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Old 07-20-13, 03:08 AM   #1
oil pan 4
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Default Electric hot saw

I have cobbled together an electric chain saw that can compete with a lot of gas saws.
I bought a used 4hp craftsman electric chain saw off ebay for $50.
The seller had very good pics and I could tell the chain sucked. It was a skip link safety chain.
I started searching around and found a much more aggressive low profile chain made by Oregon called the VXL, it had advisories in red that said "danger", "warning" and "not a low kick back chain". Ordered 2 of those.
So the saw and its first mod were both on their way to the house.
I ran that setup for a while (craftsman saw with Oregon VXL chain) with my varrac compensating for extension cord voltage line drop and I could tell the saw still had tons of torque.
It was easily cutting twice as fast with the VXL chain and boosted voltage, over the OEM configuration.
It had no problem far surpassing a 2hp and 2.5hp gas saws.
After a short while the spur sprocket (chain driver gear) started to wear a little, so I lathed it down and welded a 7 tooth stihl chain saw sprocket on to the 6 tooth electric saw sprocket. My broke in stretched out 62DL chains worked, brand new 62DL chains did not fit so I added a link now my newer chains are all 63DL. So I bought a few more chains, taking a 62DL plus a 64DL chain and making two 63DL chains.
Side by side cutting its on par with my modified 4hp echo 440CS. Only modification is I swapped the warn out bar and sprocket to accept the Oregon VXL chain, as luck would have it the echo accepts my custom 63DL chains. Broke in 62DL didn't fit so I eventually turned them all into 63DL chains.

Its a great saw for around the house. You cant go too far from the outlet.
Its perfect for down by the wood pile or chopping block, its always ready to go. It always runs, take it out of the box, plug it in and go, I never have any problems getting it started.

Safety wise its pretty nice. Pull the trigger it turns the chain, let go of the trigger and it totally stops. You can set the bar and chain on the cut and pull the trigger and use all that starting torque to start cutting from a complete stop. You cant do that with a gas saw, you have to spin it up to speed before putting it to the wood.
I also modified the kick back stop to make it a little more sensitive, any time the chain pops the chain safety trips and instantly stops the chain. I don't mind, the saw will usually suddenly stop once or twice during normal cutting and all I have to do is smack the anti kickback and it screams back to life.

It goes for a long time on a tank of bar and chain oil. That's perfect when you are cutting clean green wood. Only problem is it does not clean the bar and chain if you get it in the dirt or if you are cutting dry dirty wood. So I keep a half full paint can of bar and chain oil near by when cutting dry dirty wood and dip the tip every 2 or 3 cuts.

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Old 07-20-13, 09:38 AM   #2
randen
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Really nice project. Growing up here in Canada we had the opportunity to heat our home with a combination wood/oil boiler type furnace. My family save a lot of money burning wood. Myself and my 2 brothers at that time in our early teens just brimming with testosterone learned the business end of chainsaws. We wore out a few. The noise stink and trouble starting & running those things doesn't bring back fond moments of my young adult life. I had learned a lot about the 2 cycle engines. But the basic problems a lot were built cheap and parts were not of the best quality.

Your new electric machine sound ideal. Could one now carry a battery pack into the bush in the back of their 4wheel drive with an inverter and cut a load of fire wood for a few hours I would think its possible.

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Old 07-20-13, 12:58 PM   #3
oil pan 4
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Only in the woods application with batteries and inverters and such would really only be for hunting. You could cut fire wood around camp and not alert every animal for 5 miles where you are. The electric saw isn't as loud (you still need hearing protection) and it doesn't have the exhaust smell.
It uses a lot of power, mine uses up to 4kw. You can dial it back.

As far as hard starts and gas saws go that's why I got an Echo, they are the easiest to start on the market.
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Old 07-20-13, 04:25 PM   #4
herlichka
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I think electric chainsaws are often dismissed as suitable for cleaning up branches but not much else. But, I always found it interesting that we carried them on our fire trucks instead of gas saws. They always start, are generally lighter, and (at the time) were less expensive than gas saws.
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Old 07-21-13, 02:38 AM   #5
oil pan 4
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The electric saw is much lighter and far cheaper than a gas saw.
Also a cheap electric saw has about as much vibration as a pricey gas saw with an "anti-vibration package".
I bought my echo 440CS as a "parts saw" off CL for $60. For another $80 spent I brought it back to life and modified it to take the same low profile 3/8'' pitch chain as the eCraftsman. Echo's Factory configuration used a full or semi chisel .325'' pitch chain if I remember correctly. The new version of the 440CS has an MSRP of about $440.
Also picked up a couple raker depth gauges. Normal raker depth is .025'' on a Oregon VXL chain, I tried the .03'' gauge and didn't notice much difference, so I tried the .035'' and then you can really tell you are cutting more. So there are a couple extra dangerous chains with .035'' rakers I always have to look out for.

A few branches, ha.
I have used my saw to bring down and cut up black cherry trees into very small pieces.
You have to cut green black cherry up into small pieces because it is very difficult to split then when it dries it gets even harder to cut and split.
These were serious full grown sewage fed trees up next to the house. Once I got down to a certain point I had to have my friend bring over his 6hp stihl MS460 with 32 inch bar.
Its not that the eCraftsman doesn't have enough power to cut up the entire tree, it only has an 18'' bar so anything thicker than about 30 inches just isn't possible to cut and both those trees were between 4 and 5 feet at the base.

These days the eCraftsman recuts pickup or trailer length fire wood down to wood stove size once its been hauled in. On a hot summer day it will go longer than you can since it never runs out of gas and only needs oil once ever few hours.
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Old 07-21-13, 08:39 AM   #6
Ryland
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friend of mine has an electric chain saw that he runs off an inverter on his electric lawn tractor, charged off solar, very clean and quite.
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Old 07-24-13, 02:31 PM   #7
oil pan 4
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I thought about that, but my largest inverter wont even power my much smaller pole saw to full speed before cutting out.
Some day I will get an all powerful 2500w or larger inverter.
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Old 10-11-13, 11:53 PM   #8
oil pan 4
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I was using the craftsman and blew the plastic gear while plunge cutting an oak tree that has been dead and dried out for a good 10 years.

The electric craftsman was running off straight outlet power through 100' of 14gauge extension cord and was out cutting the gas powered echo up until I blew the gear.

So I just need to not cut kiln dried hard wood or put the lame safety chain back on and just accept the slower cut.

I bought 2 replacement gears from randys small engine repair (an ebay seller in ohio) for $40 with shipping.

Since 2009 this is the second plastic gear I have ruined, the first one was due to a screw left inside saw getting chewed up between the metal pinion gear and plastic ring gear with in 2 days of buying it.

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