Gas-Powered Lawn Equipment Will Soon Be Banned In Cali, a broad category that includes generators.

[wattmatters]

The batteries should be shared with other yard tools. Then it "only" costs you $329 for blower.

Provided the other tools are the same brand and are also up to the necessary standard.

Adding them all up (chainsaw, blower, brush cutter, batteries & charger) I'm up for $1.5-$2k depending on brand.
Some have a pretty bad rep on battery longevity like the Ryobi 36V but it is more convenient as they are available through Bunnings (our Home Depot equivalent) while others like Toro, Stihl etc are only available through small specialist dealer shops.

I can sell the existing kit and would be lucky to get $400-500 for it I think. They are however in very good order.

How about a project of backpack with lithium battery and 120VAC inverter?

No idea what you mean.

I'm in Australia, not USA.

Charging isn't an issue. I can do it for free via my off-grid PV/battery system given it has ample unrealised capacity for extra output. I already have a charger for my 18V Ryobi hand tools connected to my off-grid system.

 

[Hedges]

Provided the other tools are the same brand and are also up to the necessary standard.

I have a pole saw and a chain saw from Harbor Freight that share a battery.
An Echo weed wacker and now a blower that share a battery.
And a Rigid cordless drill/driver with its own lead-acid battery. Now into its second set (aftermarket) 18 years later. Variable speed control just died, so full-speed only but high/low gears.

No idea what you mean.

AC powered tools are a fraction the price of cordless (even without battery).
How about a 1kW to 2kW inverter mounted on a backpack, with a suitable battery to power it? Then you have freedom to roam the yard, and one set of batteries supports all your power tools. Including Skilsaw, etc.

 

[MurphyGuy]

How about a project of backpack with lithium battery and 120VAC inverter?

You'd be better off 3D printing a battery adapter for the cordless tool, then running a cable to a lithium ion backpack that is much larger than the battery the tool is designed to be used for.
This would be a good application for a cheap Chinese BMS like the Daly units.

 

[wattmatters]

AC powered tools are

typically underpowered cheap junk. At least they are here. OK for small courtyard gardens when used for a few minutes perhaps.

How about a 1kW to 2kW inverter mounted on a backpack, with a suitable battery to power it?

Nice thought but no.

 

[12VoltInstalls]

ypically underpowered cheap junk. At least they are here. OK for small courtyard gardens when used for a few minutes perhaps.

I have a $30? ish Toro handheld 120V blower. Very seldom used for leaves but 19 out 20 uses it’s been for dusting stuff, blowing off water, blowing crap out of a boat’s bilge, sawdust, other non-leaf stuff. Not much power but cheap, compact, useful and low enough amps for a 1200W inverter.

 

[wattmatters]

I have a $30? ish Toro handheld 120V blower. Very seldom used for leaves but 19 out 20 uses it’s been for dusting stuff, blowing off water, blowing crap out of a boat’s bilge, sawdust, other non-leaf stuff. Not much power but cheap, compact, useful and low enough amps for a 1200W inverter.

I have a use for a lower power blower but I still will need the high power and long duration of operation for most of the work I need it for.

 

[12VoltInstalls]

I have a use for a lower power blower but I still will need the high power and long duration of operation for most of the work I need it for.

As I’d expect!
That electric blower- as I said- has very little power but it does handy things much better and instead of putting the hose on a shop vac backwards.

 

[wattmatters]

That electric blower- as I said- has very little power but it does handy things much better and instead of putting the hose on a shop vac backwards.

My uses are for areas where plug in power is not always conveniently available. Cords are a PITA anyway. Can take longer dealing with the extension lead than the actual job at hand. Just want to grab it and go.

We have a cordless vacuum, one of those Dyson sticks. Mostly a useless POS. Wife loves Dyson vacuums and we have a corded floor pull unit as well but they are just a horrible design for emptying out and so much crap gets stuck in that stupid head. Guess who has to do that clean up job because the wife can't/won't? Over priced / over hyped junk.

 

[MurphyGuy]

My uses are for areas where plug in power is not always conveniently available. Cords are a PITA anyway. Can take longer dealing with the extension lead than the actual job at hand. Just want to grab it and go.

We have a cordless vacuum, one of those Dyson sticks. Mostly a useless POS. Wife loves Dyson vacuums and we have a corded floor pull unit as well but they are just a horrible design for emptying out and so much crap gets stuck in that stupid head. Guess who has to do that clean up job because the wife can't/won't? Over priced / over hyped junk.

