4 ms·
Since it seems that those who have commented on this thus far are focusing on the wrong aspects (or at least it seems so to me), heres some important context.
by carterschonwald 17y ago
Since it seems that those who have commented on this thus far are focusing on the wrong aspects (or at least it seems so to me), heres some important context.
1) The reason why most table saw manufacturers did not adopt the "sawstop" skin contact detection technology when it first came out (easily more than 5 years ago i believe, possibly even earlier) has to do with that change being possibly legally considered an admission of liability which was previously not there, which would open the avenue for many more lawsuits
2) Accordingly, the reason why this case is a big deal is not because it opens up the window more for old injuries, but because now the manufacturers will be in the situation of needing to consider the tradeoff between cost of liability for past injuries since the introduction of sawstop, and the cost of liability for all new injuries (presumably by having all new saws have the option of the sawstop style tech, they would have no more future liability).
in otherwords, this legal ruling broke a shitty nash equilibrium
- jasonlotito 17y agoI also heard the problem with the technology was it was very finicky. For example, wet wood would cause it to discharge, which would ruin the blade and I believe damage the machine. Could be wrong though.
- weaksauce 17y agoI don't know about damaging the machine but wet wood has a similar capacitance to our fingers and that is why it stops the blade like that. I wonder if the system can evolve the way airbags did for cars? In the beginning airbags would go off with little provocation; now they are smart enough to realize that they should not go off at all even in a mild crash.
- moe 17y agoHere's a good video of the mechanism: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3mzhvMgrLE http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3mzhvMgrLE I'm not sure there's much wiggle room in terms of "finger detection" (as others have said, conductivity of wet wood is just very similar), but perhaps the brake could be designed in a way that doesn't trash the machine every time it goes off.