On 03/07/2020 11:41, Chris Green wrote:
John Rumm wrote:
On 03/07/2020 09:01, wrote:

I'm tempted to spend some of the kid's inheritance on 18V tools (they'll
probably be less-than impressed to inherit used tools instead of cash -
kids today! ;-) ) and would like some advice from those who use Mak,
Ryobi, DeWalt, etcetera.

I've only just started looking and had expected that Ryobi would be
significantly cheaper, but the price difference is not so great. I've
had a Ryobi scroll saw and a chop saw for many years and both are best
described as "adequate", but the chop saw has recently died and the
Bosch replacement is hugely better (and hugely more expensive).

I have had a couple of combination line trimmer machines from Ryobi -
admittedly not battery, but the general experience has put me off the
rest of their stuff (short life due to poor design, and bad choice of
materials)

They vary. I have a collection of Ryobi 'Expand-it' tools and two
electric and two petrol power heads. The tool ends (brush cutter,
strimmer, hedge trimmer, rotavator) have all been pretty robust and
reliable. The strimmer and rotavator get quite heavy use (we have a 9
acre smallholding).
Yup to be fair I still have some of the Ryobi attachments, and they work
ok on my Stihl power head.

The power heads are more 'variable' shall we say. The 2-stroke petrol
power unit is awful, difficult to start when cold, impossible to start
when hot and it was like this from new.

I found my two stroke was ok ish for the short time it worked. However
at some point something fell off inside it, and it then ingested it. The
results were not pretty:

http://internode.co.uk/ryobi/

The 4-stroke petrol unit is
much better, easy to start hot or cold, runs relatively quietly etc.

I had not intended to get another, but was tempted by a very good deal
for a new 4 stroke (about £60 IIRC).

It's not perfect, it's needed a bit of maintenance, in particular the
mixture adjustement tends to drift but it's easy to change with the
right tool so that's not a big issue.

I found that since many of its internal components were plastic it was a
bit wafty from the start. First the mixture drifted - getting the right
adjustment tool helped a bit, but in the end the timing drifted in a non
adjustable way as well and it became impossible to keep running reliably.

In the end I paid out for a Stihl power head, which starts and runs
reliably, has far more power, better fuel economy, and works at any angle.

The electric power heads are, again, not perfect but they're OK given
the amount of quite heavy work they get here. Looking back I see that
I bought my first bits of Expand-It back in 2008 so they're 12 years
old now, not too bad for fairly inexpensive hardware.

I think mine lasted about 7 years all in (the 2 stroke died at about 18
months IIRC). The pruning saw attachment is still working well, the auto
feed line trimmer went on for a far bit until one day it flew apart in
use - one bit went flying through the open patio doors, and just missed
hitting my son on the head! So I decided it was time to retire that. The
hedge trimmer is ok, but then that was a Husqvarna attachment anyway.



--
Cheers,

John.

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