What backpack blower should I get

Gains depend on the saw. Yours have been bigger gainers than some. 25–40% would likely be more accurate.
For what it’s worth, 50% is twice as fast. 100% is infinity and unattainable.

 

Well when you listen to porters who shoot straight on what saws gain, you tend to buy those saws, or at least that’s the smart money.

 

The new Echo 9510 was introduced back n August. What did the op end up buying?

 

I gave my new BR350 yesterday. It continues to meet my expectations.

The only leaves still on trees are the oaks. Another couple of weeks should be a good test of it.

 

LOCK IN bro. this thread isn't for tourists

 

Used my Makita blower this weekend. Honestly it's plenty sufficient for my needs.

 

I went the other direction and picked up a battery-powered EGO blower last week. I've used a Stihl backpack blower (don't remember the model number) for the last ten years or so but with the amount of leaves I have to deal with drastically reduced after losing so many oak trees, decided to try a battery blower instead. If I like it, I'll probably sell the Stihl blower.

 

I can see much merit in the battery blowers specifically. Not the noise. The weight and not having to take one off to start it up. I used about a third gallon of fuel over a little more than an hour with the 4 stroke unit. Curious to what this translates to in battery performance. My unit is 53cc and has a half gallon tank on it.

 

I have a Milwaukee blower too. Build quality is kinda crap but it does indeed work. Very useful for random tasks like cleaning crap off the garage floor or general debris around my hot tub. It gets used.

 

So there is a Milwaukee backpack blower that showed up at work here yesterday for reapairs. Seems the owner left it out and it got soaked, smoked when tried to use. Anyways, it holds four m18 batteries and honestly the weight advantage isn't much at all. I think Makita is currently at top of the heap on the battery backpack units as far as air moved/power with their 40 volt x2 unit.

 

Ridiculous. Yes let me load $1100 worth of batteries into a blower. Looks like the blower with batteries is about 2 grand. California can have it.

 

By the time the actually have *good battery technology, I'll be priced out of all of it. So in my world all that really happened is that most of the gasoline choices are gone. Pro model saws are rapidly approaching unatennable levels of pricing as well for me. Batteries are still far off from replacing gasoline in terms of size/weight of condensed energy. Gasoline is king and that's why it was so readily and widely adopted. Surely no one thinks that Tesla is the first battery car company. They had them in the 1930s. They fell to wayside because they were not a practical choice over petroleum fuel. It's my opinion that they are still not. Engineers and regulation agencies are working their best to flip that by making petro autos miserably complicated.

 

yep. Years ago I bought a Husky 580BFS (same as the Redmax EBZ 8500 I believe), which was, at the time, the most powerful backpack blower available. The BR800 came out a year or so later and was comparable to the the 580/8500 , IIRC. The newer Husky 590BTS/Redmax EBZ 9000 are more powerful than what I have.

My 580 is awesome. Has no issues with wet leaves and will peel moss off the ground. Last fall I used it after a dusting of snow and it had no issues with the wet leaves and snow. Only thing that sucks is it seems like every fall I end up relocating a lot of our yard mulch into the woods only to have to replace it the following spring.

 

I have a Stihl BR-600 and it absolutely kicks gluteus maximus. I have 2 acres and surrounded by Oak Trees and White Pines. I try to stay up with fall by doing a clean up 1-2 times a week. I just did a clean up today and it took me 45 minutes start to finish, 1 full tank of gas. Was a great investment.

 

Ah, the question we all ask ourselves! All I can say is I bought the still BR 800, and I’m not disappointed. Where is that threshold between wondering what the next best models performance is and being satisfied with what you have? Not sure. My experience has been 3 different handheld blowers by both stihl and Husqvarna, and then the backpack blower I now have by stihl. All have their uses, but if you’re talking leaves, a powerful backpack has no substitute.

 

Echo PB-8010 here. It's an absolute beast. Would love to see what the new 9510 has!

 

A related question here, if y'all don't mind:

I'm thinking about upgrading from my handheld blower to a backpack blower. Echo offers many of their models in two versions - one with the controls mounted to the blower tube, and one with "hip-mounted" controls on a stalk on the left side. Otherwise they're identical. Having only used blowers controlled with tube controls, what would be the advantage of tying up both hands by having the tube on the right and controls on the left? I just don't know what I don't know.

 

I cheated out on my blower, wish I would have paid the upgrade to get the one you can start while it's on your back. Is that what the hip controls allow on the Echo?

 

I don't think Echo makes a side-start blower, that you can start while on your back. Seems like that would be a good feature, though, but might be hard on older shoulders? The "hip mounted" controls I'm questioning are on a stalk on the left side:


versus more conventional controls:



Obviously there must be a demand for hip-mounted controls, but tying up both hands just to operate the machine seems to me to be like walking around with your hands in your pockets. I just can't figure out what the advantage is and was just curious.

 

I had either option available when I bought mine. Decided on tube controls. Unsure of advantage of hip mounted but there has to be something there. I just knew it was gonna add another pound of weight and deny me a Trigger to pull on. The tube controls on my unit allows static throttle setting also via thumb lever beside trigger. Lever also doubles as kill switch.