Best Cordless Chainsaw - Head-2-Head Test

[Music] [Music] wow [Music] [Music] hey guys cordless chainsaws they're aggressive tools that make processing heavy timber material effortless and enjoyable but our battery powered chainsaws ready for the spotlight a chainsaw requires a super high output of power right in order to cut efficiently without stalling or bogging down with the advancements of today's batteries and electronic technology we were really anxious here toolbox buzz to see whether a cordless chainsaw could keep up with what we're used to for chainsaw performance the benefits of cordless chainsaws and ope in general are well known we're talking about ease of maintenance effortless long-term long-term storage reduced noise no exhaust fumes and no mixing of fuels so in this head-to-head we wanted to see what kind of performance we could get realistically get and expect from a battery powered chainsaw so to learn more about these saws their model numbers features specs and a slew of other stuff you need to go to the toolbox buzz website the website always has more information way more in-depth information than the video i have to reduce the video to keep it smaller uh also if you if you think we did a good job today please subscribe hit that notification bell we need your support okay so the selection of the chainsaws and evaluation criteria for this head-to-head focused on three different user groups first group was the arborist the pro looking for a smaller manageable saw requiring less maintenance limiting work and cleaning up for brush piles for the chipper the second user group was a construction pro already invested in a battery platform and looking for an occasional saw or occasional use and then the third one is the homeowners looking for occasional use and storm cleanup okay three groups based on this we chose to to test 12 saws with a bar and chain configuration between 14 and 16 inches long and 18 to 60 volts the sauce size is practical for a variety of tasks and pre pretty much typically would replace a 30 to 45 cc gas chain saw now testing each saw to its limits is also critical in order to clearly establish a line that separates cordless from gas models all of the tests that we performed were on hardwood trees that are common and pretty much widely available throughout the northeast here okay we evaluated the following criteria in this head-to-head and a lot of this stuff is is consistent we looked at runtime that's important to some folks speed and power torture or high demand cutting tool size and balance we evaluated weight features and ergonomics additionally a lot of you folks have been asking about decibels so we looked at the decibel output obviously we have to look at price because it's important now this time in this head-to-head a local tree company assisted us in the testing process some arborists we put each saw in the hands of an experienced arborist and we put them to work up in a in a bucket truck limbing a standing dead ash tree now this is a real world application that has always been done with a gas-powered saw performing this test it gave us invaluable feedback on whether these saws were ready for demanding pro use pro tree service use now let's talk about run time the runtime test in particular so our runtime test it consisted of cutting um as many cross-cut slices or cookies through a 13 and a half inch diameter maple log tree on a single battery charge each saw was equipped with a full battery fully charged factory sharpened chain brand new filled with steel wood color bar and chain oil and the chain was tensioned and set properly the logs had been sitting on the ground up off the ground i should say and seasoned for approximately two years i do want to note that these logs were bigger than these saws are really designed to cut and that's important to note which is exactly why we chose them this test forced these saws to work hard and it really showed in order to keep the thing at the test uniform we kept the same two test cutters for the entire test try to be consistent and repeatable the operators performed five cuts at a time rested pause the sauce for 25 seconds allowing the batteries a little bit of relief to hopefully avoid thermal overloading the first place in this test the runtime test was ego ego crushed this test plain and simple totaling 31 cuts in fact the ego was the first saw we cut or we i should say we tested with and we as we watched the stack of cookies rise we started wearing whether we might run out of material for this test second place was milwaukee now the milwaukee saw the fuel saw has the lowest voltage tool of the day it's shined as a cutter and it totaled 22 cuts the proven m18 platform with a massive 12 amp-hour battery did very well in this testing however the this saw did experience a battery overload at the 18th cut so what we did in that situation is we removed the battery we let the saw cool down the battery cooled down for about 10 minutes and then we continued the test we got the 21 22. the milwaukee saw also uses a slower chain speed compared to some of the other saws and it delivers a ton of torque and power when cutting now third place went to greenworks the green work saw is no stranger to the toolbox buzz crew it performed a total of 21 cuts pretty impressive and it it maintained a constant chain speed and power throughout the entire cutting over overall our testers agreed that it had excellent power and was a top cutter in this test now while evaluating runtime our test cutters had to learn that operating a cordless chainsaw drastically is different than a traditional saw a lot of these guys were traditional saw users a gas powered saw typically lets you lean on