Which Blower? BG85 / BG86 / HB280

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Which Blower? BG85 / BG86 / HB280

  • Total voters
    39
I use all Stihl equipment and everything thing is taken care of daily. Nothing is ever broken and I have one employee. No SHE doesn't complain about "vibration" from the equipment.

Should I have Brittney Spears in my signature to be a more suitable kind of person that is in touch with my feminine side about a piece of power equipment vibrating.
 
Bead. I don't how the engines on Echo hand held blowers are made, but my blower is 12 years old and it has never once let me down, and I've used the #### out of this little blower. I just put a carb kit in a BG55 and I was not overly impressed with the build quality of the blower, not nearly as slick as there saws. I'm sure my little Echo isn't as power full as the other blowers, but they are though.:cheers:
 
I just got back from my dealer and checked out the HBZ2601. I like it. We fueled it up and ran it a little. It's all the blower I would need and has the build construction I like. Quoted me a steal of a price too at $215!!!
 
tamadrummer said:
If an employee of mine came to me and told me they could not run a blower for more than X number of minutes a day and it was less than 360 minutes I would open hand slap them and send them on their way.

Switch hands if your hand hurts, what other job is better, line trimming, trimming hedges, edging?

do the dog'on job and get it over with so we can go home.....
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Its the hand vibration law in the UK.
Part of the reason that the FS250 strimmer is no longer sold here. Nearly all the pro strimmers/brushcutters have big huge heavy anti vibe handles.

Lets say you made the guys use equipment for longer than the stated time and they end up with white finger, Who are they going to sue? Stihl who have stated the vibes and time limits? Or you for forcing them to use the equipment?
 
Brad, (sorry I just read this thread) I take it from your post that you got the Ex-lax :cheers:

I fueled up a new BG86 the other day and can honestly say the Ex-lax HB-250 homeowner demo made it look real bad...... did I say real bad cause I meant.... reeeeal bad. :laugh:

You guys know I bleed orange and white, buuuuut......... :dizzy:


I'd take my stratocat Kawi KRH300 over that thing any day and thats pretty bad.
 
I got my new Redmax HBZ2601 and project blower HBZ2500. They've already both been modded, lol. Nice blowers BTW. If you want a well built product, buy Redmax. I've seen the quality again in these blowers. The 2500 is just a previous version of the 2601. Even these little 25cc blower engines have vertically split mag cases, cast beam shaped rod, removable caged needle bearing in the rod, two rings. You name it, it's done right.

The 2500 was nearly completely disassembled. The P&C were heavily carboned but in excellent shape. I cleaned everything up and actually did a little port work on the cylinder. Yes, I know. That takes me over the deep edge when I start messing with 25cc blowers:dizzy: This is a strato engine and has a tiny TINY intake port and carb feeds to both transfers. I slightly widened the intake, tapered both transfers towards the rear and slightly widened and raised the exhaust. I put it back together without a base gasket, netting a squish of .018". There was so much carbon that it was hitting at TDC without a gasket when I started! I broke one of the two rings removing it from the heavily carboned piston groove. Well Husky often only uses one ring. Saw builders sometimes remove the bottom ring. Let's see how it runs with just one. I want to see this thing run! Wait a minute. I don't have a carb for the 2500. No problem, Like I said, the 2601 is basically the same blower. So the new blower got robbed of it's carb and throttle cable. IT STARTED ON THE 2ND PULL AND RUNS GREAT! No kidding. It idles perfectly at 2700 RPMs and revs out 800-900 RPMs higher then the new one did out of the box. The very lean edge is 7660 and I turned it down to 7500. I'm happy. The question is, do I go back in there with a new set of rings or leave it like it is. I'm not sure it would run any better at all.

Like I said, the new one's been modded too. One of the few changes they have made to these is to add an aluminum restrictor plate between the cylinder and the muffler. I block probably >50% of the exhaust flange. Instead of just removing it, I opened it up and left it as a heat deflector. It could be just removed though since it's not one previous models. Out of the box it was turning about 6700 RPMs. It's now set a little rich at 7300. so I'm not sure the little port work I did to the 2500 make much difference. Maybe it's the one ring hurting it after all. Reguardless, this new 2601 runs like a charm, has perfect throttle response from idle to WOT and revs out nicely. This is all the blower I need and is better built than most other blowers on the market. REDMAX DOES IT AGAIN!!!
 
Now the question is, how many of you are still going to go out and buy an inferior blower now that you know about this little gem:greenchainsaw: Support your AS sponsors. It's spring time. Some of you have got to be needing a new blower. Give Steve at The Cutting Edge a call. He'll be happy to hook you up.
 
yep

I have an Echo PB that I muffler modded and retuned last year. Big Difference!
Same with the Stihl trimmer I have-WOW! You can put your hand up to the exhaust at WOT and It won't even burn-runs super cool.
 
blsnelling said:
Now the question is, how many of you are still going to go out and buy an inferior blower now that you know about this little gem.
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How smooth is this redmax and are the tubes designed well? I'm sold on the bg86, smooth and very powerful. If Tony has any instock, I might even pick one up next weekend at the GTG.:D
 
2000ssm6 said:
How smooth is this redmax and are the tubes designed well? I'm sold on the bg86, smooth and very powerful. If Tony has any instock, I might even pick one up next weekend at the GTG.:D
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I haven't owned a BG85 to know the vibes you guys are referring to, but I think this Redmax is smooth. The tubes...well, they're pretty flimsy. I don't see it being an issue at all though. They connect well.
 
fredmc said:
I have an Echo PB that I muffler modded and retuned last year. Big Difference!
Same with the Stihl trimmer I have-WOW! You can put your hand up to the exhaust at WOT and It won't even burn-runs super cool.
Click to expand...

Hmmm... if it's tuned right, at full power the exhaust stream will be about 1200F++...
 
blsnelling said:
I haven't owned a BG85 to know the vibes you guys are referring to, but I think this Redmax is smooth. The tubes...well, they're pretty flimsy. I don't see it being an issue at all though. They connect well.
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The 85 wasn't as bad as woodie makes it out to be but there was need for an improvement. The tubes did not stay together well either, both problems are fixed with the 86. If you use that redmax hard enough, you will find out how they hold up, the 85 was the same way.

btw, congrats on the first modded blower!!:clap::D:D
 
2000ssm6 said:
The 85 wasn't as bad as woodie makes it out to be but there was need for an improvement. The tubes did not stay together well either, both problems are fixed with the 86. If you use that redmax hard enough, you will find out how they hold up, the 85 was the same way.

btw, congrats on the first modded blower!!:clap::D:D
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I'm going to go back in the 2500 with a new set of rings. The new one definatley has more compression, even with a base gasket in it and not being broken in.

The tubes twist lock together. It seems like someone mentioned Echo tubes fit on the Redmax. How are they constructed?
 

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