[UpstandingUser]

California banned gas chainsaw sales last year IIRC. It was such a poorly worded law that firefighters and loggers have to go out of state to buy them, instead of it being a prohibition on suburban homeowners using them. The electric saws aren't practical in the woods at all because the battery and spares are so big and heavy. It's hard to beat the energy density of gasoline.

Also electric saws are a damn hazard compared to gas saws. They cut right through safety chaps, no problem.

[rob74]

> They cut right through safety chaps, no problem

Ouch! I assume that's a combination between the higher torque of an electric motor and shoddy low cost Chinese engineering?

[mech987]

Gasoline engines struggle to produce torque at very low RPM's, so once they begin choking on the fibers in the chaps, they lose momentum and stop.

Electric motors on the other hand produce peak torque at 0 RPM, so it's way harder to bring them to a standstill.

Many of these electric chainsaws are premium brands and still have this problem- to my knowledge there are no electric chainsaws that have a safety feature designed to make sure chaps work.

The clever safety feature that could be engineered to help make these safer is to add a torque sensor to the motor that cuts off power if excessive torque is sensed. This excessive torque condition would hopefully be calibrated to not have any nuisance shutoffs, but can still stop the saw when needed for safety.

[matthewdgreen]

This surprises me. I visited a major tool manufacturer a couple of years ago and even their midrange electric drills now use a microprocessor (specifically an ARM Cortex of some variety) and a sensor to synthesize the waveform that drives the brushless motor. They were talking to me because it had so much extra computing power for so little cost they were trying to find IoT applications for the thing.

I would expect commercial-grade electric chainsaws to use similar technology, and that they could be programmed to cut power in the event of a sudden speed reduction, mimicking the safety of a gas engine. But what do I know.

[UpstandingUser]

The explanation as I've heard it is that ICE's deliver pulsed power. At peak power in the engine cycle it cuts chaps easy but when the output dips it chokes on the fibers.

Electric saws deliver uniform power and don't have this quirk.