500i Battery Saw?

[Arb23]

It is possible today to make an electric saw that is as powerful or more powerful than the 500i or 880/881. Electric motors that can output that sort of power are common and pretty efficient.

But they require much more power than a small battery the size of the gas tank can provide. And the saw/motor would be very heavy. It would have to have a cord and a big external battery - and tradeoff portability which sort of defeats the purpose. I've seen a battery backpack Husqvarna has that's sorta interesting but still suffers from same issues.

Mills use electric and hydraulic motor saws - usually always fixed / stationary due to size and weight. Easier to maintain and quieter. I've seen an army saw that has a hydraulic motor you can hook up to a truck's hydraulics and cut all day long as long as you don't mind carrying around a 100# saw and a 6x6 truck (the rolling diesel battery pack) lol.

The internal combustion engine is an amazing device - will be around for a long time to come.

 

[Vicente]

Electric is easy affordable movable batteries aren't.

 

[colb]

It's the cost as well and charge time, I do some forestry work I mostly use a 261 as it's light has good power and most of what we're cutting is sub 20" for me to run the battery equivalent of that saw for a day out there would cost me 3 grand per saw in batteriesand chargers plus the saw.

I dunno about 3 grand... I used a battery saw on the ground for the first time on a crane removal and didn't change out the battery all day. The kit was about $500 with a free blower and charger.

 

[Treetopflyer]

I dunno about 3 grand... I used a battery saw on the ground for the first time on a crane removal and didn't change out the battery all day. The kit was about $500 with a free blower and charger.

This has been closer to my experience with battery stuff , our long reach hedge clipper prune all day on one battery so light

 

[Arb23]

I try to do as much as makes sense using battery, but keep saws over 18" all gas for now. And blowers. But anything less than 18" I'll try and find/use battery.

There a new Husqvarna poweraxe 350i I want to try for a general use/limbing saw ground saw. It's a Lowe's/homeowner type model, but for the price I could break a few of those before I started caring too much. Think it's an 18 or 20". Almost no info on it on YT, though.

 

[Vicente]

I dunno about 3 grand... I used a battery saw on the ground for the first time on a crane removal and didn't change out the battery all day. The kit was about $500 with a free blower and charger.

For a small electric saw and small battery. We're running through over a gallon of gas per person per day, on a regular basis in the woods. I have a 540ixp and msa161t both are great saws we barely use gas climbing saws any more but I'd kill a 200bli in under an hour doing forestry work and that's on a much smaller bar and chain than my ms261. Stihls equivalent to the 261 is not cheap, it can run on the ap300 batteries (also not cheap) but is supposed to need the ap500 to get it's max performance and those are supposed to be equivalent to a tank of gas. I haven't priced the ap500 but I'm guessing it's a pretty pricey battery, if you're not making many big cuts with it I'm sure you could get by with 2 batteries a day but I am often making a lot of cuts.

 

[data farm 26]

I bought the rear handle 36v makita saw because it was basically free considering the 2 batteries and charger that came with it. I felled a 14ish inch Aspen, limbed it and bucked it. It did the job very well, but was pretty much dead afterwards. I think it has a 16 or maybe 18 inch bar.

 

[data farm 26]

For a small electric saw and small battery. We're running through over a gallon of gas per person per day, on a regular basis in the woods. I have a 540ixp and msa161t both are great saws we barely use gas climbing saws any more but I'd kill a 200bli in under an hour doing forestry work and that's on a much smaller bar and chain than my ms261. Stihls equivalent to the 261 is not cheap, it can run on the ap300 batteries (also not cheap) but is supposed to need the ap500 to get it's max performance and those are supposed to be equivalent to a tank of gas. I haven't priced the ap500 but I'm guessing it's a pretty pricey battery, if you're not making many big cuts with it I'm sure you could get by with 2 batteries a day but I am often making a lot of cuts.

Is the ap500 the backpack battery?

 

[Vicente]

Is the ap500 the backpack battery?

Pretty sure it's the same size as the ap300 uses plates instead of rods for the cells supposed to last through way more charging/discharge cycles, I'm assuming it's a 5amp hour since the 300 is 3amp hours, that battery case is plenty large for a 5amp hour battery.

