Factory Reconditioned Homelite ZR08580 26cc Gas Powered MightyLite Backpack Blower
by Homelite
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List Price: Category: Lawn & Patio See more product details |
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Tools and Hardware Reviews of Factory Reconditioned Homelite ZR08580 26cc Gas Powered MightyLite Backpack Blower
Customer Review: 5 stars for the PRICE
Summary: 5 Stars
Let me first say, you might want to look at the reconditioned Ryobi for only $20 more. It wasn't available when I bought this, and it averages 4 stars vs. 3.5 for this one. Some users of this blower have had bad luck with it, but it's been a good blower for me and I've had it over a year now.
First and foremost, I have to stress that this 5 star review is for a blower at this price, $99. If one was to compare it to top end $450 blowers, it would rate nowhere near 5 stars. But that wouldn't be a fair comparison.
Second, I find that THIS BLOWER OPERATES MUCH BETTER AT A MIXTURE OF 45-1 RATHER THAN THE 50-1 RECOMMENDED BY THE MANUFACTURER. I tried 40-1 as well, but 45-1 seems to be the sweet spot where it functions most reliably with the most power.
I bought this blower to take care of my mom's property, which is for sale. It's 1.5 acres. I bought it thinking that the house would sell in a few months at worst. In this market, that was wishful thinking. This blower is entirely inappropriate for people who have a lot of property, unless you just need something to "get by" for a few months and you KNOW you'll be gone for good. But for people with a lot of property to take care of who know they'll be in their homes for at least a year or two, you need to really get the best blower you can possibly afford. This one lacks the power to blow wet leaves (and anything else that is wet) unless you want to spend hours and hours going about an inch at a time. If you have a large property, get the very best you can possibly afford. Trust me on that. If you don't, you'll wish you had when you end up spending 5 times more hours outside with a cheap blower. Over the course of a few short months, those hours add up to a LOT of wasted time and needlessly expended effort.
For those with say less than half an acre that that has only the need for light duty blowing, this might just be perfect for you, especially if you don't need to blow wet material, or you can wait for a dry spell before blowing.
The only problems I've had with this blower are that at the recommended 50-1 fuel mixture, the power on mine hasn't been nearly what it should be, but 45-1 has fixed that. (Also changing plugs frequently) I've also found I have to start it quite often by triggering to full throttle before pulling it, which can be a bit awkward. The only other problem I've had is idling. Mine will die unless I keep giving it a bit of gas. I'm guessing this means a throttle adjustment is needed to up the idle setting, but I haven't bothered to find out how to do that. I'm sure it's online and easy enough to do, but keeping it slightly triggered hasn't bothered me. It is a bit of a nuisance though, especially for those times when I don't give it enough gas and it does die and I have to take it off and restart it. (It always starts right back up on one pull though.)
So, overall, what you get for the price in spite of some quirks is a 5 star blower *IF* you have a small property to maintain with only light duty DRY blowing needed. However if you have a lot of property to maintain or expect to need something strong enough to blow wet material, you should definitely invest in something much more powerful. In that case get the best you can.
Customer Review: Indeed a Value
Summary: 5 Stars
Purchased this blower after researching for a few months. I was as most consumers interested in a good value where as product performance and cost meet somewhere in the middle. Typically, I like to see more performance for less money. First off I found the reconditioned blower to be in new condition. Only very minor cosmetic blemishing and only on the footing where it had been sat down. The rest of the unit including motor and fuel areas appeared factory new. Considering this is a backpack blower (my first) I have found this as other reviewers not as mobile as a handheld when used in tight quarters such as the inside corners of a garage or porch. As far as rest goes mixed the fuel, filled the tank, followed starting instructions on the unit's housing and it started right up. The blower has an adjustable harness, is lightweight and therefore easy to use. For the money I have no complaints. I would say had I spent several hundred dollars as most backpack units cost the performance could be better but for under a hundred dollars this backpack unit is a good value. Noise is no more an issue than any other blower I have owned. One last word on performance which is a personal experience and observation. Being a backpack unit and the fact I'm tall I feel may possibly be a disadvantage. My experience with most blowers is to get the blow tube close to the ground where as the curved exhaust tip is at a parallel angle which promotes a better direct flow of air to sweep the debris. The idea is to make the air move parallel with the ground and not be deflected off the ground forcing the air to rise up. The backpack eliminates this approach because once it's on your back your height denotes what angle the tube will be at and therefore your only adjustment is how far out you maintain the debris field which as expected you lose velocity and therefore effective blowing power. My observation is this blower is universally designed for the average height of roughly 5'10". Let me clarify under most conditions I would not be concerned but when you encounter wet leaves, heavy debris it's nice to be able to get more parallel straight-line, concentrated air flow close to the debris to lift it and sweep it away. A handheld makes this task a breeze...pardon the pun but the backpack to me has advantages such as less fatigue as well as disadvantages less mobility.Customer Review: Critical Flaw May lead to Gasoline Leak while Running
Summary: 1 Stars
First of all--everything about this blower has been awesome for the last 2 years except for one critical flaw that IMHO is quite dangerous.
