3 ms·

Quiet Electric Leaf Blower

9 points by hasheddan 4y ago

version_five 4y ago
It doesn't look very powerful. That said, (a) I think a rake is also fine, (b) I think we need aggressive enforcement of noise by-laws, including confiscation and destruction of offending machinery, and leave it up to the provider to work out how to clean up leaves without being an asshole.
- auslegung 4y ago
  > I think a rake is also fine This! Unless you have a good reason to use a leaf blower (huge yard, physically incapable… that’s it?) use a rake. It’s good for your health to do some manual labor. We’ve spent the Industrial Revolution trying to do less physical labor and we’ve hit a tipping point where many of us are doing far too little.
- brokenmachine 4y ago
  Personally I think every item that makes a certain amount of noise should have to pay a tax on every unit per measured dB. We should be making devices that ruin the environment more expensive than their quieter counterparts.
  - staticautomatic 4y ago
    Perhaps the tax can also scale logarithmically.
- cafard 4y ago
  I have always used a rake. On the other hand, my wife likes to rake out the garden beds, which always pulls a lot of mulch out with the leaves. We have talked about getting an electric leaf blower for some years now. I suppose that the main reason we haven't is that we would use it maybe five times a year, and it would clutter the garage.
rasz 4y ago
hot take: traditional design is using an old vacuum cleaner style motor fan arrangement, as seen here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pVrmyYXVXSU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pVrmyYXVXSU. Contraption presented by Moxie is a quiet squirrel kitchen exhaust fan. Why isnt it build like that now? Because squirrel fan is most likely $0.5 more expensive to manufacture.
- justusthane 4y ago
  Sorry, but I don’t buy that. If there were a “quiet” leaf blower that cost $0.50 more than a traditional leaf blower, people would certainly buy it.
  - rasz 4y ago
    It doesnt work like that. $0.5 more BOM means price is at least $2-3 more. You arent competitive with bottom of the market any more and have to spend money on marketing, branding, awareness. You cant just print "super quiet" on the box because bottom feeders will follow with same slogans (like 500W PMPO stereo systems of the nineties). This means Chinese factories, because lets face it its all made in China (even the big brands like TTI), cant just start making better models on their own, they simply wouldnt sell. There needs to be a big player with marketing or political muscle (force loudness level policies) to pull it off. SawStop is a good example of how difficult it is to sell something substantially better that only costs marginally more. Btw even universes main villain Musk was thinking of quiet leaf blowers https://www.extremetech.com/electronics/290329-elon-musk-leaf-blower-tesla https://www.extremetech.com/electronics/290329-elon-musk-lea... :)

9 points by hasheddan 4y ago

It doesn't look very powerful. That said, (a) I think a rake is also fine, (b) I think we need aggressive enforcement of noise by-laws, including confiscation and destruction of offending machinery, and leave it up to the provider to work out how to clean up leaves without being an asshole.

auslegung 4y ago
> I think a rake is also fine This! Unless you have a good reason to use a leaf blower (huge yard, physically incapable… that’s it?) use a rake. It’s good for your health to do some manual labor. We’ve spent the Industrial Revolution trying to do less physical labor and we’ve hit a tipping point where many of us are doing far too little.
brokenmachine 4y ago
Personally I think every item that makes a certain amount of noise should have to pay a tax on every unit per measured dB. We should be making devices that ruin the environment more expensive than their quieter counterparts.
- staticautomatic 4y ago
  Perhaps the tax can also scale logarithmically.
cafard 4y ago
I have always used a rake. On the other hand, my wife likes to rake out the garden beds, which always pulls a lot of mulch out with the leaves. We have talked about getting an electric leaf blower for some years now. I suppose that the main reason we haven't is that we would use it maybe five times a year, and it would clutter the garage.

rasz 4y ago

hot take: traditional design is using an old vacuum cleaner style motor fan arrangement, as seen here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pVrmyYXVXSU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pVrmyYXVXSU. Contraption presented by Moxie is a quiet squirrel kitchen exhaust fan. Why isnt it build like that now? Because squirrel fan is most likely $0.5 more expensive to manufacture.

justusthane 4y ago
Sorry, but I don’t buy that. If there were a “quiet” leaf blower that cost $0.50 more than a traditional leaf blower, people would certainly buy it.
- rasz 4y ago
  It doesnt work like that. $0.5 more BOM means price is at least $2-3 more. You arent competitive with bottom of the market any more and have to spend money on marketing, branding, awareness. You cant just print "super quiet" on the box because bottom feeders will follow with same slogans (like 500W PMPO stereo systems of the nineties). This means Chinese factories, because lets face it its all made in China (even the big brands like TTI), cant just start making better models on their own, they simply wouldnt sell. There needs to be a big player with marketing or political muscle (force loudness level policies) to pull it off. SawStop is a good example of how difficult it is to sell something substantially better that only costs marginally more. Btw even universes main villain Musk was thinking of quiet leaf blowers https://www.extremetech.com/electronics/290329-elon-musk-leaf-blower-tesla https://www.extremetech.com/electronics/290329-elon-musk-lea... :)