The Ego 56 volt self propelled snow blower doesn't meet my high standards

[shortylickens]

It pulls to the right and I cannot figure out if thats the drive, the skids, or something else.
It cannot handle a 1 inch layer of wet warm slush.
It takes forever to get thru packed snow.
It died after 12 minutes of mild work.

WHY THE HELL ARE YOUTUBE ASSHOLES SINGING PRAISES FOR THIS THING???!!!!!

Titled edited for acceptability.
Perknose
Forum Director

 

[jmagg]

It may be ok for a few inches of light powder, thats about it.

 

[shortylickens]

It may be ok for a few inches of light powder, thats about it.

You aint seen Youtube.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hv5cZU3A_Pc&ab_channel=EverydayReviews



Somebody LIED to me!

 

[herm0016]

HA 12 min? damn. Think about how many horse power the gas version of the thing you are buying is, if its over about 2, a battery powered version is going to suck. the minimum power 2 stage snow blower I would bother with is about 6 hp. Mine is 50 and attached to a 4000 lb tractor.

i find the VCG channel to be pretty useless overall.

 

[jmagg]

The first vid is very convincing.

 

[sdifox]

LoL battery in the snow...

 

[Paperdoc]

I had a series of electric "Snow Throwers" (NOT Blowers) of the plug-in variety over several years, and certainly found they were limited in capability, so they required that I adapt techniques. Wet heavy snow is especially tough for any device. They are much too small to handle deep snow easily. When I was gifted a new Ariens gas-powered real snowblower some year ago, the difference is HUGE. The power source is vastly different, so the entire machine is designed differently to do much more work easily. Moreover, now I can work my way down a long back lane of a few hundred feet from our lot.

Knowing the limits of a corded electric snow thrower I would be VERY skeptical of a battery-powered one.

 

[shortylickens]

And two more people who didnt watch the fucking videos.

Unless you all did watch them, and think its elaborate CGI so real that hollywood would be jealous.

 

[Sukhoi]

If the battery is detachable bring it inside to warm up prior to use.

 

[sdifox]

And two more people who didnt watch the fucking videos.

Unless you all did watch them, and think its elaborate CGI so real that hollywood would be jealous.

Do not charge that battery in the garage. LiIon battery should be at room temperature when charging. So charge it indoors in winter.

 

[shortylickens]

I got the super duper hi capacity ego batteries from Amazon. They arrived 3 days early which is great.
Now charging inside the house. Just like the last ones.

 

[mindless1]

Kinda pricey, can get the same or more done with a $600 (or less) entry level two stage gas.

Plus what if a snowstorm takes out power so there's no recharging. Generator, okay, seems like the "convenience" of a cordless blower starts to have several inconveniences once you look past new owner fascination, becomes a wash vs gas but still far more expensive to get same amount of work done.

 

[Stiff Clamp]

E-GO . . . sounds like rip off of Echo. Stealing brand recognition? Makes me immediately sus. Never heard of the brand.

What about those flimsy manual snow-pusher things? Look like a snowplow..
I don't have any snow-removal experience. Other than shoveling this one time.

 

[sdifox]

My 30" wide 10.5HP two stage snowblower is twenty year old. Probably should replace the plug, it's running rough. I did replace the electric starter.

 

[mindless1]

^ Could need a carb cleaning, rebuild or replacement if that hasn't been done in recent years.

E-GO . . . sounds like rip off of Echo. Stealing brand recognition? Makes me immediately sus. Never heard of the brand.

What about those flimsy manual snow-pusher things? Look like a snowplow..
I don't have any snow-removal experience. Other than shoveling this one time.

Manual snow plows don't work well if there's more than a few inches, or densely packed snow. Otherwise they pose more of a risk that you loose traction, slip and fall from trying to push more weight. Even so they can be better for someone with a bad back rather than trying to throw the snow with a shovel, but sometimes throwing it is the only (reasonable) option because there's nowhere adjacent to plow it out of the way, would have to push it a lot further and this further increases chances of slipping and falling.

 

[MtnMan]

Note to self: Never live anywhere the local hardware store sells snowblowers.

 

[mindless1]

Think about how many horse power the gas version of the thing you are buying is, if its over about 2, a battery powered version is going to suck. the minimum power 2 stage snow blower I would bother with is about 6 hp. Mine is 50 and attached to a 4000 lb tractor.

The issue with that is, electric snow blowers aren't rated in HP, and ever since the fiasco a few years back, small engines are seldom rated in HP rather than KW or just cc displacement.

Also with gas, usually as they move to a larger width, or even the basic step up to self propelled, automatically results in a larger engine. It's more difficult to determine larger motor size with electric, have to look more at KWH battery rating and how long it'll run from that, shorter (per KWH) being better up to a point of the impracticality of being able to move snow faster for other reasons, like limit in how fast it can be propelled, safely on snow, and of course the cost of the batteries. It's very expensive to get equal performance to a 6HP gas engine, for runtimes over ~20min. If it never takes over 20 min, probably buying more blower than needed.

 

[Paperdoc]

Blowing snow for over 20 minutes is a practical limit? If we have 4 - 6 inches of snow, it will take me over an hour to clear out all the paths through the yard for access to the front steps and road, sidewalk to the back, path to the rear shed, etc. Then more than another hour to clear our back-of-the-lot parking spaces and our portion of the back lane used to access those places. Total run times for that much snow are normally 2 hours or more, and that's with a pretty good gas-powered snowblower, not some little electric "thrower". My next such session will be tomorrow morning - our current snowstorm appears to be living up to a forecast of over 4" by then.

