9 ms·

Wait, so is it a one time function? Can the wire be reset?

by chewbacha 2y ago

GiorgioG 2y ago
IIRC you need to replace the brake cartridge and the blade.
isatty 2y ago
AFAIK all sawstop catridges are one time use only and also destroys the disk. This is not really a bug.
- lazide 2y ago
  Yeah, reliably stopping a heavy very fast spinning object in just a few degrees of rotation is necessarily violent.
  - DannyBee 2y ago
    Actually not. My handguard saw will do as well as the sawstop non-destructively (independently tested and verified, so you don't have to take their word for it). They do it (basically) by predicting whether your hand will touch the blade, rather than waiting until it does touch the blade. If you wait until someone actually touches the blade, then yes, you have to operate very very fast. That is unavoidable due to physics, as you say. But if you can gain 100ms or 250ms by proving a 100% probability that the hand will touch the blade before the person can stop it, you now have a lot more time to stop the blade.
    - lazide 2y ago
      How is that going to work reliably with sawdust and the like everywhere? Some kind of radar?
      - Snoozus 2y ago
        two cameras
        DannyBee 2y ago
        also, the saws do not produce dust everywhere. these are European saws. Dust extraction is not only required on the saw, It’s required by law in the workplace. This saw will not operate unless the safety + extraction hood is in the proper position and dust extraction is hooked up I can show you a video of an air quality meter sitting between the cameras and the saw hood if you want. The amount of particle change is minimal
    - Fraterkes 2y ago
      Ive looked at the saw you mention in another comment, and in all honesty Id much rather have a safety precaution that works based on very simple physics (like sawstop) than some black-box ai hand detection algorithm.
      - DannyBee 2y ago
        To each their own. Computer vision of this kind is not like cutting edge ai. This is pretty standard fare and has been for decades
        kevin_thibedeau 2y ago
        Optical mice fail with too much dust on the lens. It's risky to depend on a vision system in a machine that is generating dust.
        DannyBee 2y ago
        Have you considered that they've thought of this? Seriously. This is company producing high end sliding table saws that cost tens of thousands. They've been at it for over half a century. This is not someone producing a 299 saw as cheaply as possible. They are a German company (ie regulated heavily) and have a ridiculous number of safety standard certifications that test things like "what happens when there is dust" do you really think they haven’t thought of the obvious basic issues and figure out what to do about them? if so, what evidence do you have that this is true? (Also I think you don't understand European requirements on dust extraction and allowed exposure to wood dust. This saw does not produce a meaningful anount of dust)
        beepboopboop 2y ago
        I’ve seen more bugs in software rather than hardware, I’ll tell you that.
    - stavros 2y ago
      But what can happen that will mean that your finger will touch the blade in a quarter of a second? I can't think of anything, short of dropping a person on the saw.
      - danielheath 2y ago
        Holding a piece of wood and sliding it along a table saw (to cut it) is the canonical method for losing a finger, and you could definitely pick that out with a relatively simple bit of computer vision.
        stavros 2y ago
        Yes but there's no way for me to not be able to pull my hand back in a quarter of a second for that.
        DannyBee 2y ago
        Are you saying you tink you will notice and react? Because that's what doesn't happen and people lose fingers.
        danielheath 2y ago
        The world has a _lot_ of guys with seven fingers who used to believe they would never be so careless.
        DannyBee 2y ago
        I used to have a house that backed up to a county park in Maryland. My shop was out back. I was working carefully at my sawstop (that is what I had back then), standing properly to the left of the kickback path and using a push stick and roller guides. I was just finishing a cut A hawk decided to throw a dead animal at the window behind me hard enough to shatter it. I was startled and my hand moved enough for my palm to cross the top of the blade. I would not have lost fingers most likely but it would have been very bad. To your point accidents are not always foreseeable. Yeah some people work stupidly but plenty of times, It’s just random unexpected events.
  - bradly 2y ago
    The blade doesn't have to stop. Some saws have the entire blade assembly lower. If you walk the table saws at AWFS you'll see all types of different safety systems.
smoyer 2y ago
It's sacrificial ... So that your finger is not.
shrubble 2y ago
There is a removable cartridge that stops the blade. It ruins the blade. The cartridge gets swapped out with a new one in a few minutes (the table top of the saw can be partially opened) and costs about $150 .
- beacon294 2y ago
  > When the brake is activated, the most recent data is stored into memory and SawStop can download the data from the activated cartridge. This data is very important to our continuing research and development program. If SawStop’s engineers verify the activation was due to contact with skin, you will receive a free replacement cartridge. If you are unsure why the cartridge activated, you can also ship the cartridge for analysis to SawStop’s service engineers. When the cartridge data is downloaded, we then can determine what specifically caused the brake to activate so that further unintended activations can be prevented. The brake cartridge evaluation is free of charge the shipping of the brake cartridge is paid for by the customer. https://www.sawstop.com/service-tips/what-to-do-if-the-sawstop-safety-system-activates-pcs/ https://www.sawstop.com/service-tips/what-to-do-if-the-sawst...
davesmylie 2y ago
It _may_ destroy the blade. I've had mine for about 10 years, and have had two false triggers in that time (both times, dumb mistakes on my part). Neither time has the blade been destroyed. One of them did require a resharpen though.
- op00to 2y ago
  What did you do that caused it to false trigger?
  - davesmylie 2y ago
    I sometimes mill my own lumber from windfall on my property - in the first instance somehow I managed to put a single piece of near green lumber (~40% moisture) in the same rack as some lumber I knew was dry. A few weeks later I needed some scrap for something, grabbed the piece closest on hand, pushed it into the blade and immediately triggered the wet wood alert and the blade spun down slowly. I knew that the wood wasn't wet, so started the saw up again and pushed it straight back into the blade only with more force, triggering it straight away. Second time was due to cutting a lot of pitch heavy pine over an extended period of time - it built up on the cartridge and after a blade change that I didn't check the clearance on, it bridged the brake with the blade (i assume) and triggered on start up. (It comes with a tool to check this clearance after a blade change - I of course did not follow the instructions).
    - dyauspitr 2y ago
      How does it distinguish between wet wood and a finger? Also does this mean you can’t use the saw stop on fresh pressure treated lumber?
      - lazide 2y ago
        1) it can’t really tell reliably. And 2) correct. You can manually disable the auto—trigger mode in those situations though (bypass mode). It also doesn’t like anything conductive - so anything coated with Mylar, any kind of conductive dust or debris, etc. is also a crapshoot. Very much edge cases though, unless you’re dealing with a lot of randos. A workshop I used to share had a wall covered with sawstop ‘trophies’, due to people doing weird stuff.

