# Reversing direction of battery string trimmer



## LouisvilleGrubber (Jun 26, 2018)

I've had by Ego carbon shaft string trimmer several months now and I can't get used to the clockwise rotation. I hate it. Huge pain in the a$$. There is a YouTube video out there on reversing the direction unfortunately it's an older model and does not apply to mine. Anyone try this on a newer model? Or have any ideas? Pic below of what I'm working with. Before I go all MacGyver disarming a nuke on this I thought I'd ask. You know, in case cutting the green wire means the end of civilization. Hint: In the YouTube swapping red and black wire did the trick. But there was a only a red and black wire. I have some options.


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## LouisvilleGrubber (Jun 26, 2018)

And yes, I had to break that plastic tab to get to the wires. And I damaged the cowling getting it open. Clearly they don't want me mucking with it, but I'm knee deep now.


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## suzook (Apr 12, 2019)

Issue with reversing the direction. The head could loosen up, and fly off. The threads are in the opposite direction of normal operation, so this doesn't happen.


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## LouisvilleGrubber (Jun 26, 2018)

suzook said:


> Issue with reversing the direction. The head could loosen up, and fly off. The threads are in the opposite direction of normal operation, so this doesn't happen.


Others report everything seems to work after reversing.


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## Crabbychas (Apr 25, 2018)

I suspect it has a brushless motor, and the blue, yellow, and pink wires in the 2nd picture are the wires for the motor. You would just need to swap 2 of the wires around and it would reverse the spin if that's the case.


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## WDE46 (Mar 11, 2019)

The shield will not be effective with the reversed direction and the cutting blade won't work at all. Might as well remove it and wear some heavy jeans and safety glasses.

Your red and black wires are probably just straight +/- from the battery. That won't reverse a brushless motor and will probably prevent it from working entirely. If the controller doesn't have reverse polarity protection, you could release the magic smoke from the controller. You'll need to find the wires that go to the motor and lookup reversing brushless motors. There may be a wire color convention they have adhered to and you can just swap two of the wires.

One video I've watched (for hobby grade RC cars) just shows swapping the orange and blue wires around. Pretty simple. You can probably do that without cutting anything. You'll need some small tools to get the crimped wire terminal out of the yellow connector then you can just swap their places.


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## LouisvilleGrubber (Jun 26, 2018)

Thanks for the replies I gave up and put her back together this morning. I had some wackin' to do and without a schematic or knowledge of brushless motors I saw charred circuit boards in my future.


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## rocketman121 (May 8, 2019)

Would love for someone to figure this out. The power head on the attachment string trimmer rotates counter-clockwise and could be swapped onto the carbon fiber trimmer. I couldnt find a wiring diagram for any ego products, but i did find a couple diagrams for two ryobi brushless string trimmers...18v and 40v.


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## Robpin (Jul 4, 2018)

Crabbychas is correct, you should be able to swap 2 of the 3 wires going to the motor.


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## vankjeff (Jan 28, 2019)

Can I ask someone to do a project for me that involves this idea? It would even be worth a little $ to me if somebody could help me. 
I stumbled on this thread when I Googled "reversing direction of battery weedeater".
I used lots of straight-stick gas-powered Green Machine weedeaters back in the late 70s in Indianapolis in a landscaping business that I started called Lawnicure Inc. (think Lawn Manicure). I grew my business as I went to night classes at IUPUI to having a dozen employees and a 3,600 sq ft shop. We mowed 5 big apartment complexes plus lots of commercial and residential lawns and I had a few 4x4 trucks with plows to plow snow in the winter anytime it dropped more than 2" of snow. 
The string heads on those Green Machine weedeaters & all others used to turn counter-clockwise when viewed from above. OSHA must have forced them all to reverse the rotation direction to keep them from the possibility of tossing anything towards any right-handed user since holding it with the head's left side tipped down has it aimed that way. I guess they figured left-handed users would just learn to use them as if they were right-handed. 
None of us ever had any problems with how they used to work and we never wore safety goggles or even long pants. We saw no need and it got too hot and humid for that anyhow.  
I can't get used to using the new type. They're backwards. Thus, I'd love to have it spin the other way. 
I'd also like to somehow convert the ON/OFF trigger to be variable speed since these things spin hideously fast which forces me to just keep blipping it. 
Even if the top speed could just be set with another knob so that the trigger was still just an ON/OFF that took it up to an acceptable speed that I'd set, that would be cool. 
In the beginning, each blip caused an auto-feed of string which wasted string big time since it would push out another 1/4" of string every time I lifted off the trigger and then the clipper knife on the useless guard would trim it to the proper length once again. It just ate string like mad. 
I dismantled that junk right away so that now I just stop, push the button on the head, and pull out 1/4" more string. FIXED!
But I'm only good at mechanical stuff like that, not these other 2 electrical things that I'm asking for help on. I could probably work my way thru it but it might be compromised. 
Anyone in on this? The thing only cost me $50 on Amazon so when it worked so well, I bought a spare that's still new & in the box. It's a PowerSmart lithium ion 20volt weedeater. I see now that they're $78 so I'm glad I grabbed a spare 2 years ago. https://www.amazon.com/PowerSmart-P...qid=1619382885&sprefix=powersm,aps,228&sr=8-3


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