Leaf blower or shop blower for route cleaning?

As I was digging out cracks and cleaning a new route I was getting frustrated with the effectiveness of my various picks and brushes for really cleaning the cracks and the difficulty of push-brooming off the face. 

I recently bought a BAUER 20V Rotary Hammer for a bolting project along with a set of 5AH batteries and was thinking it would be nice to use a battery powered blower to blow loosened dirt out of cracks and pockets as well as blow loose dirt and scraped lichen bits off of the faces.

Harbor Freight has a couple of cheap blowers that use the same batteries as the drill, so was wondering if anyone has experience using either of these (or similar-sized models from other manufacturers) for route cleaning and could provide a recommendation on bigger or smaller being more ideal.

The smaller one is the BAUER 20V Cordless 200 MPH Compact Workshop Blower ($40) . I held it in the store and it is surprisingly small and lightweight (only 2.5lbs + battery). The nozzle tip is rubber and feels like it could be pressed into finger/hand cracks to blow them out. My main concern is that it won't be powerful enough to blow loose dirt that has rained down from cleaning above off of faces. I don't need a super long reach of blast, but if it takes hovering the tip an inch or two away from the face to get enough force to blow dirt then that might be too tedious to be worth it.

The larger one is the BAUER 20V Cordless 96 MPH/338 CFM Jet Fan Blower ($50). This one is twice the weight (5.3 lb + battery) of the small blower and has a rigid plastic nozzle. If it can blow leaves I'd assume it would be plenty powerful for blowing off the detritus rained down on the route from digging and scraping above. My main concern is that it may be awkwardly large to handle when blowing right in front of me and that it is a bunch of extra weight to pack into the crag. Also not sure if it would blow out tight cracks well or not.

If you've used a blower for route cleaning is it a larger or smaller type? Does it work well? Would you recommend either of these options? Have you found that either type is just not worth hauling in even on somewhat short approaches?

The smaller one is the better all purpose blower. That's the form factor pretty much everyone I know uses, myself included.

I have the same smaller one, works great for your purposes. It also comes with an attachment so it can be used to inflate tubes, mattresses, etc., which I put a small piece of vinyl hose on to clean bolt holes and small cracks.

The small one looks just like my Ryobi 18v and that works well. You definitely need to wear eye protection especially when blasting out cracks and pockets because the dirt comes straight out into your face. 

https://hownot2.com/products/lithium-ion-powered-turbo- 

I have been loving this.  So small and packs a punch. 

If someone brought one of those to a crag I was climbing, 

There Would Be Blood

I recently used  delwalt, craftsman and bauer blowers on a recent bouldering outing. My Bauer outperformed the others, blows stronger and their batteries are a great price point. Recently I purchased this,   harborfreight.com/20v-cordl… which runs off the same battery. It's very lightweight and perfect for blowing out bolt holes.

This Black and Decker is what I use and it is crazy light and battery works well for a single pitch.  I have a bigger Milwaukee blower but would never lug that thing when putting up a route.  

It's funny this is coming up and I had never thought of using a leaf blower to clean a new route.  My buddy recently told me he uses one and I tried it and was an instant convert.  Makes a much better route overall and gets all the scrubbed lichen and sand/dirt off easily.

The small jet blowers are the bees knees for this. Fits in your pocket and honestly despite it not blowing as much volume of air, the menagerie of benefits outweighs any less performance since ive used one. Run time might be the only major draw back if you got lotsa blowin' to do that day, but even then you can charge it off a power brick extremely quickly.

https://youtu.be/X_ncYXk1cP4?si=4b3Lp4y4WqIQ5v4J

I have the larger, second blower pictured in the top post. It's great for the driveway, but you couldn't pay me to bring it up a climb.

Gunkiemike wrote:

I have the larger, second blower pictured in the top post. It's great for the driveway, but you couldn't pay me to bring it up a climb.

I don’t think we are talking about cleaning a few holds on your project; rather, this is cleaning a newly bolted route.
To me, cleaning is the most burdensome part of route development and I had no idea of the work and misery required until I bolted my first route. 

Gunkiemike is spot on, a full size leaf blower is almost certainly overkill for route development work. I have a compact Milwaukee blower and use it religiously and have never wished I had something bigger. Wish I had the Bauer though since I use a Bauer drill

The small HN2 blower is great too but you’d be lucky to get one pitch out of it - mine dies for a single pitch unless it’s already remarkably clean - though I use mine for cleaning out bolt holes as well. I often bring both with me on a development day

Tal M wrote:

Gunkiemike is spot on, a full size leaf blower is almost certainly overkill for route development work. I have a compact Milwaukee blower and use it religiously and have never wished I had something bigger. Wish I had the Bauer though since I use a Bauer drill

The small HN2 blower is great too but you’d be lucky to get one pitch out of it - mine dies for a single pitch unless it’s already remarkably clean - though I use mine for cleaning out bolt holes as well. I often bring both with me on a development day

Thats funny. I used that little blower to clean up 3 routes one day and used little over half battery. But I also use it on the lowest speed setting. Pretty filthy routes too.
IDK. lol.

