Yeah. There are benefits though; I can leave cigars sitting out on my desk for months at a time. Went and did some weed eating this morning with the new M18 weed eater they sent me. the handle is broken and loose but it mostly works for now. At first I was rather impressed by the power delivery, they're doing some things right. I was trying to carefully follow the advice of: Then at about the halfway mark on the spool both ends sucked in and I guess did a birds nest on the inside: I thought "no big deal, there is still plenty of line to avoid walking all the way back to my house" which is around a quarter mile round trip from where I was. So I opened it up to re-string. Well apparently they "improved" the design so you can't remove the spools anymore, or at least it's not intuitive while standing in the woods, and it was stuck good. So I walked all the way back and got the Echo and finished the job. This was on the "introductory" line the spools come with. I don't understand why, if the line sucking back in is such an issue, why don't weed eater manufacturers put in a little metal tab so the line can only go one direction? Like a chinese finger trap?
Welp the saga with Milwaukee keeps getting stranger. I complained about the broken handle and they said they were shipping a new one out. Nothing showed and I kinda forgot about it. Yesterday an entirely brand new power head arrived. So I now have 3 weed eaters; two m18 quik-lok, and the Echo. So to sum things up, after first rejecting my warranty they ended up shipping 2 entire units and a weed eater attachment. All I wanted was my original power head fixed! And then after that, I just wanted a new nine dollar handle! I'm not going to complain. Actually this is pretty amazing because now I can have a hedge trimmer and electric weed eater both ready to go without swapping attachments.
ARGHHHHHHHHHH Ran the Echo 3020 this morning and it kept sucking in one side of string and doing a birds nest inside the head. Fixed it several times and then gave up, finished the job with an electric. Took it into the shop that sold it to me fully expecting the dude to say he was unable to reproduce the issue--but he was! They're keeping it till they talk to Echo but it sounds like I'm getting a new trimmer head.
Certiain lines will "weld" themselves together inside the spool from the heat generated during cutting. That's what it looks like is happening in your pics. Orange echo line was one that did it for me every time I tried using it. I tossed the spool in the trash. The Stihl line that came in my battery trimmer hasn't done it. That said, below is my go too line. I started using this because of a video by project farm on YouTube. He repeated the testing a year later with other brands and it still won that shoot-out. It has worked well. Not brittle. Doesn't weld together and ruin a spool full of line. Cuts well. It is a bit noisy. It's sold in larger diameter sizes as well as the .080 I use.
I've never seen or heard of line getting "sucked" back into the head but I've definitely seen the mess you showed above and changing line brands fixed it.
Weeeeeeeellllllllllllllllllllllll I have 880ft of .095 black diamond so I am kinda stuck with it for a few years lol. Echo line _should_ work with an echo trimmer. Hopefully the shop comes through for me with a solution. My trimmer came with the speed feed 500 head which I have found universally bad reviews on, specifically for the "welding" issues. They're hoping, and I'm hoping, there is a revised part.
If I thought the line was to blame, I would. Anyway, got the trimmer back from the Echo dealer this morning. Haven't run it yet but the tech did and says its fully fixed. He said it appeared the replacement trimmer head is a new revision with maybe a different kind of plastic. Still labeled as a speed feed 500 though..
Ran all the string out of all three trimmers this morning. Man, it's great having 3 trimmers and being able to just set one down and pick another one up. Massive efficiency improvement. The Echo works fine now. So I guess I head a lemon of a trimmer head.
Thanks to this thread remindig me that the grommets are worn out on my T35 head. Had unusual line snap other day at exit of grommet and noticed them well worn. I need to have a rummage around my boneyard.
I'm sure many can share my celebration of repairing stuff out of junk you keep lying around. Hoarding vindicated.
The T35 head is interesting. I'm running it side by side with the default Milwaukee head. It has a much "heavier" feel when compared side-by-side with the Milwaukee head. It's like a v8 vs a motorcycle. I can't decide if I like the reloading better or not. I don't hate it at least. Ran a tank through the 3020 this morning.. Heavy brush. Finally got it to bog down (a lot). Very glad I got the big weed eater. On the plus side, the fuel economy has somehow doubled, I guess from finishing the break-in. No further issues with the head.
By the way, meant to post this earlier and forgot. The Speed Feed 500 clearly has a revision. See: That golden bit is new. The original part was all one solid piece of aluminum. From what I can gather, there was too much heat transferring from the gearbox into the head and melting the lines.
I had the welding issue with the SpeedFeed 500 in the past. I bought one this year and it is supposed to be New and Improved according to the dealer. I can say I didn't have the welding problem and I was weed eating in high 90's temps.
I've never had a reason to stray from them. I can load one in about two minutes so not like a self feed 'saves me time'. Simple design, fairly durable. I don't know that I've had any breakages with them, just physically grind them away until something doesn't work anymore. Years ago I used the poly 3 blade setup. I got too many rocks and hard surfaces for them and was tearing them up pretty quick. I'll use the T-35 and orange Echo line until they aren't available anymore. Can't be bothered to chase exciting new 'solutions' when what I got works fine.
