
Despite Proven Technology, Attempts to Make Table Saws Safer Drag On - somid3
http://www.npr.org/2017/08/10/542474093/despite-proven-technology-attempts-to-make-table-saws-safer-drag-on
======
randyrand
Ya, no. Besides the horrendous patent issue (say goodbye to market
competition), this will double the price of table saws. No thanks. Consumer
protection laws are not about making obvious choices for me. Its supposed to
protect me from the unknown unknowns - things that the average consumer would
not know is dangerous. Everyone has heard about these safer saws for over a
decade now. Everyone knows saws are dangerous. If people wanted them, they'd
buy them. This law will not making these saws any cheaper or make saws any
safer, it's just removing consumer choice.

This is a ban. This is not why we have consumer protection.

~~~
Latty
What about employees or students who have to use the equipment? They can't
force their employer or educator to spend the money, but it's their fingers
that'll be lost.

Maybe laws to ensure that if you are employing or in any way requiring someone
use your saw you need the safety features.

The patent stuff is it's own issue for sure, and yet another example of how
crappy the system is.

~~~
randyrand
AFAIK schools already have these because they're pocket change to a school
budget and students are notoriously dumb. It makes sense. So perhaps, we can
think about a law but we should first evaluate if it is necessary. I can agree
with the sentiment.

~~~
jessaustin
As TFA discusses, this certainly wasn't the case in 2013 when Mr. Ward had his
hand destroyed in a high school shop. This technology had already been
available for a decade at that point. Anyway the fact that a $400 machine has
this feature doesn't mean that big multi-user shops can spend $400 and get it.
Cheap table saws are made very cheaply, and are much less useful than
$2000-and-up table saws. (More expensive/better built saws also last _much_
longer than cheap saws.) Are there really public schools that wouldn't notice
lots of additional spending?

~~~
foobarchu
Lots of additional spending? We're talking about one saw per district, a saw
meant to last _years_. If they can't shift the budget to work in a one time
purchase of a single tablesaw, in exchange for the safety of hundreds of
woodshop students, that's on them. Most equipment in a school woodshop lasts
multiple decades.

That said, many school districts already have made the switch. My high school
already had a Sawstop by the time I first took a woodshop class in 2006, and
it had already stopped multiple students from losing fingers.

~~~
jessaustin
Everything is relative, of course. It's likely that not all public schools
have the same enrollment or tax base that yours had. At some point the number
of public school shops without this technology will be low enough that an
ethical company like Bosch could just give all the poor schools a new table
saw. That seems less involved than the lobbying efforts described in TFA.

------
yazan94
"CPSC Acting Chairman Ann Marie Buerkle said she was also concerned that the
rule might force companies to license technology from SawStop, which she said
might create a monopoly."

I think this is a valid sentiment. Why should the federal government literally
award a monopoly to one company? This is not consumer protection. People know
what they are getting into when dealing with a saw. This is government
overreach. If people want the safety, and if a $400 stopsaw is has equivalent
functionality (excluding sensing tech) as a $200 normal saw, than the
increased demand will prove that the extra $200 is necessary.

~~~
oliwarner
Do you also resent your goverment for legislating the cars are safer? There
are more than glancing similarities between SawStop and airbags.

That this is currently patent-encumbered isn't really relevant. It would be
trivial to write the law now but defer its enforcement. We're only 4 years
away. It's time to let manufacturers know this is what they'll be building.

~~~
jdavis703
Cars should be made safer WRT to the people outside the car who might have to
deal with the consequences. For example, a car with spikes on the outside
should probably be illegal. But as long as the danger is knowingly and
exclusively contained to the occupant of a vehicle I see no reason to make it
illegal. Motorcycles, for example, lack standard safety features like
seatbelts and airbags, and yet we haven't made them illegal.

~~~
oliwarner
I guess I asked for it but I didn't really expect somebody to argue against
things like airbags and SRS. Hey, what about driver seatbelts?

It's a constant surprise to me just how much some people want to forgo very
reliable and affordable technology to play contrarian and stick it to the man.
The problem is, it's a team of paramedics, police, fire and rescue who have to
scrape your broken arse off the road. You don't just evaporate when your self-
reckless decisions snuff you out.