 

[mindless1]

^ Yes the runtime of a single battery is a practical limit (comparing price vs effort which is arguably equivalent), then it costs much more to get the same job done.

 

[herm0016]

you do know HP is the same a KW right?? just different units for power.

~ 745 watts = 1 hp.

so if a motor is rated to draw 1500 watts (1.5 kw) it is about 2 HP.
etc.

It's very expensive to get equal performance to a 6HP gas engine

no shit. that's because it's hard to get that much power out of a battery powered electric thing.
because you would need a 4.5 KW electric motor
don't go by the "peak HP" rating, those are all bunk. you actually need to know what the current rating on the electric motor.

run time ignoring losses and reserve battery capacity and all sorts of other things...
ego 10 amp hour battery at 56 volts....
4500 watts / 56 volts = amp draw (80 amps)
10 amp hours / 80 amps = .125 hours or 7.5 min.

so if you got 12 min out of it on a 10 ah battery you have a motor of less than 2500 watts or 3 hp. and you would never buy a 2 stage snow blower with 3 hp.

 

[mindless1]

^ Which cordless snowblowers state their motor KW or current rating? None that I've noticed. I suppose you could do a teardown after the purchase, or try to dig up this data elsewhere but it doesn't seem to be something that most talk about relating to snow blowers.

Yes you can try to calculate it, but it's also bound to depend on the load on the blower too.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Sounds like you either got a bad one or it has some kind of safety cut off that is too aggressive. I saw lot of good reviews on those units too. Are you storing the battery outside(or in cold garage/shed) or inside?

I got a 80v greenworks snow shovel and I can do my whole driveway on one charge. I still need to do lot of manual shoveling to get all the awkward areas where I can't point the shovel at the yard but it still saves lot of work without having to burn gas, and it's a bit more quiet so I don't feel as bad using it early morning or late night. I mostly just shovel the snow in a pile then use it to shoot it into the yard.

But if I keep the battery outside/garage then it won't run at all. I think there is some kind of safety. It will spin then as soon as I get it to eat snow it stops dead and locks out. If I keep the battery indoors I'm fine though. I purposely left it outside in -30 just to see how it would perform.

I sure hope electric cars have better thermal management than that. Overall I'm happy with it though for what it is. Toro also makes a full size electric snow blower that looks attractive, but I saw lot of good reviews on Ego as well so it's odd yours is not working good. I do eventually want to switch all my yard stuff to electric as the tech is getting better. Greenworks also makes lawn mowers that uses the 80v batteries so probably buy that at some point too.

Also from what I've read you can get away with less HP for electric motors. For example, to do the work of a 9 HP gas motor you can get away with a 3HP electric motor.

 

[herm0016]

^ Which cordless snowblowers state their motor KW or current rating? None that I've noticed. I suppose you could do a teardown after the purchase, or try to dig up this data elsewhere but it doesn't seem to be something that most talk about relating to snow blowers.

Yes you can try to calculate it, but it's also bound to depend on the load on the blower too.

yep.

I was able to find that the 21 single stage has a 2000 watt motor, cant seem to find it for the 2 stage, but I would wager I am close.

I still stand by my recommendation that battery stuff is not great if the gas equivalent is more than 5 or 6 hp.

i wish there was more 240 volt plug in stuff. like a wood splitter with a 5 hp motor, or a snow blower with a 240 cord. it would work great, and a lot of new homes have a 50 amp plug in the garage for charging a car.

 

[herm0016]

I sure hope electric cars have better thermal management than that. Overall I'm happy with it though for what it is. Toro also makes a full size electric snow blower that looks attractive, but I saw lot of good reviews on Ego as well so it's odd yours is not working good. I do eventually want to switch all my yard stuff to electric as the tech is getting better. Greenworks also makes lawn mowers that uses the 80v batteries so probably buy that at some point too.

Also from what I've read you can get away with less HP for electric motors. For example, to do the work of a 9 HP gas motor you can get away with a 3HP electric motor.

most BEVs and EERV's have pretty good thermal management, the Volt for instance is fantastic and this is a large reason why we don't see a lot of battery degradation in them. the first gen leaf was terrible and had a lot of degradation issues.

"some people say" they say that because electric motors have a lot of torque at low speeds and don't take so much time to get to a high speed. I think in a snow blower it is not really applicable because with a gas one you are running the engine at fairly constant RPM and spot on the power band while it is in use. in an application where you have to get something big and heavy moving and slowing down etc. like a car and running the engine at different RPMs all the time this statement is somewhat true because a gas engine has much less than peak torque at a low RPM and you must use a lower RPM when you are just starting from a stop due to the gearing. same reason electric motors don't need a transmission. they can run a car with a single gear ratio between the motor and drive wheels.

 

[Red Squirrel]

That's kind of what I figured. I think the issues I faced with the snow shovel may be that the thermal management system errs on the side of caution while EVs probably have better management as well as heaters. Though that does make me wonder if an EV is sitting in -50 unplugged, is it draining it's own battery to stay warm or does it only heat up when you go to start it? Lithium batteries don't get damaged in the cold right, they only get damaged if you try to charge them cold? So technically as long as the charging process heats the cells first it should be ok. Need lot of energy for that of course.