A WeedEater Clipstik Sans Fil

Well, what have we here?

It's a derelict WeedEater Clipstik Sans Fil that was picked up from the roadside.

The 'SANS FIL' translates from French to 'cordless'. 'COUPE-BORDURE RECHARGEABLE' I take to be 'rechargeable edge cutter'. So what we have here is a battery-powered trimmer. Curiously, the ID label is in French on both sides of the machine, and the embossed charger plug-in point-out is in English on both sides of the machine. Someone at the factory didn't quite get 'bilingualism', it appears.

Anyway, the trimmer is inoperative and the charger is missing.
I checked WeedEater's website for a user's manual; nothing came up, so I guess it's a pretty old machine that WeedEater no longer supports, or even acknowledges the existence of.

An information label on the shaft says that it's a 7", 6 VDC, 18 amp unit. Six volts is a pretty lame force. This can't have been a very impressive machine even when it was brand new.

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Innards -- MONDAY, JUNE 17, 2019

Here's a view of the top end opened up.

It's mostly a sealed lead-acid battery -- a Yuasa NP7-6; a six volt, seven ampere-hour unit. I tested the battery and it's open -- it won't accept a charge. That explains the inoperability.

Note the little trap door at the rear of the handle (top of the photo). That's for access to a small compartment for storing spare cutter lines.

And here's a view of the business end opened up

There's not much to it -- a little DC motor that turns a hub with a 7" length of cutter line. The cutter lines are a special item with a retaining barrel crimped onto them.

It appears that replacement cutter lines are scarcely available anymore, so this machine would be past it even if the battery were ok. 'Nothing more to do other than take out the battery for proper disposal, button it back up and scrap it. So it goes with old gear.

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Schematic -- MONDAY, JUNE 24, 2019

I couldn't resist reverse engineering the thing, so here's a schematic.

There's not much to it.

While I was at it, I discovered that the red LED is open, so it can't light to indicate that the charger is plugged in.

Diode D1 is there so that the red LED will only light when a charger is plugged in.

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