Messing Aroung with the Strikemaster Lithium Lazer

This past week I’ve had the chance to play around with the new Lithium Lazer and so far it has been a positive experience. Of course the big question is how many holes you can punch on a single charge so I took an auger with a battery that had a fresh charge and started cutting until the battery ran out of juice. The results? Pretty impressive.

Anyone care to guess how many holes you can get out of a single charge running an 8″ auger punching 8″ – 9″ of ice?

50? 75? More than 100? I know I was surprised.

Better leave a stick or branch up in the area! Jeeze!

I bought an ION last year and they say it will drill 40 holes through 24″ of ice, so it looks like the Strikemaster is pretty close to that.
I am sold on electric augers for sure. They are quiet and efficient. The cold does affect battery life, however, so you need to keep your battery at 30 degrees or above to optimize performance. THis is not a big deal if you are fishing in a shelter but if you don’t use a shelter and fish in extreme cold you’ll need to keep the battery in your pants.

Wharf Rat wrote:

I bought an ION last year and they say it will drill 40 holes through 24″ of ice, so it looks like the Strikemaster is pretty close to that.

Strikemaster says the Lithium Lazer can do 56 holes in 24 inches of ice. We don’t have that much ice anywhere yet for that kind of test but that will come in time. When we do I’ll see if I can’t con Nelson into running the auger for that test.

JD Winston wrote:

Better leave a stick or branch up in the area! Jeeze!

For someone to overlook that ice shaving pile-up they’d need to be blindfolded.

106 holes is my guess…. Looks very impressive. I didn’t watch the video yet.

Geez James, Some poor schmuck is going to stumble upon those holes thinking it was a hot bite and spend the better part of the day fishing them.

154

How’s the battery affected by cold on the Strikemaster, James?
Same issue as the IONs or do they use the same batteries as the Milwaukee Fuel batteries?
It should be only a matter of time before those batteries are available to the ice fishing crowd, especially considering how ideally suited they are for this application.

so if my math is right, 123 holes through 8″ ice = 984″ divide by 24″ = 41 holes through 24″ not bad at all, not 58 but we shall see if a test comes out later in the season

Wharf Rat wrote:

How’s the battery affected by cold on the Strikemaster, James?
Same issue as the IONs or do they use the same batteries as the Milwaukee Fuel batteries?

We’ll try and do a side-by-side test later in the season once we get some cold(er) temps. I can’t answer that question without testing it myself.

AaronMoore wrote:

so if my math is right, 123 holes through 8″ ice = 984″ divide by 24″ = 41 holes through 24″ not bad at all, not 58 but we shall see if a test comes out later in the season

I have no idea if total inches drilled can be converted to total holes at varying ice thicknesses. I actually doubt it. The best way to test it will be to get on 24″ of ice and have at it. I’ll plan to do that once the ice builds up.

Does ice temp matter?

I am getting more and more impressed with the battery powered augers. I am thinking someone will fish that spot looking for the crib you opened up lol!

Looks impressive, I think the battery powered augers are becoming an attractive option.

My question is when you say 40 holes in 24″ of ice, is that 40 consecutive holes? I normally drill holes in bursts throughout the day, so if I drilled 5 holes to start, and then every half hour or hour later I drilled another five, would you still have enough juice to get to 40 holes? Even if I did keep the battery warm?

Good point, Phil! It is a different situation if the battery is ‘resting’ in the cold compared to just running it straight through. (This coming from a Physics teacher who actually should know, but has no clue!)

On My Strikemaster Lithium Lazer…I switched out my 8″ bit with a 6″ bit .. I fish the backwaters of the Mississippi.. I’m expecting to get quite a few more holes then I would have with the 8″ bit…

But time will tell !!!

I figured around a 100 or so, and see that was plausible. But how the heck do you warm your hands up in front of the muffler???

On a serious side of things – how warm does the motor get when your drilling continuous holes like that? Comparing to other battery operated motors I would suspect that it could heat up quite a bit. Just thinking about moisture and freezing on those single digit days.

James Holst wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>JD Winston wrote:</div>
Better leave a stick or branch up in the area! Jeeze!

For someone to overlook that ice shaving pile-up they’d need to be blindfolded.

Easy for you to say young whipersnapper. Some of us old guys don’t see so good der hey.

philtickelson wrote:

Looks impressive, I think the battery powered augers are becoming an attractive option.

My question is when you say 40 holes in 24″ of ice, is that 40 consecutive holes? I normally drill holes in bursts throughout the day, so if I drilled 5 holes to start, and then every half hour or hour later I drilled another five, would you still have enough juice to get to 40 holes? Even if I did keep the battery warm?

Yes, as long as you keep the battery warm (enough) drilling consecutively or a few at a time does not affect battery life, at least not that I have ever noticed.
Also, I have never drilled more than about 25 holes in any fishing day with it and I always charge it between days on the ice. I have never run out of juice with it when using it this way, except the one time I left the auger on the ice resting battery side down for about an hour. It ran out of juice after about 10 holes, but once I warmed it up it returned to normal.
I find my SLA batteries in my flasher are affected by cold as well. I can run my LX-9 for about 10 hours inside a heated shack, but more like 6 when I don’t use a shelter and it is sitting on the ice.