Lithium-Ion powered snow blower

[RazorsEdge]

Ordered a 40v battery and charger for the Snow Joe snow blower,tomorrow will be it's first run.

Anyone else playing with Lithium powered snowblowers and lawn equipment?

 

[LenZee]

I had a 40v Snow Joe in NJ, If the snow is wet and heavy you need to not let it pile up, Light,fluffy snow it worked great. Just wished it was a wider model. In Missouri we haven't had enough snow to use it.

 

[RazorsEdge]

I've watched quite a few YouTube videos to kind of get the idea of how to use it but what your saying makes sense. The funny thing is, I'm already thinking about upgrading to either the 60v Toro or the 100v SnowJoe next winter.

 

[Trav]

I was looking at the Ego, it is the same price as comparable gas powered machines but the batteries only have a 3 year warranty and cost $350 ea X2. I can do a bigger job for $1.25 worth of gas and it is going on 15 years old with another 15 easily in it. Not ready for prime time IMHO.

POWER+ 24 in. Self-Propelled 2-Stage Snow Blower with Peak Power™

The new EGO POWER+ 2-Stage Snow Blower is the only cordless 2-stage snow blower that delivers the power and performance of gas without the noise, fuss and fumes.

egopowerplus.com

 

[RazorsEdge]

I was looking at the Ego, it is the same price as comparable gas powered machines but the batteries only have a 3 year warranty and cost $350 ea X2. I can do a bigger job for $1.25 worth of gas and it is going on 15 years old with another 15 easily in it. Not ready for prime time IMHO.

POWER+ 24 in. Self-Propelled 2-Stage Snow Blower with Peak Power™

The new EGO POWER+ 2-Stage Snow Blower is the only cordless 2-stage snow blower that delivers the power and performance of gas without the noise, fuss and fumes.

egopowerplus.com

You know,I really like the Ego stuff but the cost of the battery is the tough thing to swallow.

According to this review,he wasn't impressed with the Ego 56v snow blower.

 

[Ride_Red]

Neighbor across the street has a Ryobi lithium. Silent. Small. worked great for our 3 inches of snow. I bet it would be fine for 6 inches of snow. Seemed to do the driveway and walks without missing a beat.

I have a 20 yr old Toro 110V electric that uses an extension cord. When the snow gets heavy, I break that out. Otherwise, I just shovel for the exercise.

 

[Trav]

This was the 24" 2 stage machine I was looking at.

 

[MONKEYMAN]

At end of year bought a Snow Joe electric mower. Cost $250. Reading reviews was aware Snow Joe has very specific battery charging guidelines. I followed them and had plenty of battery left. I like the mower. Quiet. Easy to use. Will save a lot of money mowing lawn myself. For snow I have Ariens 522. It was $250 or half price end of year buy at Home Depot. Two cycle 5 hp motor works well for me. I do not see a battery operated blower doing well with wet snow.

 

[RazorsEdge]

At end of year bought a Snow Joe electric mower. Cost $250. Reading reviews was aware Snow Joe has very specific battery charging guidelines. I followed them and had plenty of battery left. I like the mower. Quiet. Easy to use. Will save a lot of money mowing lawn myself. For snow I have Ariens 522. It was $250 or half price end of year buy at Home Depot. Two cycle 5 hp motor works well for me. I do not see a battery operated blower doing well with wet snow.

I've got the Greenworks twinforce mower. I've had it now for 5 years. I use it for mowing the front lawn.The lawn tractor takes care of the backyard.

 

[Donald]

I have a 500' drive and a parking area for several cars. I think I will stick with my 36" Ariens with it's 11HP engine and tires with chains.

 

[RazorsEdge]

First time I used it today but on a half charged battery I got 6-7 inches of snow cleared off the driveway. Thanks to Home Depot and their slow shipping,I'm stuck with no charger until Monday.None the less I'm happy for the first time using it.

 

[Cujet]

The better battery powered snow blowers work well. Ego makes a good quality, two stage unit that uses 2ea 7.5AH batteries. It's power compares well to a gas powered snow blower. It's size, maneuverability and weight is better than a comparable gas snowblower. It's run times does not compare well at all, and that's the big problem. If you can't do the job in 10-13 minutes, don't get a battery powered snow blower.

Note: A spare set (the Ego uses two) 7.5AH batteries will run well north of $800!

My PA property has a single driveway about 200 feet long. The neighbors Ego can't do the job with a foot of snow.

The antique Ariens can do it on one tank.

 

[tnt_motorsports]

I have done 3 driveways and a large part of the cul-de-sac out front this year when we have received several inches of wet heavy snow. I have not had to re-fill my fuel tank during any 1 instance. My MTD holds about a 1/2 gallon of fuel so for less than $2 I'll stick with that. It's easy to re-fuel, I hate waiting for batteries to charge.

