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Students invent quieter leaf blower

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Re: Students invent quieter leaf blower

#121

Post by sandworm101 »

vouaobrasil wrote: post #67
klankschap wrote: post #54

How about just leaving leaves for what they are. Just leave them and move on with your own life.

Exactly right. It's asinine to blow leaves. They don't do any damage and they create habitats for spiders and insects. I hate poeple who want clean, empty mowed lawns, aiming for an ideal that is far away from nature. Sickening.

>> It's asinine to blow leaves. They don't do any damage and they create habitats for spiders and insects.

Leaves are a problem in many areas, be them footpaths, roads or even railways. And good luck trying to maintain a golf course by just leaving the leaves out to rot on the grass.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-58783589 "Dry ice to help cut train delays caused by leaves on tracks"

Re: Students invent quieter leaf blower

#122

Post by sidewndr46 »

micromacrofoot wrote: post #110
sidewndr46 wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It isn't so much the noise that bothers me, what I've never understood about leaf blowers is what are they meant to accomplish? When I watch people use them they either blow the leaves into the street or the neighbors yard. What do they think that does? Now on the other hand, I do own a very noisy leaf vacuum. But when I've collected a bag full I can just deposit the leaves in my collection container. They are taken…

generally for landscapers it saves them the trouble of raking, which can put a lot of strain on your back — they'll blow the leaves onto a tarp and then wrap them up for easy removal in my experience, homeowners mostly dick around with them

I guess that would work, but I have never seen anyone do that.

Re: Students invent quieter leaf blower

#124

Post by ericd »

datavirtue wrote: post #56
Aurornis wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's a section of folks who enjoy loud engines. It's their jam, they love being 'outdoors' with loud gas powered engines, big trucks, riding lawn mowers. It's a fantasy escape world for them. That’s an awfully uncharitable projection. The lawn business people I know would love to adopt full electric fleets of gear. They aren’t sending their teams out with gas engines because it’s a “fantasy escape world”. They d…

I have been running the best of the best in tools and battery tech: Milwaukee. The blower and weed trimmer (especially) burn through very expensive batteries (XC8.0) very quickly. It is not a feasible replacement for even a moderate job. My yard is super small and I move quick and have learned to pull the batteries at 50% to keep from ruining them. But I have burnt up at least one $200 battery that will only charge t…

The batteries from eg Ego and Greenworks are way larger than anything Milwaukee puts out.

Re: Students invent quieter leaf blower

#125

Post by chasd00 »

alamortsubite wrote: post #88
delichon wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I lived in cities for four decades and rural areas for two. Hearing late night gunshots was routine in cities. I think it's happened once in hearing from my rural home. My neighbor is a state biologist who put down a sick coyote. Or course it can happen a lot if you get the wrong neighbors. But that's more of a risk in the city where you have so many more neighbors.

Wow, which cities? I've lived between cities and the sticks in the U.S. almost my entire life and while I've never once heard gunfire in a city, in the country it's a daily routine (occasionally, if rarely, even fully automatic).

I live in oakcliff in Dallas (area SW of downtown but still in Dallas proper). Gunshots every night and automatic weapons fire once a month. Police have completely given up, granted it’s all celebratory and usually not crime related. For example, when the cowboys score a touchdown you’ll hear a burst of gunfire.

Re: Students invent quieter leaf blower

#126

Post by superultra »

maxerickson wrote: post #98
datavirtue wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have been running the best of the best in tools and battery tech: Milwaukee. The blower and weed trimmer (especially) burn through very expensive batteries (XC8.0) very quickly. It is not a feasible replacement for even a moderate job. My yard is super small and I move quick and have learned to pull the batteries at 50% to keep from ruining them. But I have burnt up at least one $200 battery that will only charge t…

The higher voltage lawn care product lines typically have much larger batteries that are not strained doing a modest urban yard.

When we moved into a new in city home a few years ago, I wanted to keep things quiet and electric. I bought a ryobi leaf blower and lawn mower, with four 40v 6.0ah batteries. Our lawn is neither small nor big - not sure on sq ft but it’s far from huge.

It takes me about 6-8 gull charges to complete mowing and blowing. Leaf blowing is by far the more energy intensive. During the fall I have to space out the work in order to charge. Granted my property has a lot of tree cover and therefore always has a lot of leafs and debris.

Needless to say I regret my decision.

One of the problems with the blower is that it has a standard mode that is effectively useless, barely usable for even clippings. You have to run it at “max” charge for it to be remotely effective.

Edit: I have a previous year version of the RY404170-LB backpack blower. It eats batteries like candy.

Re: Students invent quieter leaf blower

#127

Post by infecto »

cooperadymas wrote: post #63
jchw wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's probably getting there given what Ego has on offer, but I think until it is downright better in at least some dimensions, it's going to be a hard sell. Right now it seems like it's more expensive, at best similarly powerful, and obviously batteries take time to recharge. I think it's gotta be niche for contractors. That said, given how bad gas lawn equipment is for the air in a locality, maybe regulatory nudges…

As someone who went all in on Ego about 3-4 years ago, let me tell you, the technology is nowhere close to capable enough for even small-time contractors yet. You would need at least 3 batteries per piece of equipment in use at one time in order to not have to spend time idle while a battery recharges ($700-$1000 upfront investment in batteries per piece). The lifespan of those batteries under constant usage would be…

I love my ego but agree will all of your problems. It just does not have the power that gas mowers have. Suction can be a real problem on them, they use proprietary blades that have to be light weight because of the electric motor.

I do think their more recent models fix a lot of these issues but I don't think its ready for commercial use. Just having to have a large number of batteries to sustain your day of work is limiting.

Re: Students invent quieter leaf blower

#128

Post by delichon »

alamortsubite wrote: post #113
batch12 wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You had some pretty well-off rural neighbors if they shot guns daily. Ammunition isn't cheap. I've lived in a rural area for a long time, and, yes maybe once a week or month a neighbor will practice their marksmanship, but thankfully it isn't a daily occurrence.

The neighbors in rural places I've lived haven't been terribly well-off, as far as I could tell, but they clearly have had different priorities.

It gets massively cheaper when those priorities include reloading your own ammo.

My most well off neighbor is the most prolific shooter I know. He shoots targets almost daily with his .22, and I don't hear it at all from 1/3 mile away. He doesn't use a suppressor, but some kind of quieter round. I guess that means slower.

Re: Students invent quieter leaf blower

#129

Post by grubbs »

natemcintosh wrote: post #115
sokoloff wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> JHU should make these comments!, and also offer their designs for free given these are public orgs using mostly public dollars JHU is private. It seems like this research may have been sponsored by Black & Decker, also private.

Yes, these mechanical engineering senior design projects at JHU are all sponsored by some organization or another, and the sponsor gets to keep the end product (and in this case also patent pending). Source: did a mechanical engineering senior design project at JHU 6 years ago (though mine was less successful, haha)

Was yours the pizza transport box for Pizza Hut? ;)

Re: Students invent quieter leaf blower

#130

Post by WaltPurvis »

Can someone explain to me what "quieter" means in this context and/or how it's calculated? I don't understand what they mean when they say reducing the noise by 2 decibels made it 37% quieter -- it wasn't making only 5 decibels of noise before, was it?

>>Their design cuts the most shrill and annoying frequencies by about 12 decibels, which all but removes them, making them 94% quieter. The team reduced the overall leaf blower noise by about two decibels, making the machine sound 37% quieter.

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