And in many counties and US states, motorcyclists have to wear helmets that
meet certain safety guidelines.

~~~
setr
Its not about eliminating the technology; its about _choosing_ its presence.
These safety features _are not free_ to have, and are not necessarily worth
their cost, in _every_ situation.

But by enforcing it at the federal level you remove that choice from consumers
_everywhere_ , with at best a limited understanding of the environment in
which the rule is being applied.

It is not nonsensical that I might want a $400 death trap versus a $5k
properly regulated and safety-confirmed vehicle if I immediately need a car,
and I don't have 5k to spend. What regulations do is fuck over anyone who
wants the $400 death trap (valid reasons), by only allowing the $5k (and
better) to exist. The guys who can afford the regulated machine are better
off, the guys who can't are worse off.

Why might I be fine with a death trap? Because its that or I lose my job, and
_I 'm willing to take on that risk_. And I'm assuming I can better gauge the
meaning of that risk for myself than the governments can (whereas they have a
better understanding at a macro level)

Its not about safety, its about autonomy, and the belief that the government
is just able to make poor decisions as you are, but their mistakes are far
longer lasting, and destructive.

~~~
oliwarner
Doing these "worth their cost" risk assessments where _n_ =1 leads to its own
problems. Regardless of what they considered their own skill, nobody ever died
in car accident, or cut their thumb off in a table saw... until they did. It's
hard to be objective about your own absolute risk factors with decades of
survival bias to clamber over.

And governments don't do this stuff for you, or even just the lobbyist. Injury
costs the economy through lost productivity. Fatal RTAs take much longer to
investigate and block critical infrastructure.

Just going back to vehicles, getting $400 death traps off the road is a good
thing. These are often unsafe to other people directly (heavy, no crumple
zones) and indirectly through emissions. However deferred implementation of
safety features (air bags, SRS, table saw brakes, etc) means that by the time
they're mandatory, you can almost always find one second hand. The "death
trap" category just gets safer, not more expensive.

~~~
setr
Ofc, if you believe in the free market, then n=1 calculations will naturally
sort themselves out for the most part to the eventual and overall benefit of
everyone, better and more efficiently than what the relatively slow-changing
government will achieve except in very particular cases.

And while you can still find death traps, they're now even deadlier than
before because the market still exists for them, but now you can only obtain
10, 20 year old death traps, after regulation instantiates. And ofc the point
of regulation is that eventually all death traps leave the used market too,
and there's simply nothing at all left to serve this market.

Regulation _intentionally_ kills the market being served; ideally for longer-
term macro-level benefits.

Safety is not free. And governments are not infallible in their devision-
making. But neither is the free market. This is the crux of the issue; it
depends on who you believe is better able to make macro-level decisions:
natural markets or regulatory bodies.

Safety, or whatever other hot topic of the day, is just a distraction leading
people to talk past each other.

and it gets further confounded by current reality vs ideal. ie there's no
external costs not being accounted for with the table-saw-stopper if
hospitals, insurance, etc aren't being subsidized. If individuals have to pay
the whole bill for their mistake, which should naturally be true in a totally
free market, then it'll all sort itself out soon enough (lest the market
collapse). But since in reality various costs are being subsidized/hidden by
greater forces... this doesn't hold so easily. Of course, if gov interference
is the primary reason for more gov interference, then you're in a positive
feedback loop that probably won't take you anywhere good.

------
luckydude
My wife, when we were dating, bought me a Unisaw, one of the so-called
dangerous saws. (She's also the woman who would say "I'm going out to get some
milk, do you need more clamps? Woodworker joke, sorry :)

I have no intention of getting a sawstop saw. Why? Because my shop is full of
dangerous tools. My 1930's drillpress ripped some of my hair out, my 1940's
metal lathe can take your arm off, my bandsaw is way more dangerous than a
table saw, don't get me started about my shaper, etc. Tablesaws, treated with
respect, are very safe.

But why not have an even safer tablesaw? Because I don't want to get
complacent around one tool and have that feeling linger when I go use the next
tool. They are _all_ dangerous and all need to be treated with respect. Unless
there is a way to make them all safe (there isn't), it doesn't make sense to
me to have one safe one.

