 75+ year old members here may own and use chainsaws, but their new saw buying days were probably 10+ years prior, so their unique challenges don't get figured into the manufacturer's design decisions.

Running it off the tractor would be pretty slick, for those who only use their saw near a tractor. You'd have to overcome the current limit of a cigarette lighter jack, usually 20A, but that could be handled with a DC/DC converter charging some big on-board capacitors, with a few seconds of charging before green-lighting for a start. 12V capacitors are not heavy, and the DC/DC converter is almost weightless.

I think it'd be a niche market item, maybe the sales forecast is just too low to justify the costs involved. Of course it's a compound problem, low sales projection leads to higher manufacturing cost per unit, on top of the already-fixed NRE costs.

I do have one saw that's a very hard pull, at 85cc with no decomp valve. I've given a few cutting partners the chance to use it, and they've all handed it back after one pull attempt. You need to yank the cord like you want to hurt the thing, but it always starts after just 1 - 3 pulls.

My saws with decomp always seem to take more pulls to self-prime with the decomp pressed, versus without, so I actually almost never bother pressing the button.
 
   / Battery powered chainsaw #1,124  
I think there was a start assist made at one time that you could hook a drill up to.
Maybe a brushcutter or something.
Guess it did not sell well.
 
   / Battery powered chainsaw #1,125  
You already named the main problem, the weight of any battery sized sufficiently for years of trouble-free usage. Also, excepting the big boys over 75cc, most are too easy to pull over to make that any primary obstacle for most new saw buyers. A lot of 75+ year old members here may own and use chainsaws, but their new saw buying days were probably 10+ years prior, so their unique challenges don't get figured into the manufacturer's design decisions.

Running it off the tractor would be pretty slick, for those who only use their saw near a tractor. You'd have to overcome the current limit of a cigarette lighter jack, usually 20A, but that could be handled with a DC/DC converter charging some big on-board capacitors, with a few seconds of charging before green-lighting for a start. 12V capacitors are not heavy, and the DC/DC converter is almost weightless.

I think it'd be a niche market item, maybe the sales forecast is just too low to justify the costs involved. Of course it's a compound problem, low sales projection leads to higher manufacturing cost per unit, on top of the already-fixed NRE costs.

I do have one saw that's a very hard pull, at 85cc with no decomp valve. I've given a few cutting partners the chance to use it, and they've all handed it back after one pull attempt. You need to yank the cord like you want to hurt the thing, but it always starts after just 1 - 3 pulls.

My saws with decomp always seem to take more pulls to self-prime with the decomp pressed, versus without, so I actually almost never bother pressing the button.

With all the 3 prong outlets in farm tractors, even small Kubotas and all the trucks that now come with pick-up bed AC outlets, might even be able to make it AC, kind of like the snowblower starters. Heck, my 2020 Ram has really strong AC outlets. Use them every day.

It would need to be miniaturized.

Seems like with all the mini-electric tech out there, some whipper snapper engineer could do it.
 
   / Battery powered chainsaw #1,126  
I think there was a start assist made at one time that you could hook a drill up to.
Maybe a brushcutter or something.
Guess it did not sell well.
Yeah those flopped because you had to bring along another tool.
 
   / Battery powered chainsaw #1,127  
With all the 3 prong outlets in farm tractors, even small Kubotas and all the trucks that now come with pick-up bed AC outlets, might even be able to make it AC, kind of like the snowblower starters. Heck, my 2020 Ram has really strong AC outlets. Use them every day.

It would need to be miniaturized.

Seems like with all the mini-electric tech out there, some whipper snapper engineer could do it.
When I was a kid, I remember a chainsaw my father used. It had a wind up spring contraption on the side under the pull cord mechanism. You threw a lever before shutting the saw off that would wind up the spring. The spring could then be used to start the saw again.

I don't remember the name but it was big, heavy and quite old. I think it was my grandfathers originally.

Stihl has something similar with their "Easy2Start" feature on the MS 211-C-BE saw:


but you still have to pull the cord.
 
   / Battery powered chainsaw #1,128  
The pull is super easy on my MS250…
 
   / Battery powered chainsaw #1,129  
With all the 3 prong outlets in farm tractors, even small Kubotas and all the trucks that now come with pick-up bed AC outlets, might even be able to make it AC, kind of like the snowblower starters. Heck, my 2020 Ram has really strong AC outlets. Use them every day.
AC start of a 2-stroke could work. But the power limitations of most of these outlets would eliminate the chance of a full electric chainsaw on a truck or tractor 110VAC. Most of those I've seen are limited to just 100 watts, or even a few hundred watts, but even small chainsaws usually require more like 2 kW.

My father had a 1970's electric chainsaw from Craftsman, I think it ran real close to 15A @ 110VAC, and only supported a 14"ish bar. It was hella handy for cutting firewood by the back door, quiet and never a mess, but I wouldn't want to take it into the field with me.
 
   / Battery powered chainsaw #1,130  
With all the 3 prong outlets in farm tractors, even small Kubotas and all the trucks that now come with pick-up bed AC outlets, might even be able to make it AC, kind of like the snowblower starters. Heck, my 2020 Ram has really strong AC outlets. Use them every day.

It would need to be miniaturized.

Seems like with all the mini-electric tech out there, some whipper snapper engineer could do it.

Troy bilt made these years ago. It wasn’t a big success apparently.
 

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