Wait, so is it a one time function? Can the wire be reset?

GiorgioG 2y ago

IIRC you need to replace the brake cartridge and the blade.

isatty 2y ago

AFAIK all sawstop catridges are one time use only and also destroys the disk. This is not really a bug.

lazide 2y ago
Yeah, reliably stopping a heavy very fast spinning object in just a few degrees of rotation is necessarily violent.
- DannyBee 2y ago
  Actually not. My handguard saw will do as well as the sawstop non-destructively (independently tested and verified, so you don't have to take their word for it). They do it (basically) by predicting whether your hand will touch the blade, rather than waiting until it does touch the blade. If you wait until someone actually touches the blade, then yes, you have to operate very very fast. That is unavoidable due to physics, as you say. But if you can gain 100ms or 250ms by proving a 100% probability that the hand will touch the blade before the person can stop it, you now have a lot more time to stop the blade.
  - lazide 2y ago
    How is that going to work reliably with sawdust and the like everywhere? Some kind of radar?
    - Snoozus 2y ago
      two cameras
      - DannyBee 2y ago
        also, the saws do not produce dust everywhere. these are European saws. Dust extraction is not only required on the saw, It’s required by law in the workplace. This saw will not operate unless the safety + extraction hood is in the proper position and dust extraction is hooked up I can show you a video of an air quality meter sitting between the cameras and the saw hood if you want. The amount of particle change is minimal
  - Fraterkes 2y ago
    Ive looked at the saw you mention in another comment, and in all honesty Id much rather have a safety precaution that works based on very simple physics (like sawstop) than some black-box ai hand detection algorithm.
    - DannyBee 2y ago
      To each their own. Computer vision of this kind is not like cutting edge ai. This is pretty standard fare and has been for decades
      - kevin_thibedeau 2y ago
        Optical mice fail with too much dust on the lens. It's risky to depend on a vision system in a machine that is generating dust.
        DannyBee 2y ago
        Have you considered that they've thought of this? Seriously. This is company producing high end sliding table saws that cost tens of thousands. They've been at it for over half a century. This is not someone producing a 299 saw as cheaply as possible. They are a German company (ie regulated heavily) and have a ridiculous number of safety standard certifications that test things like "what happens when there is dust" do you really think they haven’t thought of the obvious basic issues and figure out what to do about them? if so, what evidence do you have that this is true? (Also I think you don't understand European requirements on dust extraction and allowed exposure to wood dust. This saw does not produce a meaningful anount of dust)
        beepboopboop 2y ago
        I’ve seen more bugs in software rather than hardware, I’ll tell you that.
  - stavros 2y ago
    But what can happen that will mean that your finger will touch the blade in a quarter of a second? I can't think of anything, short of dropping a person on the saw.
    - danielheath 2y ago
      Holding a piece of wood and sliding it along a table saw (to cut it) is the canonical method for losing a finger, and you could definitely pick that out with a relatively simple bit of computer vision.
      - stavros 2y ago
        Yes but there's no way for me to not be able to pull my hand back in a quarter of a second for that.
        DannyBee 2y ago
        Are you saying you tink you will notice and react? Because that's what doesn't happen and people lose fingers.
        danielheath 2y ago
        The world has a _lot_ of guys with seven fingers who used to believe they would never be so careless.
        DannyBee 2y ago
        I used to have a house that backed up to a county park in Maryland. My shop was out back. I was working carefully at my sawstop (that is what I had back then), standing properly to the left of the kickback path and using a push stick and roller guides. I was just finishing a cut A hawk decided to throw a dead animal at the window behind me hard enough to shatter it. I was startled and my hand moved enough for my palm to cross the top of the blade. I would not have lost fingers most likely but it would have been very bad. To your point accidents are not always foreseeable. Yeah some people work stupidly but plenty of times, It’s just random unexpected events.
- bradly 2y ago
  The blade doesn't have to stop. Some saws have the entire blade assembly lower. If you walk the table saws at AWFS you'll see all types of different safety systems.

