It's very light, much lighter than my old Ryobi gas trimmer. With the battery it is really balanced as well. As long as the trimmer head is easy to refill, they really made it easy to use and is just really well thought out. The safety for the trigger isn't a hassle like in sure some are. It's really easy to use, and I didn't even need to read the manual to run it.
I think you'll really like it. I'm impressed with it. As you noted, the ak20 battery alone is $126 at it's best price and 180 at the worst. Northern tool isn't the only place with that same deal. No idea what shipping is, but the northern tool $9.99 shipping was a great deal STIHL FSA 57 Lightweight AK20 Battery-Powered Trimmer | Hartville Hardware
Just pitching an alternative. This might be a little easier on the gearbox if the heavy stuff is pretty minimal. But the brush in the pictures is def ideal for a chisel-tooth sawblade. If you aren't using one already, the harness is great for taming the brushcutter kickback in wild debris. I've burnt off entire 2.5 gallon jerry cans all rigged up in one of those. Metal Grass Blade for Weed Trimmers & Brushcutter | STIHL USA
I might try a number of blades when the new one comes in. I think 7 years of hard use is an acceptable amount of time and work for the bearings to last. I definitely wouldn’t mind the bearings lasting longer. I use the harness with the bike handle unit, I wore out my harness ring last month.
Removed the gearbox head from the strimmer shaft and ball bearings fell out onto the floor. As tempting as it is to go aftermarket it’s just not worth it. Absolute waste of money for inferior junk.
New gearbox came in and I put three tanks through the trimmer. Bought the saw blade and it’s better than I remember. I have a mulching head coming later this week. I really enjoy finding these nasty rats nest of tangled vines and cutting them to ribbons.
I should rent a skid steer with a forestry mulcher and then maintain it with the trimmer. There are trees that I don’t want to shred in the area but it’s mostly a thicket of invasives.
Had a chance to test out the FSA 57 yesterday. It works great! Battery lasted for all the trimming. My only small gripe is I wish the throttle was variable. I don’t need it running at full tilt for some of the areas. I noticed the bump feed works sporadically. A few times, I had to stop and manually advance the line. Anyone else run into this?
The "throttle" is variable on mine. I just used it again yesterday, about for way less time than the last time I used it. I've had no issues with the bump feed. It works well, if not a little sensitive on the bump feeds compared to all the other brands of bump feed over used. What kind of line do you have in it!
Ah I see what you mean. I just ran the trimmer a few minutes ago again. You can vary the speed, but the trigger isn't variable. Easy solution is to blip the throttle and that way you don't get full throttle when you don't want or need it. The more expensive fs models have the variable throttle, but I don't really see the need for it.
Awesome! Thanks for verifying that. I did do a little of that blipping to slow things down. Here’s the line I’m using. I’m wondering if the twist doesn’t play nicely with the Stihl feeder.
I didn’t even realize it was one speed till my buddy pointed it out. I'm fine with on or off. I also blip if need be. Lol
You could always go with the echo speed feed 400 if you want. It sounds like that's a universal trimmer head. Yeah, you have to go up to the next higher priced fs trimmer, the FSA 60 iirc. Honestly, it's not an issue. Blip away!
Agreed. Non issue for me. What I didn't like was the sliding safety thing that you have to push forward with your thumb. The presence lever is enough on a gas unit, why ad another safety on this tame battery unit? I disabled it.
