I finally got out to use my new Electric Ice Gator today at Sportsman's Park.. I have my 8" Eskimo Barracuda auger on it and all I can say is, WOW. Sportsman Park is 18" as of today. I drilled the first hole and was quite amazed. It took me 8 secs to drill through the 18". The reverse is quite handy as I can push the slush down the hole so there is very little clean up to do when I am done drilling. I drilled 8 holes today with very little effort and only took about 2 minutes. I will have to check it out a little more and see how many holes I can drill with it and at what thickness. It also fits in my gun mounts on the 4 wheeler quite well. So far I think it was a very good investment. So far it starts every time. [bobhappy]
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Thats great. I would be currious to know how many holes you can drill before you run out of power. I would enjoy not smelling the exhaust.
Windriver
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I also got to try my Icegator out. On the second hole it kinda strted to act like it had a dead battery and I had it on the charger last night. Third hole it quit, I took the waterproof button off and could push the switch all the way down and it started working again. Forth hole it quit altogether, wire came out of the battery pack plug. After I repaired that, it drilled five more eight inch holes and the reverse is very nice as you can push the slush down the hole.
I think after I solder the wires in the plug and get a replacement button it should work fine. Seemed to have plenty of power to turn my Eskimo 8" auger. The ice on Twin lakes Has to be almost two feet, if you count the slush and snow.
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How was the fishing at Twin ?
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Web site says that it will "Cut over 30 holes though 28" inches of ice on a single charge".
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Fishing at Twin was slow, had a couple of bites in three hours. We were using meal worms, night crawlers, jigs and power bait. Just using a cheap fish finder there were fish where we were fishing and after a while we could see that they were only a couple of inches long.
We were fishing on the south side of the island in about 20' of water.
Roads were plowed in from the west side to the first turn around. After that they are one lane and not very good.
Didn't really talk to anyone else.
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How much do they cost? They are sold out and don't list a price on the web site.
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Mine was $416 with shipping. It took one month from the time I ordered it until it arrived. I think the company is having some growing pains keeping up with orders. They seem to be good people do deal with and they seem to respond pretty quickly to emails. I have also seen another forum where I did some research that there was quite a few people on there that had the Ice Gator including the older models that have be quite happy with them. If they did have an issue, it seemed to always be fixed with very little problems. Not sure you could order one now and get it before the ice melts. This may be something to look at during the summer when they have a stock built up. I may take mine out tomorrow to the pond in the back yard and see how many holes I can drill on a charge.
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I took the Gator out to my pond and started drilling. The ice is 11" thick with about 2" slush on top and another 6" of snow on top of that. I was able to drill 25 holes before the batteries died. This was drilling hole after hole with no break. I am thinking you can get a few more with breaks in between. I could probably get a few more, but I did use the reverse to push the slush back down the holes. I know they have different batteries they sell. The more expensive ones are suppose to double the holes and not be affected by temperature, but to me, they are not worth the extra $$$$. I think the upgraded batteries are what they used to rate the number of holes that this auger can drill. There is also a cable you can order and plug into your 4-wheeler/truck and run the Gator on 12 volts. I am thinking of just making a cable to plug into the 4 wheeler that I can use to charge the batteries. It would be very simple since the Gator sits on my front rack and the power outlet on the 4 wheeler is right there. I would just have to put a switch inline to switch between the 2 batteries since the Gator is a 24 volt system.
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Very cool...thanks for sharing your experiment results with us!
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