smoyer 2y ago

It's sacrificial ... So that your finger is not.

shrubble 2y ago

There is a removable cartridge that stops the blade. It ruins the blade. The cartridge gets swapped out with a new one in a few minutes (the table top of the saw can be partially opened) and costs about $150 .

beacon294 2y ago
> When the brake is activated, the most recent data is stored into memory and SawStop can download the data from the activated cartridge. This data is very important to our continuing research and development program. If SawStop’s engineers verify the activation was due to contact with skin, you will receive a free replacement cartridge. If you are unsure why the cartridge activated, you can also ship the cartridge for analysis to SawStop’s service engineers. When the cartridge data is downloaded, we then can determine what specifically caused the brake to activate so that further unintended activations can be prevented. The brake cartridge evaluation is free of charge the shipping of the brake cartridge is paid for by the customer. https://www.sawstop.com/service-tips/what-to-do-if-the-sawstop-safety-system-activates-pcs/ https://www.sawstop.com/service-tips/what-to-do-if-the-sawst...

davesmylie 2y ago

It _may_ destroy the blade. I've had mine for about 10 years, and have had two false triggers in that time (both times, dumb mistakes on my part). Neither time has the blade been destroyed. One of them did require a resharpen though.

op00to 2y ago
What did you do that caused it to false trigger?
- davesmylie 2y ago
  I sometimes mill my own lumber from windfall on my property - in the first instance somehow I managed to put a single piece of near green lumber (~40% moisture) in the same rack as some lumber I knew was dry. A few weeks later I needed some scrap for something, grabbed the piece closest on hand, pushed it into the blade and immediately triggered the wet wood alert and the blade spun down slowly. I knew that the wood wasn't wet, so started the saw up again and pushed it straight back into the blade only with more force, triggering it straight away. Second time was due to cutting a lot of pitch heavy pine over an extended period of time - it built up on the cartridge and after a blade change that I didn't check the clearance on, it bridged the brake with the blade (i assume) and triggered on start up. (It comes with a tool to check this clearance after a blade change - I of course did not follow the instructions).
  - dyauspitr 2y ago
    How does it distinguish between wet wood and a finger? Also does this mean you can’t use the saw stop on fresh pressure treated lumber?
    - lazide 2y ago
      1) it can’t really tell reliably. And 2) correct. You can manually disable the auto—trigger mode in those situations though (bypass mode). It also doesn’t like anything conductive - so anything coated with Mylar, any kind of conductive dust or debris, etc. is also a crapshoot. Very much edge cases though, unless you’re dealing with a lot of randos. A workshop I used to share had a wall covered with sawstop ‘trophies’, due to people doing weird stuff.