the cut put extra leverage on it force on the tool power through and it's going to power through a bog down with a battery powered sar it's a whole different world the saw will shut itself down if you encounter extreme resistance or prevent it's going to do that to prevent damaging the battery and electronics so our operators had to allow the saws to do the cutting and hold back from leaning on the saw too much so you're going to see that in some of the video that you see of the saws that we tested makita steel dr power all had issues stalling out uh and having to be reset in order to continue cutting the steel in particular had to be reset battery moved cooled down several times to continue the test all right moving on a seasoned length of ash was selected and that's to perform our speed test our speed cutting test it averaged out to about 11 inches in diameter the same operator performed this test to maintain consistency throughout the test now the test took an average of two sets of three cuts a time so sits six cuts first place was echo and now um echo echo was one of the tests uh i want to say i wanted test cut is summed up perfectly and they basically said this thing just feels like a chainsaw now the echo saw basically powered through both speed cuts averaging 44 and a half seconds this is impressive it was a fast saw its 58 volt system uses a slower change speed but delivers a whole lot of torque that you feel in the cut this balance of speed and power allowed the echo to power quickly through without bogging down or dropping speed and it was we all noticed it second place was the steel steel is probably one of the biggest names if not the biggest name in chainsaws in the world their reputation is basically built on solid construction and professional grade engineering and features everybody i know has a steel chainsaw or husqvarna and steel they're two big names right well the steel lineage shines and it's shined in the speed cut testing averaging 48 seconds this saw has zero issues smoking this log now while the steel might have struggled a little bit in a larger diameter runtime test like i said that log was bigger than most saws could handle most of these saws can handle the smaller logs used here the steel was aggressive and the profile chain yielded impressive results a very aggressive chain third place went to greenworks now with an average cutting time of 50.2 seconds greenworks just continued to shine as a top cutter as we were testing this the greenworks pro 60 volt saw its performance in the speed cutting test was outstanding and it's an example of a tool that was built from the ground up as a cordless chainsaw cordless tool company all right i want to talk to you guys about the tool torture test in order to break down a large round of wood to a more manageable size chainsaw users will typically or often perform a rip cut it's also called a noodling cut we selected a noodling cut as our torture test due to the fact that it greatly tests the power of these sauce especially the power band of these cordless sauce a noodling cut is performed parallel to the the grain in a full length log round now what makes it difficult is the fact that the chain has to pull long stranded cuts through a cut that is the entire length of the bar chain bar and chain now these cuts or these long stranded chips resemble curly noodles and hence the name noodling noodling cut traditionally a larger more powerful gas-powered saw would perform this cut so it's a demanding demanding cut we took 12 large rounds of pre-cut wet red oak and they were placed on a standing block and cut parallel to the grain our rounds were exactly 12 inches long and our calculated average was approximately 16.78 inches the toughness of the grain structure of the red oak on top of the moisture content of the wood placed a huge demand on these saws this was impressive the test the test basically was a past fail evaluation because i'll be honest with you we didn't think the sods would be able to even do this test to our surprise though almost every single tool passed the only saw which field was milwaukee now during this test the milwaukee became so jammed up with noodle strands that it completely bound up and seized just stopped the saw had to be disassembled and cleaned before it was functional again the noodles just as a there's a gap at the bottom of the sauce the noodles just got caught up in there the performance of these saws overall though was extremely impressive i want to say it it showed us it showed us the benefit of modern electric motors and the batteries and the ability to maintain a constant output regardless of the demand really impressive all right we look at uh weight and we based on this on bare tool weight of the law of each model husqvarna came in the lightest weight at 5.9 pounds steel was 6.4 makita was 8.3 and after makita it just went up from there it just slowly progressed up with ryobi being the heaviest star at 12.4 pounds it's a hefty saw overall size and balance now this is interesting because this this goes into ergonomics a bit but some of the saws do a great job of balance and balancing the increased weight because of the battery well some of them did not and the professional tree cutter that we we worked with felt the overall size and balance was one of the biggest factors for him deciding whether he would take this up in the bucket truck or the tree if a saw was bulky maybe unwieldy then it would not it would be an absolute just no-go for him to even consider it's just a no now first place size and balance went to steel the steel felt like a compact professional-grade tool in the hands of every user it just felt like a chainsaw its overall size and