STIHL ELECTRIC START RETROFIT

[edwin dirnbeck]

Hello, I am a semi retired tool and die maker, and lifelong inventor of things that interest me.I am designing and building a hand held battery powered electric starter for the stihl brand chainsaws. The chainsaw itself will actually be lighter than before I alter it.I want to prototype this on the most popular and readily availible model that stihl has sold. Soo I figured That I would go right to the horses mouth and and respectfully ask the members of this forum for their opinion. I am not talking about the best model but rather the most sold. And yes I do know that stihl makes an all electric and an easy start . I do a lot of lurking on this forum but I am not in this trade. It is an excellent . forom. Thank you Edwin Dirnbeck

[Ada Shaker]

I suppose the bigger cc saws are always the hardest to start requiring decompression valves and a fair amount of grunting from time to time, maybe this is a good place to start a business venture, either way good luck.

[snowstorm]

the old yellow saws had electric start back in the 60's

[sawguy21]

It has been tried without success  although current battery technology may make it viable. Remington had one with jumper cables that clipped to the truck battery, fine if the truck was handy. McCulloch had a go to. The big drawbacks were bulk, weight and cost.

[Don P]

Cool, when chainsaw milling that would be nice. We've talked about some kind of battery drill or driver type of spinner upper.
I would guess the 028 Was the 350 chevy saw, not sure now.

[HolmenTree]

Welcome to the Forum edwin,
I always respect and admire innovative minds.
I'm not looking to get into too much detail as you may want a certain ammount of privacy for a patent.
But is your hand held electric starter attached to the chainsaw or something you carry in your pocket?

I would say the 026/MS261 would be Stihls biggest seller in the pro grade department.
I'm not sure about the lower end consumer models.
Like the last member Don P already said a electric starter on a large displacement saw on a chainsaw lumber mill would be a good idea.

[teakwood]

A good saw just needs 4-5 pulls when cold and ONE when hot. so in my opinion it's not that bad to start a saw.

Of course i also have thrown a saw away after 20pulls followed by some not so friendly words.  :D :D

[HolmenTree]

I know for one thing my 8 hp snowblower has both a rewind pull starter like a chainsaw and a 110 volt electric starter that is built into the motor.
I just plug in its cord into a outside wall outlet on the house and push a  button.....so nice! :D

[sawguy21]

You don't have to carry your snow blower. :D

[HolmenTree]

You don't have to carry your snow blower. :D

Roy, I know you guys on the B.C. coast probably never  saw snow  before. :D Maybe only that white stuff on a distant mountain top ;D
Probably never plugged in your vehicles either Hahahaha


 

[sawguy21]

HA!! Your cold I can do without, had enough in Alberta, but we can show you a thing or two about snow.

[TKehl]

I'll 3rd the chainsaw mill recommendation.  Seems like a great fit to with lots of cutting in one spot.  Can be a pain to pull start in some positions if gas runs out mid cut.

As for most common, I'm more familiar with the homeowner/farmer varieties.  What I see are 290/291s (kind of the inheritor of the 028 mantle), 250s, and 170/180s.  Based on my neighbors, auction salebills, and classifieds.   ;)

[HolmenTree]

HA!! Your cold I can do without, had enough in Alberta, but we can show you a thing or two about snow.

And rain 

[snowstorm]

You will find that ski doo beat you to it. As far as building one that dose not add weight. There system you have to pull start it once after that the coils they added under the flywheel store engery push the button and it's running. They call it shot

[sawguy21]

HA!! Your cold I can do without, had enough in Alberta, but we can show you a thing or two about snow.

And rain 

I left the coast, had enough of that too.

[edwin dirnbeck]

Welcome to the Forum edwin,
I always respect and admire innovative minds.
I'm not looking to get into too much detail as you may want a certain ammount of privacy for a patent.
But is your hand held electric starter attached to the chainsaw or something you carry in your pocket?

I would say the 026/MS261 would be Stihls biggest seller in the pro grade department.
I'm not sure about the lower end consumer models.
Like the last member Don P already said a electric starter on a large displacement saw on a chainsaw lumber mill would be a good idea.

[edwin dirnbeck]

I'll 3rd the chainsaw mill recommendation.  Seems like a great fit to with lots of cutting in one spot.  Can be a pain to pull start in some positions if gas runs out mid cut.

