Sawstop Brake Fired

[Tom Willoughby]

Don't quote me on this but I believe that the SS firing mechanism is a drop in voltage. Wood doesn't conduct electricity well so it doesn't set off the brake but as soon as the blade hits something that causes a drop in voltage (i.e. conducts electricity), the brake is fired. If my logic is correct, the blade would have to actually touch the fence before the safety mechanism was fired.

I inadvertantly set mine off when sawing through some wood with brad nails. I was 3/4 done when all of sudden the saw stopped and the blade was gone. I should have used the bypass but didn't think that I needed to. I didn't have a spare and had to wait until the next day to continue sawing. The only good news is that I was using a cheap blade but it was unusable afterward with a few carbide teeth missing.

I still don't have a spare brake because it will never happen to me... again ;-)

[Prashun Patel]

Tom-
If the brad nails are embedded in the wood and not touching the table, and therefore don't have a path back to ground, then how does that conduct? This has puzzled me.

[John Coloccia]

Tom-
If the brad nails are embedded in the wood and not touching the table, and therefore don't have a path back to ground, then how does that conduct? This has puzzled me.

It's not like Steve Gass sent me a memo on how the saw works, but if I dig into my engineering background and think about it for a minute, my gut instincts tell me that I would try capacitive sensing to detect contact.

[mreza Salav]

You are right John. Here is what Steve Gass said it here:
http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthre...10#post1325710

[Mike Henderson]

My reading of the Gass post is that he said a conductive connection is mostly what the system senses. He points out that the capacitance to a body part from the teeth of the blade would be quite small.

Mike

[Brian Penning]

I hung my 2 fired brakes( both due to hitting the miter gauge) up near my SS as a reminder to not forget to reset the gauge.
Hasn't worked so far. Then again, sometimes I forget what I went into the shop to get in the 1st place.

Anyone have a tough time getting the embedded blade and brake off the saw? Took me over a 1/2 hour to get the 2nd one off.

Remember to specify which cartridge you have. There are 2 different styles. Has to do with the connector pin quantity.

IMG_4623.jpg

[Mark Blatter]

I inadvertantly set mine off when sawing through some wood with brad nails. I was 3/4 done when all of sudden the saw stopped and the blade was gone.

I was cutting some wood with 23 gauge pin nails in it. After the third little 'pop' it hit me what I was doing and I stopped cutting, but the saw never did fire. Learned a good lesson though....Always stop and think about what you are going to do before doing it. Sort of like measure once and cut twice.....

Only had the saw fire one time. It was while cutting a thick piece of foam packing. During the quiet time immediately after firing, the gentleman running the saw noticed that there was a very thin layer of aluminum running in the middle of the foam. Lesson learned needles to say.

[Tom Willoughby]

Tom-
If the brad nails are embedded in the wood and not touching the table, and therefore don't have a path back to ground, then how does that conduct? This has puzzled me.

Others will have more knowledge than I about the technology but that was exactly my thinking. I cut through a number of brad nails with no problems but it was either a larger brad or a connection to multiple brads and the blade that dropped the voltage enough to set off the blade.

As Mark mentioned, that event made me think about what I am about to cut so that I don't trigger the brake needlessly.

Tom