 

[Vicente]

Looked up the ap 500 it's a 9.4 ah so pretty big capacity 380$ per at minimum if it was going to be my primary rear handle for everything without gas saws to back it up I would need 4 batteries minimum. The al500 charger (stihls fastest) is 179$ and takes 55 minutes to charge the ap 500 so you'll most likely want 2 chargers, so you can plug a couple in when you get home leave come back swap the batteries before bed and go to sleep and be able to work the next day.

 

[colb]

For a small electric saw and small battery. We're running through over a gallon of gas per person per day, on a regular basis in the woods. I have a 540ixp and msa161t both are great saws we barely use gas climbing saws any more but I'd kill a 200bli in under an hour doing forestry work and that's on a much smaller bar and chain than my ms261. Stihls equivalent to the 261 is not cheap, it can run on the ap300 batteries (also not cheap) but is supposed to need the ap500 to get it's max performance and those are supposed to be equivalent to a tank of gas. I haven't priced the ap500 but I'm guessing it's a pretty pricey battery, if you're not making many big cuts with it I'm sure you could get by with 2 batteries a day but I am often making a lot of cuts.

I've had lithium-only job sites where I could cycle 2 or 3 batteries between my equipment (pole chainsaw, blower, ground saw) and the charger. Do you get too far from your truck?

I keep waiting to see who is first to put a battery holster on a climbing harness. I suspect they are available for work belts. Sounds like you have the trigger down a lot.

 

[Vicente]

I've had lithium-only job sites where I could cycle 2 or 3 batteries between my equipment (pole chainsaw, blower, ground saw) and the charger. Do you get too far from your truck?

I keep waiting to see who is first to put a battery holster on a climbing harness. I suspect they are available for work belts. Sounds like you have the trigger down a lot.

We have jobs that's just the silky and electric saws but they're probably only 30% if that of our normal work. Sometimes we get to where walking to the truck for more than just lunch would definitely hurt the amount of work we could get done in a day.
Yesterday I finished out 2 good sized pines that we started the day before I only had a few hours if that to climb on Friday so I got mine cleaned to probably 85-90 ft I had to wait for one of the other guys a bit so I wouldn't hit him. He cleaned another to about 65 ft I came back Saturday and finished both just the limbing and topping I had left to do on each tree killed half a battery per tree limbed the first topped chucked a few pieces into 261 territory then 362 came down dropped the log, swapped to a fresh battery in my 540ixp and repeat both batteries were halfway dead, normal climbing day I could have done both trees start to finish, not saying I'm fast I'm not slow but it's not hard to run through multiple batteries pretty quickly especially if you're cutting stuff that's on the bigger side.
I wanted to add I have nothing against battery saws I love mine however I think we're a long way from being able to have larger battery saws be the only bigger saws on jobsites for many of us.

 

[Arb23]

It will take a breakthru in battery tech before bigger saws can go battery. Once the energy output of 1 gallon / liter of organic dino juice can be crammed into a battery of the same equivalent size/weight, it's game on.

But, that breakthru is not on the horizon that I know of. There are many interesting research projects going on but it's possible it will never happen just due to limits on the physics of it all. You'll be more likely to see a big hydrogen powered saw first - (are those a thing?) - which uses the internal combustion engine...

 

[Arb23]

Major upgrade incoming! About $9 on Amazon - was cheaper than buying a 4.5mm file set.


Chain speed on this bad boy is 8.6m/s or 28.2ft/sec.
Update: Well, was hoping this chain would have less chatter, but it's about the same. Probably the same chain as what it ships with, but I was thinking Dewalt may have used a cheaper build quality chain as their OEM. Still a handy little saw for clearing brush.

 

[Tr33Climb3r]

I heard, and they will probably deny it if asked, that someone may have searched for "200i" on Arbsession's website before realizing they'd been had lol. It definitely steps up the game...<cracks knuckles>

Almost a hundred people searched for it on the site. Not including the phone calls and text messages.

It hurt my heart to post it. I want it to be true just like all of you.
That being said while visiting the Stihl booth at the TCI expo last fall I would ask..."I'm super excited for the 200i to come out. A top handle fuel injection saw is going to be amazing."
The face reactions and responses were interesting. Maybe I was just seeing something that wasn't there...or was I?!

I just want it to become a thing.

 

[Arb23]

Almost a hundred people searched for it on the site. Not including the phone calls and text messages.

Whew...glad I wasn't the only one that didn't do that lol. Great post, though - hope to see it one day, but I fear all the manufacturers have shifted focus to battery in that segment of the market.