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A good friend of mine has a whole variety of the Makita 40v garden kit. He's been using them for maybe 2 years I think and speaks very highly of them. Not used them myself so cannot give a personal recommendation, but he's certainly very happy with it all.
Hi PGM, thanks for your reply. Good to hear the positive feedback on the makita tools, especially if he still likes them after 2 years! I just discovered that the Makita batteries are rated from 500 to 1000 charge cycles, whereas the husqvarna ones go from 1000 to 1500. If that's accurate i might lean towards husqvarna as apart from that stat I can't see much between them!
I have every Stihl battery hedge cutter and the long reach ones kept giving up after a couple of seasons and were very expensive to repair but as I was the Makita 40v system for my hand tools I thought I would give their hedge cutters a try and I think they are much better than the Stihl. The blades have much better angles on them and they stay sharper longer the long reach is also excellent and all the cutters have 3 speed levels.
A plus for the Makita over the husqvarna is that you can then invest in other 40v hand tools such as drills etc.
Thanks Dave, that's good to hear - I almost went for stihl but the 3000 strokes per minute put me off, I'm glad I didn't! That's a good point with other makita power tools. I guess a drill would come in handy. I think by the looks of it I won't go far wrong with either brand
Stihl HSA130T is 4,400 stroke rate. Battery is worn in a belt pouch and attached by a cable. I also use the HSA130R which has a lower stroke rate but bigger tooth gaps for cutting rougher material. Those machines are properly heavy duty. Short reach rather than long reach though. Although a 30" blade version is available. Stroke rate in itself isn't necessarily the only consideration of how suitable or powerful a battery trimmer is for a specific job
We went for a complete Stihl system. It works well and yes it doesn't have the same power as the petrol. Expensive but the backpack will do a full day hedgetrimming and the pressure washer makes a great mobile plant waterer when the lance is on it's soap mode. However I can't help thinking there's a timer in the batteries which once a threshold is passed will self destruct! (See picture for usage) Have makita powertools but not the latest iteration of batteries which is a shame as it sounds like they could be better than Stihl.
All my battery kit is Stihl, I started with a HLA 85, in Oct. 2017, which I have just replaced with 86. The 85 is still going though. I am still using the original battery AP300, plus a couple more 300 for hedgetrimmers. Only me using them & one battery will last me a full day, red light occasionally hot/cold but nothing else. I have 3 x 500s which I use in higher power kit & I believe Stihl say they are good for 10 years, on one charge a day!
I can only tell you my experience which is I've had my Husqvarna trimmers 6 years (the short standard one, 520ihe3, and extendable 520iht4) and I use the middle sized 520ihe3 one probably 80% of the time. Occasionally the small one for small hedges and the extendable one for really big ones. I'm now going to get the new 525ihe3 (4,400 rpm I believe) . I have bli200 batteries and they last plenty of time. Usually at least half a day of hard work. All I do each year is clean the gear box and add fresh grease and they have done some really hard work
Really like the look of the Husqvarna gear. We went Stihl as that's what we had the best local support for, but the Husqvarna stuff looks very good.