The mini blowers are wildly inconsistent.  I have one that may clean off 5 routes in a day and others that may die after 6 holes.  This is one from aliexpress that was dying after 5-6 holes they are basically just a couple no name batteries soldered to a circuit board I’m still trying to figure out how to replace the batteries.  So far the ones I’ve gotten from HN2 have performed better even though it’s the same model

Mr Rogers wrote:

Thats funny. I used that little blower to clean up 3 routes one day and used little over half battery. But I also use it on the lowest speed setting. Pretty filthy routes too.
IDK. lol.

I do the “only on when you pull the trigger” setting. I’ve knocked out 5 routes in a day with one but they were all pretty clean and 2 routes were pretty short. I’ve also had it die 80% of the way through the first route of the day. There’s enough variability that I try not to chance it

Steve Williams wrote:

If someone brought one of those to a crag I was climbing, 

There Would Be Blood

You are probably climbing routes that you climb because someone brought one to the crag.   Nobody likes to see the sausage get made. 

Andrew Jackson wrote:

I recently used  delwalt, craftsman and bauer blowers on a recent bouldering outing. My Bauer outperformed the others, blows stronger and their batteries are a great price point. Recently I purchased this,   harborfreight.com/20v-cordl… which runs off the same battery. It's very lightweight and perfect for blowing out bolt holes.

I use the same Bauer mini blower.   The battery seems to last forever with it.   The only downside is the trigger sometimes sticks due to dust and debris getting in the mechanism.  
I also use the Bauer 20v sds drilll, it’s by far the best drill I’ve ever used including several Bosches I’ve owned.   I recently bought another one on sale for $29.

i've hiked up the leaf blowers (like the smaller one pictured in OP) and while they are pretty effective at moving debris and cleaning cracks, they do eat up batteries which means I am often not leaf blowing and bolting on the same day, which is a good enough compromise for me. Those hand held rechargable ones do seem convenient for blowing the dust from drilling. Anyone else using compressed air "duster" cans?

Kevin Mokracek wrote:

I use the same Bauer mini blower.   The battery seems to last forever with it.   The only downside is the trigger sometimes sticks due to dust and debris getting in the mechanism.  
I also use the Bauer 20v sds drilll, it’s by far the best drill I’ve ever used including several Bosches I’ve owned.   I recently bought another one on sale for $29.

That's a bummer about the trigger issues. Thankfully, I have not experienced any issues.  Next time that drill goes on sale I'm picking one up, I keep hearing great things about them.

The Lithium Ion Powered Turbo Fan on HowNOT2's site is the latest model "0601" with specs (according to the manufacturer) : 150W, 130,000RPM, also 3000mAH battery capacity. We have them drop-shipped directly from the manufacturer on China (NOT a reseller) to HN2 . There are different models(versions) of the manufacturer has released in the past with different specs. So what some guys are buying themselves from Alibaba or AliExpress could be from made from other factories, or older (or the same) models. Matt had a nice review on them HERE.

About how long the batteries last, the specs say you get 3hrs (which we tested and confirmed) continuous run time at the lowest run-setting, and 1hr on level 3. Turbo mode (trigger fully pressed) pushes almost 4 times amount of air than level 3, so yeah, don't expect more than 15 minutes if you're using the blower fully pressing the trigger each time. 

A lot of these sort of mini-turbo blowers are showing up on the market. They do differ in quality, price, build-design, but they're a great step in the right direction. I'm not claiming the one on HN2's site is even the best, but we liked it when we used it, had a good price point, so we made it available + a hole blower kit. 

HN2 is currently out of stock, and even with reduced tariffs, I'm still deliberating if it's worth getting another batch sent in to them (due to cost increase). Cause we also plan to talk to the manufacturer (of find another one) that can modify the fan body to be used with replaceable (likely also 18650 lithium) batteries, which I think is better than some sorta of battery pack, since a variety of manufacturers already make 18650 batteries of different capacity/price points. Maybe even 21700 lithium batteries could be considered, but those are pricey and harder to find, meh.

There are also after-market smaller profile turbo blowers available that can be used with 18V Makita, Dewalt, etc batteries too. We could also consider seeing if HN2 wants to stock them. 

For bolting, all I take is the mini turbo blower. For route cleaning, I take my after-market Makita blower and a couple 18V batteries, more suited for dirty work.