~~~
cptskippy
I find the complacency argument to be flat. The Sawstop technology doesn't
prevent injury, you still get nicked by the blade, it just dramatically
reduces the severity of injury incurred. Additionally when the mechanism trips
the break and blade are spend and must be replaced.

So the motivation to be safe around the saw isn't negated, it's just driven by
different factors. Instead of motivation coming from the fear of losing a part
of your hand, it's coming from fear of getting nicked AND having to replace
expensive parts of your saw AND the time loss from having to stop working.

Having a case and screen protector on your phone don't magically make it
impervious and you don't suddenly starting handling it recklessly. Having seat
belts and airbags in your car doesn't suddenly make you open to ramming your
car into that asshole driving like a jerk in front of you. So why would no
longer fearing losing your hand if you screw up make you more open to touching
the spinning blade on your saw?

~~~
mikeash
Furthermore, making it into a monetary loss might actually help people be more
careful. Time and again I see people respond much better to "that will be
expensive to fix if you break it" than to "that will maim or kill you."

My flying club's annual safety meeting always puts heavy emphasis on the time
and money cost of breaking our equipment for this reason. It seems to work
well.

~~~
khuey
Everybody has an experience making an expensive mistake that they can relate
to. (Living) people don't generally have experiences dying that they can
relate to.

------
readams
They don't mention if it's possible to build saws without sawstop patents. Is
this guy lobbying for all saw companies to be required to license his
technology?

EDIT: It appears that they're currently suing Bosch for developing their own
similar technology.

~~~
antongribok
Not just suing, they have an injunction and at the moment you can't buy a saw
in the USA with Bosch's REAXX technology, which actually works quite
differently than SawStop.

Here are two videos where you can compare for yourself:

SawStop:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3mzhvMgrLE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3mzhvMgrLE)

Bosch REAXX:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4heF0Y2-QYc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4heF0Y2-QYc)

Here's an article that talks about the lawsuit:
[https://www.protoolreviews.com/news/sawstop-vs-bosch-
reaxx-l...](https://www.protoolreviews.com/news/sawstop-vs-bosch-reaxx-
lawsuit-not-yet/26066/)

~~~
Sniffnoy
Clarification: If I'm understanding this right, the stopping the saw works
differently, but the detection works the same.

~~~
randyrand
So they are patenting capacitive sensing in the context of detecting a finger?
you know, like a touchscreen? Wow. The USPO fucking sucks.

For the record, I don't even know how the sensing actually works in the saws.
I'm just guessing because its fricken OBVIOUS.

~~~
joosters
So many things seem obvious after they are explained. Fact is, no-one had
built this kind of thing before sawstop. If it were so obvious, how come only
one company did it?

~~~
rasz
>So many things seem obvious after they are explained

but randyrand guessed (I assume correctly, its so obvious I didnt bother
checking, googling now ... yep capacitive coupling) without prior explanation.
This is one of those 'X, but on a smartphone' patents.

~~~
joosters
Are there other tools that detect fingers and stop heavy machinery instantly?
Did they exist prior to sawstop? Just because someone can guess how an
invention works doesn't mean it was obvious, you've also got the benefit of
being told of the idea in the first place. It's an invention that saves over
ten life-changing injuries a day, if it was so inherently obvious, why did no-
one else think of it before?

So many comments on here seem to focus on the electrical side of the patent,
yet it's only part of the invention. There's also the non-trivial discovery of
how to safely stop the fast spinning blade instantly.

~~~
mohaine
The REAXX saw uses a completely different method to stop the blade so it is
the electrical side of the patent that is being used to stop the only other
example.

Also, the electrical side of the patent seems to be the most obvious.

Detecting touch on metal has been around for > 30 year. Seems like the obvious
way to answer the question of how to tell if somebody is touching a metal
blade.

------
birdman3131
As far as I know sawstop will trigger on wood that is lightly damp. And at
~$100 per occurrence it gets expensive fast ($70 for sawstop cartridge and
15-50 for a new blade.)

Yes there is a bypass but you don't always know if the wood is too wet or not.

