In a moment of desperation, irritation and impulse buy, I picked up ryobi’s inline 40V blower/mulcher vacuum. our trees exploded, I’ve not dealt with it, haven’t had the time, and mulching with the mower reached the end of the line. the store didn’t have what I wanted, so it was either the dregs, or their “premium” offering. It came with a charger (don’t need, but it’s their better charger), 2 batteries (it’s always cheaper to buy batteries with the tools), and the blower/vac. It was not cheap.
in fairness, it does the job. It chops them up into 1/4” bits and fits a lot of leaf bits into the onboard bag. The performance is usable for a homeowner. Battery effectiveness is good, and it worked well on both medium and high speeds. It did in 20 minutes what would have taken me 90 or more with a rake and bag. I carried it to the back yard, unzipped the bag and turned it on, and leaf powder emptied into the designated spot. Nursing around its weaknesses, it did the job.
the cons. Ryobi should be blatantly ashamed of charging so much for something which seems so cheaply made. Thankfully the impeller and drive did its job admirably, but the unit itself seems embarrassingly flimsy. This is not a tool for a professional by any means. The adjustable handle came loose and flopped around every time I turned around, and it just seems super delicate. Why Ryobi can’t engineer a handle on many of their products just baffles me (chain saw, string trimmer). I need to get 5 fall seasons out of it to get my money’s worth, and I think with care it will reach the goal. But if you can find any other product with the function and form that works for you, it would be worth the search.
it will be handy having an electric blower around for quick clean up and blowing dirt out of the cars - I’ll probably enjoy it here. But it laughably can’t even approach your average consumer tool grade of quality. I am beginning to believe that Ryobi is actually a battery company which sells products to create demand for their batteries.
in fairness, it does the job. It chops them up into 1/4” bits and fits a lot of leaf bits into the onboard bag. The performance is usable for a homeowner. Battery effectiveness is good, and it worked well on both medium and high speeds. It did in 20 minutes what would have taken me 90 or more with a rake and bag. I carried it to the back yard, unzipped the bag and turned it on, and leaf powder emptied into the designated spot. Nursing around its weaknesses, it did the job.
the cons. Ryobi should be blatantly ashamed of charging so much for something which seems so cheaply made. Thankfully the impeller and drive did its job admirably, but the unit itself seems embarrassingly flimsy. This is not a tool for a professional by any means. The adjustable handle came loose and flopped around every time I turned around, and it just seems super delicate. Why Ryobi can’t engineer a handle on many of their products just baffles me (chain saw, string trimmer). I need to get 5 fall seasons out of it to get my money’s worth, and I think with care it will reach the goal. But if you can find any other product with the function and form that works for you, it would be worth the search.
it will be handy having an electric blower around for quick clean up and blowing dirt out of the cars - I’ll probably enjoy it here. But it laughably can’t even approach your average consumer tool grade of quality. I am beginning to believe that Ryobi is actually a battery company which sells products to create demand for their batteries.