Just my $0.02

 

[WylieCoyote]

Gotta say, I didn't even know these were a thing. Never imagined a battery powered snowblower, or that it could do squat. Thanks for posting! Spent many hours walking behind the gas powered versions in my former life (Wyoming).

 

[jkasch]

The better battery powered snow blowers work well. Ego makes a good quality, two stage unit that uses 2ea 7.5AH batteries. It's power compares well to a gas powered snow blower. It's size, maneuverability and weight is better than a comparable gas snowblower. It's run times does not compare well at all, and that's the big problem. If you can't do the job in 10-13 minutes, don't get a battery powered snow blower.

Note: A spare set (the Ego uses two) 7.5AH batteries will run well north of $800!

My PA property has a single driveway about 200 feet long. The neighbors Ego can't do the job with a foot of snow.

The antique Ariens can do it on one tank.

I wonder what an extra set of batteries for this is going to cost.
https://egopowerplus.com/zero-turn-riding-mower-zt4204l/

 

[tmorris1]

The better battery powered snow blowers work well. Ego makes a good quality, two stage unit that uses 2ea 7.5AH batteries. It's power compares well to a gas powered snow blower. It's size, maneuverability and weight is better than a comparable gas snowblower. It's run times does not compare well at all, and that's the big problem. If you can't do the job in 10-13 minutes, don't get a battery powered snow blower.

Note: A spare set (the Ego uses two) 7.5AH batteries will run well north of $800!

My PA property has a single driveway about 200 feet long. The neighbors Ego can't do the job with a foot of snow.

The antique Ariens can do it on one tank.

For $800 worth of batteries you could pay someone for 5 to 10 years to do it for you. Unless you have a small urban sidewalk or deck, I don't see the attraction and you definitely aren't saving any money.

 

[Snagglefoot]

Not specific to snow blowers but here is the current price on Amazon for 20V-6.0 Ahr batteries. Looks like $85 each if you order two and $68 each for a 5.0 Ahr.

 

[MrPlow]

I don't use snow blowers, but I do use battery powered yard maintenance tools for doing property maintenance for work.

One thing to make it worth while is to buy into a whole battery system. If you use an EGO hedge trimmer, weed whacker, leaf blower, and mower, those batteries can then be used on steady rotisserie while hot swapping batteries as they drain out. I have most of the EGO system in use and the most battery hungry unit is the leaf blower, but since I have enough batteries and chargers, I can keep the thing running all day long since the batteries charge super fast, especially on the larger chargers. EGO also has a cool power generator that can have a bunch of their battery packs added to it to power it, and it can charge the batteries when it is plugged in to a wall outlet.

Sucks that there isn't a universal standard for battery packs so one can use different brands. Probably part of the plan when they design these is to make it tempting to go full-in on their entire system of tools.

 

[Cujet]

Not specific to snow blowers but here is the current price on Amazon for 20V-6.0 Ahr batteries. Looks like $85 each if you order two and $68 each for a 5.0 Ahr.

Keep in mind that the Snow Blower uses very large batteries. The 20V ones in your link are for hand held drills and other small tools.

The Snow Blower batteries are about the size of lawn tractor batteries. They are an order of magnitude (10x) more powerful than the small drill batteries. AND the Snow Blower uses 2 of them.

Here is a link to the smaller of the "professional" grade batteries.


Here is a link to the larger of the pro batteries

EGO 56V Power+ BA5600T 10 Ah Lithium-Ion Battery 1 pc - Ace Hardware

The EGO Power+ 56-Volt 10.0 Ah battery uses industry-leading ARC Lithium technology to deliver Power Beyond Belief and is compatible with all EGO outdoor power equipment. Keep-Cool battery technology keeps each cell cool for long life and works in the most extreme conditions.Find the EGO BTTRY...

www.acehardware.com

Any way you slice it, it's $800 (including tax) to $900. For 13 minutes of heavy use.

 

[Astro_Guy]

Yesterday I saw an Ego mower with a 56 Volt 7.5 amp hour battery, which comes to 420 watt-hours. That got me wondering how much gasoline would be required to produce the same amount of power. Searching for conversions online seems to produce a thermal comparison, which is very different than the amount of work produced. The EPA claims that a gallon of gas is equal to 33.7 kWH of electricity. As a reality check I've found that the all electric Nissan Leaf consumes 30 kWH per 100 miles. Assuming that a similar sized gasoline powered vehicle achieved 33.33 MPG, the car would require 3 gallons to replace that 30 kWH. That works out to 10 kWH per gallon.

Returning to the Ego mower now with the assumption of 10 kWh per gallon and its 0.42 kWH battery suggests that a fully charged battery is the equivalent of 0.042 gallons of gas. Granted this has been a back of the envelope sort of estimate, but I think it illustrates the point. There must be something wrong with my math here, otherwise the mower would run maybe two minutes per charge???