~~~
makomk
Bosch have a better system that doesn't destroy the blade or require the
cartridge to be replaced every time because it merely retracts the blade very
quickly into the bed, but SawStop are using their patents to stop Bosch from
selling it. Apparently they went to the effort of patenting every possible
approach that doesn't require the expensive but profitable single-use
cartridge even though they have no intention of using them, just to stop
competitors from doing it.

~~~
vilda
Looking at the system, it looks like even Bosch needs to replace some
components after the safety system kicks in.

~~~
AstralStorm
Yes, the explosive fuses at $1 a pop. It could be improved to use resetable
fuses but those are slower. There is a safety trade-off here.

------
nsnick
We can all be for consumer rights, but I can't understand how anyone runs a
business with a table saw without retracting technology. It seems like
insurance companies would require this because if you don't have it in your
table saw, you are being negligent with your employees.

------
yladiz
I remember seeing this either on Science or Discovery channel when I was
younger, talking about great inventions. I remember thinking it was a good
idea, but forgot about it until last week when I saw an article pop up about
the patent issue but that the FTC is thinking about contemplating making it
mandatory. I think it should absolutely be mandatory, but I hope that the FTC
can deal with the patent issue and let companies use the technology (or
similar technology) for free rather than having to deal with paying royalties
(or at least not have to pay 8% of profit from the tool).

I think the argument that, "you should know that this item is unsafe" is
stupid, because just because something is unsafe doesn't mean a good, quality
of life saving feature should be excluded. You could make the same argument
about having seatbelts or airbags in cars, because you know it's dangerous but
you're taking the risk anyway. Accidents happen, taking measures to prevent
them or mitigate the damages should be done, if possible.

This isn't something I use, since I don't often create things from wood, but I
would pay more for a technology that saves my finger in the off chance I
accidentally move my finger towards the blade or something else happens, like
the table accidentally shifting because my dog ran into it.

~~~
falsedan
> _I would pay more for a technology that saves my finger_

Same, and I'm horrified to consider that professional tradesmen whose
livelihood _depends_ on their fine muscle control would choose not to pay more
for a tool like this. Part of it is the mindset of "I'm not an idiot, I'd
never accidentally position my hand anywhere near the blade"; but wood is a
natural product with variations, and hitting an unexpected dense section might
cause the piece to kick back. Then you might move rapidly to avoid it, and
trip & fall onto the blade, or stumble & reflexively put out a hand…

~~~
AstralStorm
You know why heavy gloves are used? Work clothing? Why there are safety rules
and mandatory training? Why there are emergency stops?

See, there are other ways to provide safety in this situation. And you cannot
make anything really idiot proof. World will find a better idiot.

This automated solution has a major drawback when sawing through anything too
capacitive, wet wood, wood with nails etc.

The company pushing the legislation has a major agenda that is not safety -
patent licensing.

~~~
sjs382
_Please please please_ don't wear gloves while operating table saws or any
other spinning tools.

~~~
AstralStorm
You actually should wear form fitting tough gloves. (Unless you like
splinters.) You should not wear loose gloves or clothing that could get pulled
into the saw.

~~~
sjs382
Not with spinning power tools. Nope nope nope nope!

------
analog31
I own and use a tablesaw for home maintenance, and occasionally building
utilitarian furniture, loudspeaker boxes (musician here), etc. My saw is an
ancient Sears Roebuck that a buddy found at a garage sale.

I'm aware of the SawStop technology, but haven't felt motivated to buy a brand
new saw. The deal for me is simply that I don't have enough use for a saw, to
justify buying a new one. I wouldn't recommend this approach to anybody else
-- just using myself as an example of a person who has somehow rationalized
keeping the old technology.

My approach is to limit what I do with the saw. My hands never go anywhere
near the blade. For smaller workpieces, intricate cuts, etc., I use hand tools
or just figure out a different design. I'm willing to waste wood rather than
try getting one last cut out of a scrap. Also, I simply don't use it very
often. Most of the time it sits with the blade retraced, covered with bicycle
parts.

But in a lot of fields, it's impossible to discuss safety, or to get a
straight answer about safety questions. Every technology has detractors with
arguments that it is actually more dangerous. (Try reading web forum threads
about bike helmets).