As for most common, I'm more familiar with the homeowner/farmer varieties.  What I see are 290/291s (kind of the inheritor of the 028 mantle), 250s, and 170/180s.  Based on my neighbors, auction salebills, and classifieds.   ;)

Thanks for the reply. I am trying to find the most redaly available  on the used market so that I can buy 2 or3 to experiment with. Edwin Dirnbeck

[edwin dirnbeck]

I suppose the bigger cc saws are always the hardest to start requiring decompression valves and a fair amount of grunting from time to time, maybe this is a good place to start a business venture, either way good luck.

Thank you, good information.Edwin Dirnbeck

[edwin dirnbeck]

Cool, when chainsaw milling that would be nice. We've talked about some kind of battery drill or driver type of spinner upper.
I would guess the 028 Was the 350 chevy saw, not sure now.

Good information,I never gave a thought to chain saw millers needing an electric start,Good to know. Thank you Edwin Dirnbeck.

[Don P]

Well as long as we're inventin, my wish list, I'd like expansion chamber exhaust that fits within the chainsaw mill and pipes the exhaust up and away, you may need to reinvent the mill to fit that and if so make the crossbars it slides on rollers. I'm old, debilitated, barely reconstructed and increasingly irritable sliding when I could be rolling. Crank wheel height adjust would speed things up and cut down on errors. And markings that are legible to the aforementioned eyes, we've had to call in a third old fart to be the tiebreaker on setups, he can't read them any better than us so who knows what we've been cutting  :D. Twist on tank extenders or caps and tubes to remote tanks mounted on the mill frame. Recranking a saw that hot is part of why I say an electric start would be nice, or extended run. At their presently configured exhaust, trapped between saw and log, and that poor cooling and then at that workload they can be some kind of temperamental to restart hot. And all for under 2 lbs  ;D

[edwin dirnbeck]

A good saw just needs 4-5 pulls when cold and ONE when hot. so in my opinion it's not that bad to start a saw.

Of course i also have thrown a saw away after 20pulls followed by some not so friendly words.  :D :D

I had an 034 that I bought new in 1986 for $335. The pull start FOR ME was like there was a rock caught in the cyclinder when it was the first start of the day.I actually made a bracket on my trailer to hold the saw so that I could pull with both hands.After the saw was warm I could restart normally . Now I am 76 years old and a lot weaker but a lot smarter maybe HA HA.The old German toolmakers that I worked for allways said. Ve get to soon olt und to late schmart. Thank you for the reply Edwin Dirnbeck

[Kbeitz]

Put a drill adapter on the flywheel.

[sawguy21]

How would that attach? A socket would spin the nut off.

[Kbeitz]

How would that attach? A socket would spin the nut off.

Not when you use one of these...



 

[weimedog]

I ran an electric start saw today. Limbed out two trees with it. A Husqvarna 120i..

[massmanute]

Hi Edwin,

Did you make any progress with your electric start idea? I have a Stihl MS660. It's not too hard to start from a cold start, but if it is warm (after running a while) is almost impossible to re-start. Thirty pulls or more and not a single sign of starting.

[gspren]

Hi Edwin,

Did you make any progress with your electric start idea? I have a Stihl MS660. It's not too hard to start from a cold start, but if it is warm (after running a while) is almost impossible to re-start. Thirty pulls or more and not a single sign of starting.

I believe you need to start a new thread on what to check/fix on your 660.

[bushie33]

I for one need electric start system due to poor shoulders and arms. it does not stop me from using my tools, I just can't get them started to do so. One thing some of your may be over looking. I have looked into some homemade ideas. Most of them have an attachment to the shaft with portable motor/drill/or what ever, not adding to the weight of the tool. The comment about if you have your truck right there, no truck my Four wheeler sure is and it has a battery. The snowblower idea I did with my 8000 watt generator, I got tried of replace that weak battery that came with it. now my 4 wheeler or riding lawn starts it up in a heart beat. I for one look forward to a conversion to electric start. 
         

[btulloh]

On a lawnmower you can just expose the nut that holds the recoil assembly on and use a drill motor with a socket.  I'm not sure how that play on a chainsaw.  My saws all start pretty well, hot or cold.  Priming after sitting for a while takes the most pulls for my saws.  As time goes by, I reckon I could warm up to doing some of that with a drill motor.

[DelawhereJoe]

Troy bilt has or has a jumpstart option on some of there stuff, they have a 120v starter, battery powered starter or drill adapter. I don't know if it could be modified for the stihl or not.

[Hilltop366]

If a starter was made to pull the cord it could start any saw.