balance was excellent feeling more like a gas chainsaw i mean everybody said that now the second place went to husqvarna husqvarna is the other biggest and most well-known name in the chainsaw world right i mean we all know it i have two of them the soft felt nimble and balanced in the hand it's extremely it's it's lightweight and compact design made it a true makes it a true professional grade tool just feels professional solid our tree cutter stated that the husqvarna had the greatest balance and lightweight feeling in the hands he also felt that it was the most realistic choice of all the saws due to its weight that he would pick to bring up in the bucket truck third place goes to makeda the makita saw offers a great combination of weight and balance and the makita 36 full so two batteries right the 36 volt system places the battery packs higher up on the saw and centered so this basically cuts down on the overall length of the saw because you don't add for the battery pack of the body and it streamlines it as well much like the steel in husqvarna the makita saw is balanced similar in its as a traditional uh gas powered saw and was easily controlled by our test crew next we compared features such as manual chain brakes chain tensioning systems we looked at the bar oil fill cap design some of them horrible on board tool storage bump spikes and felling dogs or felling dogs whatever you call them the first place in that category goes to dewalt now dewalt saw has an outstanding feature set and it makes it a very user friendly saw the manual chain break stood out the cr all the crew noticed that it was a really well thought out safety feature it's contoured design has a really short travel engaging and disengaging distance really nice now dewalt's tool-free chain tensioning system was also really user-friendly and a favorite a lot of the users really easy to do the chain sensor tensioning system adjusts easily while you're holding the saw all the controls feature high quality levers easy to use flip up and down levers super nice the fill cap design the flip cap design on the bar oil reservoir was also a nice design well done dewalt uh but one area that i would offer of improvement would be um dewalt just put a pair of steel bumper spikes on it as opposed to plastic ones you just you cheaped out on that one all right second place was oregon oregon however you say it the oregon star is well known for high quality bar chains bars and other foresty projects products having never tested an organ tool before we were really surprised with this mighty monster now this saw it is packed with features that were clearly clearly designed by chainsaw people people who like sleep with their chainsaw the first of which was the oregon self-sharpening blade system the user simply lifts upward on a control level for about a lever for about three to five seconds while running the saw and it automatically sharpens the chain the lever basically lowers this contoured sharpening stone down onto the chain and sharpens it as it runs how cool is that that's just awesome the chain obviously is proprietary and the sharpening stone will only work with that chain that that completely makes sense we get that um oregon has excellent bumper spikes um a responsive chain brake and a tool-free chain tensioning system which everybody likes third place went to steel it comes as no surprise that a pro-grade tool like the steel includes pro-grade features right i mean they make chainsaws that are awesome steel includes an on-board clutch design along with steel bumper spikes and a really good chain chain catch the tool free chain tensioning system is user friendly the finger rotary design or the dial design for adjusting the tension it's slightly less intuitive than say the dewalt design of all the tools that we tested cobalt was the only model that does not feature a manual chain break lever we didn't like that um our crew also found overwhelming preference basically for saws that had the tool free chain tensioning method so listen up folks we like the tool free over the traditional tool system okay we looked at ergonomics term ergonomics gets thrown around with a completely it's user dependent right it's based upon how that tool worked with you while you were working and and maybe if it's less fatiguing or whatever to use the saw so the areas that we focused on for ergonomics were angle handles grip textures control locations and felt vibration first place goes to husqvarna now the husqvarna it felt like it was designed for all-day pro use i just it was smooth it's a very smooth saw contoured angle handles provide a comfortable grip as well as made the controls super easy to reach while using it the saw features a simple push button power switch as well as a manual chain brake and a grip tank safety release and controls controls were smooth very little vibration a foot all felt on the saw and there's no hot spots on the grips when you're holding it second place goes to steel the compact body design of the steel along with ergonomic controls make this one of the most comfortable tools in hand it's a really nice saw the steel features a push button safety release it's on the left side of the rear grip as opposed to an on off switch but the button is easy to reach and unobtrusive during use so it's a non issue it's fine you get you once you get used to it it's easy the ease of the battery access and quick change were exceptional it's just a nice saw third place went to the makita now makita is a tool company they're not a chainsaw company the makita saw follow the same path as the husqvarna it's got the push button on off switch it's got a grip tang safety release this this simple feature alone