I have a cordless Dewalt wet-dry vacuum.

DEWALT 20V MAX 2 Gal. Cordless/Corded Wet/Dry Vacuum DCV581H - The Home Depot

Go battery powered or outlet powered with the DEWALT DCV581H Wet-Dry Vacuum. It uses an 18-Volt or 20-Volt Max battery (not included) - or you can plug it in to an AC outlet. This Wet-Dry Vacuum features

www.homedepot.com

I love this little thing.. Its not as strong as a normal wet/dry shop vac obviously, but it does the job well. I also use it as a blower. Hook the hose to the exhaust port, then I have a coffee can and tube that connects to it. I fill the coffee can with whatever dry powder dusting agent I want, and turn the vacuum on. The blowing air runs through the coffee can and out comes a huge cloud.

I can completely saturate the entire chicken coop in under 5 seconds with diatomaceous earth.. walk down the garden and I'm done in under 3 minutes.

 

[Batvette]

My uses are for areas where plug in power is not always conveniently available. Cords are a PITA anyway. Can take longer dealing with the extension lead than the actual job at hand. Just want to grab it and go.

We have a cordless vacuum, one of those Dyson sticks. Mostly a useless POS. Wife loves Dyson vacuums and we have a corded floor pull unit as well but they are just a horrible design for emptying out and so much crap gets stuck in that stupid head. Guess who has to do that clean up job because the wife can't/won't? Over priced / over hyped junk.

I dont know how Dyson got their glowing reputation... Have you seen those $350 bladeless fans? Crazy.

 

[MurphyGuy]

I dont know how Dyson got their glowing reputation... Have you seen those $350 bladeless fans? Crazy.

Most of it is marketing.. and once someone makes a purchase, their internal ego-bias takes over and its very difficult for them to admit to themselves that they made a bad choice.

The best way to purchase things is to see what the pro's use.. For example, go to any hotel and you'll find they use Sanitaire vacuums.. This is because the are robust and repairable.. So we use one in my home.

Find a tree service and you see they have either Stihl or HusqvarnaXP equipment. And the list goes on.

A lot of these over-priced fad type products are just consumer junk that's marketed well..

 

[wattmatters]

Have you seen those $350 bladeless fans? Crazy.

I have one blowing on me now. It was a gift last Christmas. Its saving grace is it doesn't look hideous, which matters in our household. It's not a particularly strong fan but it's enough. Yep the cheapy $20 fan does the same job but looks crappy.

This one has a ceramic resistance heating element which I will never use. For some fun one day I captured the second by second power draw of this heater as an experiment:

The red line is a recording of my home's power consumption every second over the course of one minute. Ignore the flat green line, that's was solar PV output at the time.

At the time of the test our home had a base consumption of ~600W. Then I turned on the Dyson fan heater.

Demand spikes up by about 2500W for about 6 seconds, then drops back briefly to draw ~1000W for ~ 5 seconds, then spikes up to draw ~3300W for a few seconds before the ceramic heating element heats up, resistance increases, and eventually dropping consumption down to a steady ~1800W after about 15 seconds.

The ceramic resistance unit has a demand surge on power up.

 

[Batvette]

I have one blowing on me now. It was a gift last Christmas. Its saving grace is it doesn't look hideous, which matters in our household. It's not a particularly strong fan but it's enough. Yep the cheapy $20 fan does the same job but looks crappy.

This one has a ceramic resistance heating element which I will never use. For some fun one day I captured the second by second power draw of this heater as an experiment:

The red line is a recording of my home's power consumption every second over the course of one minute. Ignore the flat green line, that's was solar PV output at the time.

At the time of the test our home had a base consumption of ~600W. Then I turned on the Dyson fan heater.

Demand spikes up by about 2500W for about 6 seconds, then drops back briefly to draw ~1000W for ~ 5 seconds, then spikes up to draw ~3300W for a few seconds before the ceramic heating element heats up, resistance increases, and eventually dropping consumption down to a steady ~1800W after about 15 seconds.

The ceramic resistance unit has a demand surge on power up.

most fan heaters make lousy fans. 1800w, eh? If you were on the grid I doubt you'd ever use it. Where Im at it doesnt get very cold, in fact tonights low of 40f is about the coldest night of the year yet. Nobody I know uses electric heaters, just too damn expensive with our high rates. The natural gas wall heaters we have work great.

