Stihl offers a vacuum attachment for the BR400/420 but it is expensive and does not work well. The leaves need to be dry and light, it is near worthless on needles. IMHO, save your coin for a commercial unit even a good used one, you will not regret it.You will only get frustrated with the cheapos.

Get an Echo hand held. Don't waste money on Craftsman or Ryobi blowers. I know the Echo PB251?? is only about 160$ This is about the cheapest commercial. Maybe Husky 125Bt.

For blowing wet stuff, you really need a stronger blower. I found hand held blower more useful. I use it for blow dry car and windows, it work really well. BP don't do well on these. If you are home owner, hand held might be more useful but the down side is not very good for thick and wet leaves. That's why I have both!!!

Maruyama have a hand held BL300 30cc, 459cfm 180mph for about $210 in Wisesales. That is supposed to be the strongest hand held known.....stronger than my Shindy EB3410. These are at least as stronger as those medium size bp like Echo PB413 type of 40 to 50cc bp. My Shindaiwa EB3410 do wet leaves ok....barely ok but it will work. I don't suggest mine because it is a hybrid 4 cycle, stay with 2 cycle stuff.

It could be just me, but I never had any luck with vacuuming leaves. Large Magnolia leaves would clog up. Small oak leaves required too much dirt to be sucked in with the leaves. Hard objects take their toll on the impeller. The bag was a pain to empty.

I was at Sears to pick up a wrench I needed to work on my car and got carried away with all the sales. It's rated for more performance than anything else I've seen and though I've only used it once so far, it did what I needed it to do. I've never had a 2-cycle engine start so easily. Hopefully for my occasional use it will do the job.

Here is a link that might be useful: Craftsman 215 mph, 470 CFM Gas Blower/Vac

Hi,

I have a Shindawa EB8001, now no longer made. I think the replacement is the EB802. The CFM rating I think was in the 760 cfm range. Note the speed rating ~ 200 mph can be a bit misleading. Most blowers can get a high speed simply by having a narrower blow tube. The net amount of oo0mph to blow leaves etc. I think depends more on the CFM rating. Note some manufacturers rate CFM at the fan, and some more conservatively, at the tube outlet.

Best, Mike.