The gas tank is mounted against the backpack unit using 3 screws. The middle screw goes through the center of the clear plastic tank which appears to be seemed down the middle in a bilateral symmetric configuration such that the screw binds the plastic from the pinch point in the tank directly against a metal protrusion directly from the cylinder/crank housing. Since the metal is a near perfect heat conductor, the heat generated from the combustion in the cylinder gets directed through the tip of the screw flange and presented terminates at the pinch point of the fuel tank, which also happens to be the point of the bilateral seam in the tank! You can probably see where i am going this by now, but could you design a worse system for a possible fuel leak from the tank? While the plastic itself has not melted, the adhesive used to bind the 2 halves together leaks when the temperature reaches some degree. This leak progresses from a few drops of fuel to a steady laminar flow of drops which coat the back of whoever is wearing the harness.
After the system is shutdown, and begins to cool down, the adhesive reforms the bond and the tank reseals itself such that the leak stops! This makes it difficult to diagnose and I only came to this conclusion after I rebuilt the entire system (resealing gaskets) and even putting a substance to act as a dye in the cavity for the middle screw hole. The idea was to prove to myself that the leak was not originating else where and following contours down to the cavity. It showed me that the only place on the entire system that there was a fuel leak was in the tank, when it was hot, and at that center screw mount point!
Since the tank failure doesn't have adverse affect on the system, one could conceivably use the tool for an hour or so in overcast weather thinking that the drip patterns were rain drops. Take a cigarette out and light it, and 'poof' the day ends in a trip to the burn unit.
Can't give this anything but a one star because of this safety issue. Otherwise it really is a great blower for the price.
Customer Review: Well, it looks brand new!
Summary: 2 Stars
Positives:
1. It looked brand new despite being refurbished.
2. Starts fairly easily despite the problem outlined in #2 below.
3. Extremely lightweight and comfortable.
4. It was cheap compared to other non-refurbished or commercial backpack blowers from other manufacturers (i.e. Stihl, Echo, etc.)
5. I look very cool using the blower (that is, until the problem outlined in #3 below crops up).
Negatives:
1. Underpowered compared to the hand held Poulan Pro PPB2000 gas blowers that I've owned. Unfortunately, the Poulan blowers only last a couple of years until they die. I've owned three of them and they all suffered the same fate...but that's another review.
2. The startup procedure requires that you fully depress the trigger and then engage the Trigger lock for the throttle trigger. Unfortunately, the Trigger Lock doesn't lock. As a workaround, I use a Velcro strap to keep the trigger depressed when starting.
3. The upper tube constantly comes loose from the lower section of the bellows whenever I use the Throttle Control Handle in a left to right, or up and down sweeping motion. There is a thumb screw-tightened clamp on the end of the bellows that's supposed to secure the upper tube (the tube with the throttle control handle) to the bellows. Even with the thumb screw tightened as tight as it can possible get, it's not enough to keep the upper tube in place. Eventually, I'll get around to using a good supply of duct to secure the two sections but in the meantime, I'll just keep rejoining the two sections when they come apart. This flaw is extremely annoying!! I wish that Homelite used the same threaded, screw together procedure that's used to connect the lower tube to the upper tube and the sweeper nozzles to the lower tube.
In the case of the Homelite ZR08580 MightyLite Backpack Blower, the old adage, "You get what you pay for" is without a doubt, true...at least it is in my case.
Customer Review: IT DOES BLOW!! BUT NOT THE WAY IT SUPPOSE TO? (JUNK)
Summary: 2 Stars
I bought this for my son since he did not want one of the bulky blowers that i have, to use around the yard and to do a few yard clean ups! he wanted something lite weight! Now I'm not comparing this to a commercial blower! But i am to my old craftsman hand held! and I'm not a big fan of homelite products i would have went with a craftsman or ryobi for home use!.
But the price was right and so i figured i would give it a try!
No problems with the engine at first, now it's been 3 months and it wont start!
It's is lite in weight and the backpack has some advantages when doing large volumes but keep in mind also that if trying to use in certain areas you wont be able to get to them as good as a hand held blower because the blower is right handed! you can't bounce it around from hand to hand!. as for power I'm not impressed. i have a hand held that produces 180 MPH also and i feel that the hand held is stronger then this machine! and that only cost me $40 (used). it looks a lot more impressive then it actual is! A lot of people will look at this and think there getting what the big boys use at a fraction of the price! trust me your not. the only thing your getting is the backpack effect nothing more! THIS ITEM IS JUNK!
if you want power buy a good used commercial blower or go with a hand held for less money, this machine is more show then it is go! Don't waste your time or money on this blower.. It does blow but not the way it suppose to!!! 2 STARS WAS TO GOOD FOR THIS CRAP!