~~~
Gibbon1
Tip buy a CNC router and throw the table saw out. Along with a bunch of other
tools.

~~~
mrtron
Interesting idea!

How much would I have to spend? What if I want to do some simple cutting?
Trivial?

~~~
cr0sh
Figure several thousand dollars if you want something that can handle a 4 x 8
sheet of plywood. One of the commonly known brands is ShopBot:

[http://www.shopbottools.com/](http://www.shopbottools.com/)

You can DIY one cheaper, of course, but you're still looking at a few grand.
If you don't mind slightly less accuracy, and want to do it as a kit (instead
of completely homebrew - which can be a pain to learn about if you aren't
familiar with CNC already) - this company is pretty well known:

[https://buildyourcnc.com/](https://buildyourcnc.com/)

Also something else to keep in mind: If you do metal work, you can purchase
(or build) a CNC plasma cutter. You typically have to supply your own plasma
cutter, or spend extra for it (what you normally pay for is the table,
mechanicals, and interface electronics - computer is also extra). Many or most
of these can be easily converted to adding a router for woodwork (provided it
has a height control head to handle it). Just make sure you get one that can
handle 4x8 sheets.

There are also CNC routers, etc that can handle much smaller sizes, if you
aren't going to do anything big. Many of these are easy to DIY and there are
plenty of examples, tutorials, books, PDFs, instructables, etc - on how to
build one.

A small desktop CNC router can be homebrewed for less than $500.00 (plus a
fair amount of time). Of course, you will need to have access to at least some
basic tools to build one, and be competent at using them.

------
iDemonix
As someone who accidentally put a thumb through a table saw, this technology
is awesome and I hope to see it become more mainstream.

~~~
Sleeep
What was the outcome? Did you require stitches or lose the thumb? Do you have
lasting nerve damage or similar?

------
lightedman
Last time I tried one of these, I warped the drive shaft so badly the saw was
entirely unusable ever again.

And that was a brand-new demo unit put on the floor specifically to show it
off.

I'll take my chances and use the time-tested method of using a custom-built
wooden jig to hold the piece while it goes through the blade.

------
Zigurd
The meta meaning of this thread is the most interesting part. Otherwise
intelligent people are running straight into the buzz saw of obvious cognitive
biases. Phrases like "Table saws are mostly used by competent people and the
injury rate is pretty low" commenting on an article that spells out the injury
rates and costs veer into near self-parody. Obviously humans are highly
capable of over-estimating their own competency, in the face of graphic and
statistically compelling evidence.

------
virmundi
I do wonder if this is an issue of misaligned incentives. If a person has
workers' comp insurance through their company, why not give a reduced price to
the company if they deploy this tool? The owner can show they reduce the risk
of high payouts. The insurance company should, rationally, drop the bill by
50-100 a year. Even 30-50 could make the price difference of the saw worth it
then.

~~~
pfranz
My local community workshop has it. You're also responsible for paying for a
new blade and cartridge if you trigger it. If you're a community workshop it
seems like a no brainer because of liability.

But on the flip side, some construction workers pin back the blade guard on
circular saws because it can get in the way.

------
jsjohnst
My question is this, what happens when cutting wet wood? Or wood that has
nails in it? Did you just cost yourself $$$ by doing it?

~~~
GuiA
Yes, it does not work with wet wood. You rarely want to cut wet wood though.

As for wood with nails, you NEVER cut wood with nails in a workshop. Nails +
metal blades = sparks, and woodshops, even with ventilation and vacuums,have
wood dust everywhere on the floor, the air, etc. It'd be the surest way to
start a fire.

------
cr0sh
The stupid thing is, this technology could be applied to more than just table
saws; most woodshop machines are fairly dangerous if you don't keep your mind
and eyes on things. The thing is, even experts can get lulled by "having done
this 100 times before" \- and a terrible accident happens.

There are tons of power tools, shop tools, and other machinery that could be
made safer. Yes, it will cost money, and consumers may not want to pay it. But
I know if I ever purchase a table saw, it's going to be one of SawStop's -
because my fingers are part of my livelyhood as a software engineer, and worth
the money, easily.

How it works is kinda neat, but it does have some limitations:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SawStop](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SawStop)

Chief among them that if you want to use a dado blade system, it won't work.
But for general crosscutting and such, not a bad piece of insurance.

