A better chain for an EGO 1800

[dogfoo]

I bought an EGO 1800 for occasional, light duty use when I'm headed to my out-of-town property with the wife and hounds in her SUV - and I don't want to pack a gas saw and associated fuel/oil. Not cheap, but it's still a homeowner saw, so I expected to be fully underwhelmed. The EGO has not disappointed in this regard. The few times using it I was wishing for my Husq 372XP.

Yes, I could have bought a better battery saw. But since I really don't want to be using it much, I chose to save the additional funds for my next gas saw.

With the whining complete, here's the question: This saw comes with a cheap (and required for homeowner use) anti-kickback chain. I figure the saw might do better with a better chain. Has anyone else run something similar - 3/8 pitch LP, 0.050 width, 62 DL - and had good luck?

Thanks,
dogfood

 

[dankas]

...I have to use an EGO at my sister-in-laws in hotanddry central Texas as she's worried about a fire... works fine on taking down the invasive Chinaberrys there & making firewood for them. Oregon makes EGO's chains I believe & they'll work fine - I opt of the one without the double-raker (safety chain...) as the power of the unit - in good hands - can be controlled quite well.

Sorry I don't have a chain # for Oregon ... I've a Stihl MSA-220 battery unit I use to supplement my gas saws doing restoration work for limbing, trimming & small felling and recently switched them over to a chain that has worked quite well from Saw Salvage - Travis Creek in PA. Take a look...

https://www.sawsalvage.co/products/...-chisel-chainsaw-chain?variant=44690472206554

(you might have to fish down the list to find your spec. but its there...)
Best!

 

[OM617YOTA]

I ground the safety straps off the low kickback chain for my 80v Kobalt. When I finally run out of chains I'll buy non-safety chain, but it'll be awhile.

 

[Haywire Haywood]

The safety chain doesn't make much of a difference unless you're bore cutting.

 

[Bullseye T&L]

@Haywire Haywood is spot on. Safety vs non-safety chain doesn't always mean there is a huge difference in cutting speed unless your bore cutting. Semi vs full chisel is where you'll see the difference. I suspect you're looking for something in full chisel, and don't worry too much about whether it has the safety straps or not. I run a Stihl 201T and 241cm that use Stihl 3/8P .050 full chisel with safety straps (green strap chain) that flies through wood. It's the 63PS3 model chain. It was a huge bump in cutting speed over the semi-chisel (63PM3) that came on them. Just don't run it in the dirt. The non-safety version of the 63PS3 is the 63PS. I've run both and both are respectable. I've also used full chisel chain from a company called Archer and it is also pretty good. It was the 3/8P .043 full chisel non-safety, run on a Stihl 193T. Boy did it wake that saw up.

 

[dogfoo]

So I finally tried the full chisel from Travis Creek and it certainly cuts better. As you guys noted, maybe that's strictly because it's full chisel - and the safety bumps themselves aren't that much of a deal. I wasn't bore cutting and not going to with this saw. Or maybe the original chain itself really wasn't all that great.

I still don't like the battery saw ... doesn't look right, doesn't feel right and doesn't sound right. But I'm an old dog and admittedly I don't find a whole lot new interesting these days. I'm sure I'll get used to it for what I'm going to use it for - which isn't a whole lot.

Thanks for the help.

 

[Franny K]

The safety chain doesn't make much of a difference unless you're bore cutting.

New as opposed to sharpened back bumper drive link chain can plunge (I guess bore would a falling technique) fine. Try the Husky sp21 or Stihl 61pmm3 on the Stihl shaped bar.

I suspect many battery chainsaws use the same shaft with two flats on the drive sprocket. The mini .325 has 7 teeth.

 

[Haywire Haywood]

It can plunge, but the bumper is supposed to reduce kickback from accidental bar nose contact by reducing bite there. It shouldn't plunge cut nearly as well as non-safety chain because it doesn't take as large of a bite.

 

[Coralillo Lo Pro]

Reviving this thread because I got an EGO trimmer given to me by my sister I'm pretty impressed with and got me looking at the rest of EGO's products. Much cheaper than Stihl's battery line but more expensive than most of the homeowner stuff. Seemingly a huge step up though from most of the low end battery stuff or even DeWalt or Bosch. The main thing is the rpm's. I think the pole saws and chainsaws run about 6800 rpm, slow by gas speeds but WAY faster than most all battery/electrics on the market. In a battery pole saw test I saw they ran through a 4x4 in 3 seconds, compared to 3.5 for an Oregon pole saw (6250rpm), 4-4.5 for a DeWalt (pretty great for a 20V battery system but they only give a chain speed of 6.5 m/sec or 22 ft/sec which seems like 3000-4000 rpm) , and 7-10 seconds for the rest they tested. Rpm's of the EGO are comparable to the ancient MacCulloch gas chainsaws actually. I thought one of the EGO chainsaws might be a good replacement for finicky small gas saws, since next to no one makes anything professional in a small gas saw anymore. But the one knock on the design seems that sawdust can run into the case and jam it up easily, it's not open to clear the chips like gas saws. If they could fix that flaw, seems like they'd be great little saws with .043LP chain. No substitute at all for a quality 59+cc saw, but seems like they'd be nice brush and limbing saws to replace 35-45cc gas saws.

 

[dsofio]

So I finally tried the full chisel from Travis Creek and it certainly cuts better. As you guys noted, maybe that's strictly because it's full chisel - and the safety bumps themselves aren't that much of a deal. I wasn't bore cutting and not going to with this saw. Or maybe the original chain itself really wasn't all that great.

I still don't like the battery saw ... doesn't look right, doesn't feel right and doesn't sound right. But I'm an old dog and admittedly I don't find a whole lot new interesting these days. I'm sure I'll get used to it for what I'm going to use it for - which isn't a whole lot.

Thanks for the help.

Similar sitch here - using the Ego on a "neighbor island". Right out of the box, it drove me nuts, acting as if it was pinching with virtually every cut - and not such that the chain would jam, more like I am trying to cut a curve, so the chain is free to race through, but I can't advance the bar. Does that sound familiar?

The ONLY cuts that seem to go OK are those when I've got the luxury of using the (tiny plastic) dogs to lever my way through a cut. This has me looking for a wider-kerf chain if I can find one, and wondering if Ego packaged it with something...else. Really hate this saw and want it to go away.

 

[Coralillo Lo Pro]

Similar sitch here - using the Ego on a "neighbor island". Right out of the box, it drove me nuts, acting as if it was pinching with virtually every cut - and not such that the chain would jam, more like I am trying to cut a curve, so the chain is free to race through, but I can't advance the bar. Does that sound familiar?

Sounds like a bad chain out of the box - I've had bar and chain do that before when the teeth were much sharper on one side than the other. Chain still spins but doesn't cut, bar doesn't advance. The 20" saw seems the only one worth a damn quality-wise so far, with a decent tensioner and metal dogs. Until they bother putting those features on the 14-18" saws, no interest in any of them. They've done well making a fast rpm saw for an electric, they just need to see it through and stop going so cheap on the tensioner and dogs on the smaller saws.