Recently Consumers Report rated the Toro 51599 as the best performing blower, better than gas ones. Over at Amazon it gets pretty good reviews also, although there have been a couple of reports of early motor failure. But all in all 11 out of 12 reviews rated it 5 stars ($59.97 reg price at Amazon).

I got it to clear ground leaves, but one of the reviews mentioned that they cleaned their rain gutters with it. Well my gutters needed cleaning, and today was the day. Usually that chore is about 2 - 3 hours of crawling to the edge of the roof and scooping out leaves with my gloved hands. There are a few sharp gutter edges, so there would be cuts, but far more annoying is that my back, arms and legs would be extremely sore for several days.

Today, with the Toro, the job took less than 40 minutes, and there will be no residual pain. It is so simple I almost burst into song!

Honestly, even if the motor takes a dump after 5 or 6 of these jobs, I'd have no problem getting another one, and I'd still consider it a hot deal. But do note that it has a two year Toro warranty, and there's probably a mom & pop small appliance shop near you that could replace the motor for $35 or so.

I guess my innate cheapness has stopped me from getting some things earlier, a pressure washer, this thing, but in hindsight that was penny wise, value foolish.

Highly recommended - 5 out of 5 Mojos.

I wanted to share an alternate way to use a leaf blower for you FW.

You all know that reuse is better than recycle. Here's my tip:

I was playing with a broken leaf blower and wondered if it would run on DC.
Since it has brushes it should.

The plastic tube was all that was broken off so I cleaned it up and got the dust out of it.

I connected it to a 12 volt car charger and it ran at a nice clip which was perfect for a personal fan. It was strong enough to make you feel cool but
weak enough to not blow your things all around.

Another benefit which I immediately noticed was how quiet it was.

I set it up with a variable voltage and was able to run it from about 8 volts DC up to
110 Volts ( I assume).

The best voltage I found to run it at was about 15 volts using
a battery charger which I realized put out 15 volts with the relatively low
load of the fan.

Note: I've found that some 'non sparking' battery chargers will not put out a voltage unless they are connected to a battey which has at least an 8 or 9 volt charge on it. There is a circuit inside which is easily circumvented. OR you can look for a heafty AC adapter for maybe a laptop instead. It should
put out 12 to 20 volts (about) at 2 to 5 amps.

It's also probable that using a lamp dimmer would work just fine running it
on AC through the dimmer. But it's also likely that the fan will hum loudly
as the AC is switched on and off 60x / second by the dimmer. Not hurting anything but causing noise in what was a quiet DC circuit.

A computer (AT/ATX) power supply on the 12 volt circuit should work OK.
You'll want to knowhow to turn on and keep on the AT / ATX power supply
by shorting the proper pins on the connectors. There are many sites
explaining how to do this simple job. Your computer does this through the
motherboard automatically when the power supply is in the computer case.

I can not tell you the current draw because I only looked at the charger meter and would guess it was about 2 amps. That's about 30 watts. 15 volts x 2 amps = 30 watts.

If you have a CLEAN blower and want to play with it as a room fan try c
onnecting it to DC voltage. The motor will not be hurt. The only
consideration is the polarity of connecting DC to the AC input cord. One way
works better than the other.

Note: The blower is supposed to turn with the angle of the blades curved
away from the output port. At least most high speed blowers are designed
this way. It has to do with air flow and blade design. So if the curve of
the blade is this way, / / / / then the direction of turning

is probably supposed to be this way <==/ / / / / /

To be sure plug it into AC and watch the direction and connect the DC so that
it turns the same direction.

Enjoy your blower and don't use it inside if it's dusty and dirty.

Andre
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