was found to be a favorite amongst the testing crew the tree care professionals um they greatly favored the system and they found that makita was extremely similar to their current gas powered saws that's a plus for makita well done okay we talked about decibels you guys wanted to hear about decibels thought it was important one of the main benefits of cordless chainsaws and cordless ope in general is lack of noise that's probably one of the biggest but just how quiet is a cordless chainsaw do you need hearing protection well the answer is no the chainsaws we all placed them on we placed them on a concrete slab same spot same location took the average sound decibel rating that we captured the loudest rev up phase of the tools when it was revving up the husqvarna was 74.4 decibels dewalt came in at 74.5 very close and makita 74.8 all of the saws that we tested fall well within the osha safe hearing level standards for no hearing protection and they're drastically quieter than gas powered okay moving on let's talk a little bit about price because that's a big deal for folks the saws were based were ranked i should say on a bear tool price at the time of this video bear two price makes sense to us because many manufacturers sell their saws as an a la carte system you can buy the two of the battery you can buy kits cobalt comes in at a buck 49. ryobi 189 dr power greenworks and and echo all at 199 all well under 200 north of 200 is the ego at 218 and it just goes up from there now if you look at the bear tool prices we see that all three of the highest performing saws in our test were way at the bottom they're more expensive saws the wide difference in pricing is a direct relation to truly professional grade tools as opposed to say homeowner grade tools for example cobalt will not be capable or expected to perform at the same level of the husqvarna steel just won't steel is unique in that they do not offer online sales in order to buy a steel chainsaw you got to get it from a steel dealer now let's talk about best overall value because i really put a lot of weight into that echo chainsaw was the best overall value of all the chainsaws featured echo stood out as a tremendous value-packed outstanding performing saw the echo was a it was our fastest cutter and ranked in the top five for run time and weight but more importantly it tied for third in price as a bare tool it's a top performer the echo has a solid heft to it it makes it feel like a traditional gas saw in hand but it's relatively light if you consider that because it cuts at a lower chain speed with a higher torque the echo chewed through every species of wood that we threw at it and there was no issues zero issues with the saw no overload nothing it was an easy saw to use while a little bit bulky for the tree climbers and the bucket saws the echo is an excellent saw for say firewood cutting or general cleanup all right overall who has the best cordless chainsaw based on our evaluation criteria each saw was ranked and the total point value was recorded when you look at these charts the lower the score the better the placement of the tool based on this steel took top place as the best chainsaw with 36 points dewalt and husqvarna tied for second place with 41 points the team felt that the husky was the better of the two saws and closing in right behind them was the makita with 42 points makita had a super solid showing overall our testers or i should say our test established themselves into three categories right we have basically power tool companies that make a cordless chainsaw we have chainsaw companies that designed a battery powered chainsaw and then we have the third category which i think has been performing exceptionally well because they are battery-powered companies that build battery-powered tools battery-powered chainsaw right on their platform overall our crew is extremely impressed with the power and capabilities of all the saws really um if if you are currently invested say in a battery platform a tool platform and and you likely cannot go wrong with picking and matching your chainsaw to your battery platform that just makes sense to me as a tool user for tree care pros out there i think a battery sar is worth looking at as well charging a battery is way easier than filling gas and a little bit less messy no fumes no pull starts but more importantly a battery powered saw goes from on to off with a flick of a switch it's fast it's safer i think um while expensive the professional grade saws that we looked at highlighted in this test are extremely capable and powerful and i want to stress that they are pro-grade i think a pro would be surprised at how often they would find themselves reaching for a battery-powered saw versus a gas-powered model now nowadays today's days so whether you're a backyard lumberjack a rugged tree cutter pro arborist or an eco-conscious cannibal from texas a cordless chainsaw is likely a great option for you guys hey look i really hope you enjoy this video we put a lot of time and effort into this please consider subscribing leave us a comment we love hearing from you guys and click that notification bell so you don't miss any more of our videos i'm rob robellard we'll see you next time here at toolbox buzz [Music] [Music] you

Channel: A Concord Carpenter / ToolBoxBuzz

Views: 206,913

Rating: 4.9142995 out of 5

Keywords: diy, how to, step by step, tools, reviews, carpentry, remodel, construction, chainsaw, cordless, tool, ope, comparison, tool test, head to head, lumber, wood cutting, arborist, tree cutting, Battery, Best chainsaw, Saw, Arbor, Tree

Id: fnFfaoFRrUE

Length: 26min 41sec (1601 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 25 2020