Electric starters for chainsaws?

[MillwrightChris]

I belive that saw from the 1960's you are talking about was made by Remington. It had a battery pack that you put on your belt and a short cord that plugged into the saw. It must have had a small motor in place of the recoil assy. Never ran one, I had the regular version of the saw, but I remember seeing it in my owners manual.

 

[Sunrise Guy]

Thanks for posting that video. Man, I wish I could get a few of those saws.

 

[Sunrise Guy]

I belive that saw from the 1960's you are talking about was made by Remington. It had a battery pack that you put on your belt and a short cord that plugged into the saw. It must have had a small motor in place of the recoil assy. Never ran one, I had the regular version of the saw, but I remember seeing it in my owners manual.

No, it's the MAC 3-10E. A video of it is posted in this thread. Check it out, it's smooth!

 

[Sunrise Guy]

Ouch! Sorry to hear of your troubles. I've had a few bouts with irritated bursa.. it takes the danged things forever to calm down. It's just me speculating, but it sounds like you have an autoimmune issue. Do you also have asthma or allergies? If so, you might start to think about what is irritating your system.

Never any allergies or asthma. It really is a mechanical, repetitive motion injury from the act of yanking that cord a hundred or more times a day, for so many years. Add in cold weather and harder starts, and it just gets worse. In addition, I'm always walking around with mid-back, right of spine spasms, just like a right-handed golfer who overswings. I'm a lefty, so the act of pulling the cord twists my spine and supporting muscles hard to the left, just like the follow-through of a right-handed golfer. The result is a near-constant strain/muscle pull on the right side of my spine. As some have suggested, it might be time for me to hang up the spikes and saddle or let my groundies start the saws. In the trees, I'm going to give the Makita cordless a try. With a 4.5" chain, I won't be taking down any big wood, but I should be good up to 9", or so. I suppose I can try having the guys send up the 20" Stihl electric, once I get it, but it may get kind of comical worrying about catching dropping wood on an extension cord at 60'! Stay tuned.

 

[Sunrise Guy]

Sounds like you have put some serious wear and tear on the joints. Have you really taken the time to consider if not having to start the saw is going to resolve the problem with your high mileage body? It may be time to consider some other type of occupation or at least less direct involvement in the more physical parts of it. I guess trying a cordless electric will be a good experiment to see if it helps. I have bursitis issues on my left elbow right now so can feel for you.

I got whacked on my left elbow,very hard, by a 3" branch that came back at me, a few years ago. It set up a terrible case of tennis elbow that hung in for about three weeks. I wore the inflatable pad brace and that made work bearable.

Yeah, this gig does wear one's body down, over time, but the view from aloft, on days when everything is going right, cannot be beat. For me, it's an almost religious experience.

I've thought about tower climbing for cellular companies, but that field is in terrible shape, without a unified certifying body to help keep things safe. The pay is terrible, as well, unless you own the company, and the thought of starting a tower climbing company is not getting me too excited, at this point. Reading about guys getting burned, internally, in incidents where microwave transmitters were not properly turned off also helps keep me out of that field, for now.

 

[Kenskip1]

Guys, I think that the drill idea is out.On the flywheel side you would loosen the nut as mentioned. If you were to try this on the clutch side you would have to spin it in a clockwise direction. can you see wheat this is headed?Seeing as the clutch is held on with a left hand thread,you could possibly loosen the clutch, Ken

 

[rwoods]

Guys, I think that the drill idea is out.On the flywheel side you would loosen the nut as mentioned. If you were to try this on the clutch side you would have to spin it in a clockwise direction. can you see wheat this is headed?Seeing as the clutch is held on with a left hand thread,you could possibly loosen the clutch, Ken

I wouldn't give up on this idea so soon. You don't have to use the nut as the drive link. I have chucked up the starter shaft from an old recoil starter to spin my old Macs when I have the recoil cover off. I think with a little ingenuity a system could be developed but it would sure take some handling skills to crank with a drill while in a tree. Ron

 

[retired redneck]

The first easy start was a sears push mower, you wound a crank on top the motor then pushed a button to relase a spring starter...

 

[Scooterbum]

The first easy start was a sears push mower, you wound a crank on top the motor then pushed a button to relase a spring starter...

Had one of those when I was a kid,surprisingly it worked good.

Check out the Stihls with the new Easy start, no yanking at all.Weird at first, but a nice feature. No matter how slow you pull it will start the saw.

 

[MillwrightChris]

This is the one I was thinking of.

 

[thomas72]

Thanks Chris for the picture. Never knew those existed. I do not see why the drill would not work. All you would have to do is make a cup to be locked down by the fly wheel nut and to engage the drill.

 

[RVALUE]

I'm not aware of any add on device (but I haven't looked either).
I would think, you could easily build something with a cordless drill.
Just thinking out load:
-remove the starter assembly
-cut a hole in the cover
-secure the flywheel nut
-attach some sort of clutch to a cordless drill
Might work.

very important, trust me....

 

[Fronty Owner]

I have a buddy that uses a cordless impact on all his pull start engines.

 

[zogger]

Niche market potential

It appears there might be a decent demand for a cordless battery operated chainsaw in the "pro" class. I just looked at what I could find, just little tiny homeowner capable saws for very light duty, all under a hundred bucks. If there was like a $300-500 or so quality saw..perhaps it could sell. I would imagine such a saw would needs be 24 or 36 VDC, along those lines.

As to charging batteries on the jobsite, without having to plug into the homeowners outlets or running a genny, a second (or third..) deep storage battery installed in your truck with an "isolator" circuit, then a large inverter would do it (or rig your own charger straight DC..beyond this discussion right now). The isolator is what they use on campers/rvs so that the alternator charges both the starter battery and the deep storage "house" battery when you are driving, but use of the house battery does not run down the starter battery at all, it is "isolated" hence the name. They work fine, have two of them, one on my camper van, the other on my small full fledged rv.

 

[retired redneck]

I have a 7 hp snow blower with a 110v ele starter just like a car works off of teeth on fly wheel don't know why smaller version on chain saw wouldn't work....

 

[Captain Crunch]

Cranking with an electric drill on the flywheel nut will likely just unscrew the nut unless the high strength loctite is used.

It might be possible drill a couple of small, shallow holes in the flywheel and make a special pin drive socket to drive these, think old 4x4 front hub socket only smaller. The back sides of the holes could be filed at an angle to help eject the starting socket once the engine fires.

I even found a socket in my toolbox marked KS 8I 20x24. Can't even remember what it was from, dirt bike, old Mercedes car, not sure.

I would have to give this a try before giving up saw'in or going electric.

As a side note on electrics, Europe with 220 volt power for everything has some kick'n electric saws and you don't need 200 pounds of extension cord to run them....
View attachment 168876

 

[Palionu]

so as to not bring it up, i realize this post is 4 years old.

at work i typically start gunked up equipment with a power drill. if you could make a keyhole latch that would slide back for electric starts, you'd just need a drill (fast rpm motor) and a socket hooked up via a 1-2k watt inverter in your car.

 

[Rockjock]

Has anyone seen how stihl starts the saws in the factory? at 0:36 you see the " hook " that pulls straight up.

 

[Rockjock]

Hmmmmmm ja?!