Our buddies over at Tools in Action covered a demo of Ego’s new 56V cordless snow blower! In their video you can see it in action blowing through a line of dirt.
The new Ego cordless snow blower features a steel frame, LED headlights, folding handle, double battery bay, and what look to be large and easy-toggle switches and controls.
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2 years ago, Clayton reviewed Ego’s cordless mower here on ToolGuyd, and gave it a stellar recommendation. We’re very eager to see if this new Ego 56V cordless snow blower holds up to our high expectations.
Here’s their video:
P.S. Here’s a link to Tools in Action’s YouTube channel – check out some of their other videos. Also check out ToolGuyd’s YouTube channel, which will be seeing a lot more content soon.
Cr8ondt
Just in time for summer!!!!!!!!
jimmie
I’m still skeptical. I want to see things like runtime. How many square feet of, say, 6-inch deep medium-wet snow can it move on a single charge? It’s limited by the total amount of energy stored in the batteries. I’m sure you can get great performance out of an electric snow blower if you wire the motor such that the batteries are drained in 4 minutes. But that doesn’t do much good if it takes 20 minutes to plow your driveway and sidewalks.
P
My problem with most of these electric yard-tools is they just don’t pack enough capacity into their batteries. We’re hitting 6.0 and 9.0Ah batteries on power-tools, but when you buy a weedwhacker it comes with 2.5Ah battery that takes 40m (Ego) or longer (Ryobi) to charge.
I could buy 3 Makita 18V 4.0Ah batteries for $255, with a total of 54V and 12Ah. Or an Ego 56V 7.5Ah battery for $380. And the Makita’s charge faster than the Ego’s (according to manufacturer specs). Am I missing something here? Everything I look at says that Ah are just capacity, and aren’t tied to voltage.
I’m trying out a couple cordless weed-whacker, and I’m really tempted to get one of Makita’s 36V dual-battery models, but the idea of the whole outdoor line (Ego, Ryobi, Worx?) is really compelling.
Sorry if I’m de-railing this comment, just really frustrated the cordless landscaping tools don’t seem very mature yet.
Lance
Three 18v 4Ah Makita batteries is 54v and 4Ah equivalent.
You need to look at Watt-Hours (Wh), that tells you how much energy is in a battery pack. To get Wh you multiply voltage V and capacity in Ah, so the Makita BL1840 is 18×4=72Wh.
Ego’s 56v battery packs are HUGE compared to small hand tool packs. Even their smallest packs, the 2Ah and 2.5Ah, have 14 individual 18650 cells, the high capacity hand tool packs (Makita, DeWalt etc.) only have 10.
Ego’s 4Ah and 5Ah packs have 28 cells, and the monster 7.5Ah pack has 42 cells.
The Ego snowblower in that demo had TWO 7.5Ah packs in it, packing over 800Wh of energy (or 0.8kWh!). That’s like having 11-12 Makita BL1840 packs hooked up at once!
Rman
You’re getting your battery info mixed up. If you hook up three makita or competitors the total voltage will be 54 volts But the AH rating is still only 4 Ah. Series wired batteries add up voltage not AH.
That is why the Ego battery is so expensive.
Btw I have 40 V greenworks outdoor equipment and the 4Ah batteries last a long time in a normal size yard. My power tools are m18 Milwaukee and 5ah for a circ saw is still not enough.
Lance
This snow blower looks amazing! I can’t wait for this to hit the shelves. Well I guess I can, winter is a ways off yet… 🙂
RKA
The other wrench in the works is the effects of cold weather on batteries. I’ll file this under “I’ll believe it when I see it”.
I do have one rule when it comes to snowblowers. I buy for what I cannot realistically move myself. This little thing might work fine in 6″, but I could just as well shovel that. I don’t need a snowblower for that. I can’t shovel 15″ out of my driveway, I need a blower for that.
Derek
I’m the opposite, I want something that is awesome for 98% of the snowfalls I get. I’m fine if once a winter I have to grab the shovel, because we got dumped on. I probably wouldn’t be able to get to work anyway, so if it takes 2 hours to clear it…so be it.
Mike
I’m of the same mindset. Which is fortunate since my electric snowblower won’t handle the heavy, wet snow when it’s deep.
If the batteries are kept inside while not in use I don’t see a problem with them getting cold. At the rate they’ll be putting out current they will self heat enough to keep their temperature up.
I just have a hard time believing a cordless blower will have enough power to do much of anything. My electric is a 15 amp model and even it doesn’t have enough oomph to throw snow clear of the driveway when the snow is heavy. It would sure be nice not having to deal with the cord, though.
TIA
Thanks for the Mention Stuart!
Erik
I bought this thing after researching cordless throwers. I maintain my gas equipment fine, but just didn’t want a gas one. I still picked it up even doubting it.
I was surprised. I did my 2 car wide by 2 long driveway, and the neighbors single car wide by 3 long driveway, 130ft of sidewalk and a driveway apron with compacted snow from the plow, and then the two 5.0 ah batteries were out of juice.
Now this was 8 inches of powder snow, and I only had it on half throttle. Every snowfall I’ve had so far has been powder. I haven’t had a heavy wet snow to test it in but I think it’s a keeper for me.
Every tool has its job, and we don’t get a couple feet of snow every time it snows but I think this thing proves a lot of people wrong about battery power.