 

[wattmatters]

most fan heaters make lousy fans.

Yes, the small blower heaters make lousy fans, this is sort of thing:


The Dyson fan heater isn't like that though, it is actually decent fan, just expensive. It will also heat but as you say being an electrical resistance unit it uses a lot of energy for the heat output.

1800w, eh? If you were on the grid I doubt you'd ever use it.

Keep in mind we are a 230/240V AC supply, so general power outlets are rated to plug in devices up to ~2.4kW.

Those small plug in fan heaters like the one above, typically in the US they are limited to 1.5kW output. Here they are 2.4kW and so they do pump out quite a bit more heat. But fairly expensive to run. In many situations people have little choice on what heaters they can use and so they are reasonably popular. e.g. a smaller room they will heat up pretty well and then just cycle on/off as needed.

We use our ducted reverse cycle aircon system for heating. Way cheaper to run than a ducted gas system. Heat pumps are very effective, especially in our climate with COPs of ~4:1 (i.e. 4kW of heat output for 1kW of electrical energy input). If you are in a filthy cold climate they are less effective (COP drops closer to 2:1) but generally no worse than gas.

 

[MurphyGuy]

We use those little plug-in space heaters to heat our entire home. I build up a bunch of solar credit during the summer with the utility and then suck it back in the winter.

We never use the natural gas furnace anymore, and only light the wood stove when the temps dip below 25°F. Other than that, we just use space heaters.

I've since switched over to electric baseboard heating.. got tired of listening to the noisy fans from the space heaters. The baseboard is also safer as the elements don't get hot enough to start any fires.

 

[wattmatters]

I build up a bunch of solar credit during the summer

If you are in a location where exports are credited at near the same rate as imports, then I can see that working. Here exports are credited at ~1/4-1/3rd of the import tariff. Self consumption of your own solar PV is by far the best option.

 

[MurphyGuy]

If you are in a location where exports are credited at near the same rate as imports, then I can see that working. Here exports are credited at ~1/4-1/3rd of the import tariff. Self consumption of your own solar PV is by far the best option.

Yup, and as much as it sucks to have the utility not credit you fairly, it is their system.

On a positive note, I suspect that the flywheel energy storage systems are going to make a big appearance in the near future, coupled with a growing EV market and the inevitable salvaged batteries that follow, and it should get easier to disconnect from the utility.

 

[wattmatters]

Yup, and as much as it sucks to have the utility not credit you fairly, it is their system.

Where we are the import tariffs are made up of various costs (hidden to the consumer), but by far the largest cost is the network & distribution. The energy generation cost is significant but minor, making up about 1/3rd of the tariff. Meanwhile feed-in tariffs are closer to the average wholesale value of the energy generation, which is fair.

People here would like storage systems but going off-grid isn't a big thing. Hot water is and eventually EVs will be the main forms of domestic energy storage, and to some extent thermal storage in buildings being pre-heated/cooled. Grid tied home batteries are going to remain niche while ever they remain so expensive. There's maybe 100,000 home battery systems while we have 3 million grid tied solar PV systems.

 

[MurphyGuy]

Where we are the import tariffs are made up of various costs (hidden to the consumer), but by far the largest cost is the network & distribution. The energy generation cost is significant but minor, making up about 1/3rd of the tariff. Meanwhile feed-in tariffs are closer to the average wholesale value of the energy generation, which is fair.

People here would like storage systems but going off-grid isn't a big thing. Hot water is and eventually EVs will be the main forms of domestic energy storage, and to some extent thermal storage in buildings being pre-heated/cooled. Grid tied home batteries are going to remain niche while ever they remain so expensive. There's maybe 100,000 home battery systems while we have 3 million grid tied solar PV systems.

I have big hopes for the flywheel thing.. I took a close look at the technology and it has more promise than anything I have seen so far.. Not even lithium holds the same potential.

 

[wattmatters]

I have big hopes for the flywheel thing

The Next Frontier in Energy Storage | Amber Kinetics

amberkinetics.com

Not really seeing it as a domestic solution. 100W self discharge, 86% round trip efficiency. ~A$48k for 32kWh. That's ~50% more expensive than commercial domestic batteries, and multiple times the cost per kWh of DIY LiFePO4 set up.