~~~
Doxin
In general you really shouldn't be using dado blades. It's an easy and
dangerous way to skip setting up a router and a temporary fence. There's a
reason dado stacks aren't sold in europe.

------
Pigo
I came in hoping to stumble upon an explanation on the cast saw used in
hospitals that won't cut skin at all. I believe I seen an explaination once,
but it didn't sink it apparently. This must be a completely different
technology.

~~~
hsod
[https://myria.com/how-does-a-cast-saw-work-without-
cutting-y...](https://myria.com/how-does-a-cast-saw-work-without-cutting-you)

tl;dr it vibrates instead of rotating which doesn't break skin because skin is
flexible

------
sumoboy
If big companies won't adopt it, startup a company and build a better saw and
people will buy it. Table saws are dangerous, I remember in high school having
a piece of wood splinter and fly past my head hitting the ceiling. People
don't seem to have problems buying safety with cars, I see it as just an
industry full of cheap ass power tools that constantly need replacing.

I'd buy such a saw just so when my dumb ass neighbor borrowed it he wouldn't
cut off his fingers. I laughed at him when he asked for the chainsaw.

~~~
mrob
>People don't seem to have problems buying safety with cars

Compare the introduction of three-point seat-belts. These were legally
required while they were still under patent, but unlike SawStop, Volvo shared
their invention with other manufacturers for free. They didn't try to use
regulatory capture to force people to pay them.

[https://www.media.volvocars.com/uk/en-
gb/media/pressreleases...](https://www.media.volvocars.com/uk/en-
gb/media/pressreleases/20505)

~~~
ryandrake
Yea, people don't have problems buying safety with cars because they are
forced to. You can't buy a new car without a seatbelt or airbag (and other
mandated features), even if you wanted to. If they instead were optional
features that actually cost money, a sizable number of people would skip them.

------
abfan1127
have you seen his price point? Nobody wants his tech because its crazy
expensive. The brake isn't reusable, so you have to have a spare lying around
so your project doesn't get delayed. I don't want it because proper safety
keeps your fingers attached. Its not rocket science.

~~~
emiliobumachar
"The brake isn't reusable, so you have to have a spare lying around so your
project doesn't get delayed."

Is the false positive rate non-trivial? Because losing a brake and saw only
when otherwise someone would lose a finger seems like a great deal, even from
a detached, purely economical perspective taking into account health care and
disability costs.

~~~
Doxin
You really don't want to buy an expensive saw and discover that the false-
positive rate is high.

------
nsnick
Festool is going to acquire Sawstop. Looks like these are going to be some
really nice saws.

[http://toolguyd.com/sawstop-to-be-acquired-by-festool-
parent...](http://toolguyd.com/sawstop-to-be-acquired-by-festool-parent-
company/)

------
mdekkers
_" None of the funds appropriated by this Act may be used to finalize any rule
by the Consumer Product Safety Commission relating to blade-contact injuries
on table saws," the rider on the budget bill reads._

What the actual fuck.

~~~
sersi
Exactly my reaction. That's corruption.

------
gozur88
This system is expensive enough that its purchase really ought to be left up
to the consumer. A rule mandating sawstops would double the price of entry
level saws and put them out of reach of hobbyists.

------
netcan
Is this fundamentally a story about bad/criminal actors, or another strange
outcrop of an insurance-centric industry?

The facililty described in the article seems to be a criminal racket. But my
question in these cases is usually: is this a spectrum? How many places are on
the seedy-but-not-criminal portion of that spectrum?