[sawguy21]

On a lawnmower you can just expose the nut that holds the recoil assembly on and use a drill motor with a socket.  I'm not sure how that play on a chainsaw.  My saws all start pretty well, hot or cold.  Priming after sitting for a while takes the most pulls for my saws.  As time goes by, I reckon I could warm up to doing some of that with a drill motor.

The nut would come off, a chainsaw crank spins ccw unlike a lawnmower engine. I have seen that tried on 4 stroke engines, the end of the crank broke off.

[mike_belben]

The right way to do it is findout which flywheels have the same engagement dog size and shape and target whichever the broadest batch of homeowner saws that is.  Loggers quit when they cant start a saw anymore.  Its homeowner joe that buys a bunch of gadgets that never get used.  He/she has somewhere between a stihl 180 and ms250 and its hard starting because the fuel is old and its out of tune but they dont know it.  Thats your target market.   Id bet the ms230/250/270/290 have a matching sized starter but i dont have any of those here anymore to check for you.

No one is gonna love the idea of giving up their manual recoil for electric only.  So youll want your jumper to engage the back side of the hand starter and be sure it has a one way clutch or ejector so that it cant wreck the starter.  I suggest a removable jumper motor like how funny cars engage the blower pulley.  No one wants to lug an extra bulky/heavy low power saw.  They could buy a full electric saw now and do away with all starting issues.

[Chop Shop]

We have had crappy homeowner saws over the years that end up with broken starter recoil assemblies and we would just use a cordless drill to start them up.

I have an Echo weedeater engine in a 5 foot RC boat and we start it with a cordless drill because ripping on a pull stater could damage the boat.

I would bet that most folks here have the tools in their garage/shop already to start a saw with a cordless drill.

[jemmy]

First time I pulled my 090 starting chord I instantly thought to myself, "well theres gotta be a machine that can do this for me" and so my mind went wondering back to my childhood of go-cart starters. I feel like something along those lines would work for BIG chainsaws that are in mills, don't know what other real applications there are besides that, most saws nowadays seem to start 1-5 pulls. If you cant manage that, I don't know if you should be handling a chainsaw in the first place, it seems like a minimum requirement to operate something that dangerous. I'm a young buck, but the day I cant pull and start my saw (if its working appropriately) is the day I think I would put down my saw.  Btw my idea is for an automatic starter has got to be similar to mikes. In the go cart world the rich kids had auto starters for their gocarts. It was basically a 12v battery with a male adapter that slid into the motor. You could carry them around easily and I imagine start that little motor all weekend, never owned one myself, just figure 12v would supply a whole lot of starts on a single charge. Well I dont know how you could retro grade that idea to older stihls, but I know if you develop it for an 090, I will be your first customer. 

[Old Toad]

Just pulled some muscles in the right arm starting the Husqvarna 455 . Then damaged them more starting the 15hp lawnmower, it kicked back breaking the rope. Dummie me did not check that the compression release had engaged.
Building a firewood processor and need a big chainsaw with long bar as the cutoff saw. Looking for something to start a 70-80cc chainsaw.
Saw a youboob vid of the ratcheting socket for counter clockwise starter rope side.
How about a hole on the clutch side side cover?

[Guydreads]

Might work I guess but you'd end up with more sawdust in your clutch itself, and most clutches don't have a standard bolt on the end, you need an adapter, and those don't come with 1/2 or 3/8 drive. THEN you still have the issue of the clutch flying off as you do it as it's clockwise same as the engine spins.

[doc henderson]

I tried a drill and socket on an old "wind the rope around type pulley" on a splitter about 30 years ago.  it pulled the drill from my hands.  have not done that again.

[sawguy21]

It needs an over running clutch to prevent broken wrists or a rap in the chops when the engine starts.

[doc henderson]

now you tell me.  30 years ago.  if it was easy, everyone would do it!

[Crusarius]

I picture a small electric motor with some type of a female port on the saw side and male on the starter side powered by a Milwaukee M18 battery. Would definitely either need a clutch or an actual small starter so the gear retracts when the saw starts. I can picture this being very beneficial for a lot of ppl. One of the biggest benefits for me would be to get the old stubborn saws running again so I could tune them and get them working and not have to kill myself trying to get them to start.

[Al_Smith]

Going through this thread just a comment about using a drill motor on the flywheel nut with a ratchet socket adapter .Might sound like a good idea but it's not.
I tried that only once on a 95 cc gear drive saw that came over on the Mayflower   and spun the flywheel off .There it went orbiting my garage and just missed my wife's Cadillac .That could have been very bad .  ???