On 01/05/2018 19:33, Stephen wrote:
Hello,

Does anyone have anything good or bad to say about the Ryobi expand-it
range?

I was thinking about buying one some time ago but I never got around
to it! I thought I had seen it as a kit that included various
attachments but now that I look into it again, it seems all the
attachments are sold separately and are all £70 plus, so perhaps it's
as good a deal as I thought it was. Is it better to buy dedicated
strimmers, hedge cutters, and leaf blowers rather than a jack of all
trades?

Have I imagined it coming with the accessories or have the prices
jumped in the last couple of years?

I would mainly use it as a strimmer. Some of the reviews on Amazon
suggest that the strimmer attachment melts and breaks too easily. Is
this a common failure?

I had a dabble... first with a two stroke power head, a strimmer head, a
chainsaw pruner, and a hedge trimmer attachment (although that was made
by husqvarna). The power head was ok for a while before it ingested part
of its own carb. The results were not pretty[1]

I picked up a 4 stroke power head since it was very cheap in a local
cash and carry (about £70 IIRC). That was pretty crap really. Less
power, and it did not run consistently at all angles. Eventually the
timing drifted so that it would not run reliably or even rev properly.
Tuning did not help, since it seems that the main problem was plastic
components in the timing that wear.

So did some research on what brands might work with the accessories I
had, and went for a Stihl "Kombi" power head[2]. The difference was
dramatic. It starts, runs, revs, does not care about the angle its held
at, has loads of power and uses less fuel. The interface with the ryobi
tools is not perfect - sometimes you need to fiddle and fettle to get
them working well.

Sometime later the strimmer head flew apart in mid use. A bit of it flew
through the open back door and just missed the top of my sons head! So I
replaced that with a stihl line trimmer head (and yes that's better and
much lighter as well).

So YMMV, but I won't be buying any more!

[1] http://internode.co.uk/ryobi/

The one I got in the end:

[2]
https://www.frjonesandson.co.uk/prod...e-unit-24-1cc/

(would have been cheaper and better to buy it in the first place!)

--
Cheers,

John.

/================================================== ===============\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\================================================= ================/