Kickbacks and body brokering might be ilegal, but the ultimate goal of these
isn't: find clients with insurance you can bill, bill clients as much as the
insurer will pay. There are options that aren't criminal, but also aren't a
good allocation of resources.

------
msie
Sad, sad, sad. Greed trumps safety. I wonder how many other safety inventions
have not reached mass adoption?

~~~
bluejekyll
Is it greed exactly? Wouldn't the saws just cost more?

I suppose the R&D on building the components into their current products is
something they don't want to do, so maybe that's the greed aspect?

~~~
taneq
I think the greed mentioned here is that SawStop is lobbying to make it
mandatory for saws to use their technology while trying to stop others from
bringing similar systems to market, all so that they can price-gouge a captive
market.

IIRC last time it was discussed here, they were trying to charge ~$100 per saw
to license their tech, when the usual margin on a saw was about a quarter of
that.

If they just accepted a reasonable licensing fee, their tech would be
ubiquitous already and they wouldn't need to try and use regulatory capture to
force people to use it.

Relevant quote from TFA:

> CPSC Acting Chairman Ann Marie Buerkle said she was also concerned that the
> rule might force companies to license technology from SawStop, which she
> said might create a monopoly.

~~~
bluejekyll
Thanks for putting that into better light. So it's SawStop that is asking for
too high a license, they aren't getting bites at that price point, and now
trying to get legislation to force other companies to pony up.

Now I get the greed aspect, should have been more obvious. I was thinking in
terms of component cost and not licensing cost, how naive of me...

Though in this case, at least they did create something novel making the
patent legit.

~~~
joosters
I don't see it as being greedy. If you invent something clever, and we have a
whole patent infrastructure for protecting inventors, why wouldn't you want to
get paid for people using your inventions? No-one is seriously claiming that
these patents are bad, or trivial, or obvious. The patents exist, they are
available for companies to license, it's just that the competitors don't want
to pay for it.

~~~
AstralStorm
They are also prevented from inventing their own similar solutions due to
prior art and broad patent.

The solution in SawStop qualifies as super obvious to a person not even well
versed in art. As such it should not be patentable. However making a patent
invalid in the US is extremely hard.

------
inb4dangshitban
From what I saw, the entire system is more or less single use, resulting in a
destruction of the sawblade and the catch. As well as severe shock to the
drive. I'm not one bit surprised there is serious opposition to the idea,
capitalism and all

~~~
pfranz
Well, you'd only lose your blade and cartridge if you would have otherwise cut
yourself...so it sounds like a good trade. Yes, it does get triggered if you
have a stray nail in your wood (bad idea) or if the wood is too wet. But from
the little experience I have, it'd only be triggered by wood that's wetter
than you'd want to cut in the first place.

SawStop is used at our community woodshop. I've seen it go off (someone
touched by blade after they turned off the table saw, but before the blade at
stopped spinning), but I haven't heard of it harming the table saw in any way.

~~~
WalterBright
If the blade had slowed down substantially before it was set off, the
potential for damage would be greatly reduced.

~~~
AstralStorm
Oh and why not just instead use a clutch to disconnect the drive instead?
There is one already I bet. Without motive force the blade stops in your hand
without explosions. It has low mass so low momentum. (This won't work for
massive blades but neither will exploding them. You will need an active
brake.)

However the patent is on the dumb detector and is overly wide.

~~~
cr0sh
Have you ever used a table saw?

When shut off, the blade doesn't have "low momentum"; if it were clutched, it
would still be spinning fast enough to seriously mangle or sever fingers. An
active brake won't be fast enough.

Remember, each tooth is flying at an insane amount of speed; you need to be
able to stop the saw dead in a fraction of the length of the tooth (within the
length of about 3/4" \- about the thickness of an adult hand/finger). You
don't - you can't - do that with a friction brake, or even some hypothetical
friction plus e-braking (regenerative braking).

That spinning mass of steel has a ton of momentum, even disconnected from the
motor. The only way to reliably stop is is to quickly jam something non-
yielding into the teeth of the saw.

If you can figure out another way, kudos to you! But I would suggest you first
learn about what and how a table saw works first, just to know what kind of
forces you are dealing with. They are anything but small.

