New Invention May Compete With Sawstop

[Andrew Joiner]

http://www.whirlwindtool.com/

Looks like it could work on any machine ,not just a table saw.

[Greg Peterson]

Looks like he's progressed since the last time I saw it. I think its biggest advantage is the ability to retrofit many machines. Depending on the price I might consider one when they come to market.

[John Fabre]

I'm interested, when will it come market?

[Jim Summers]

That is pretty cool. He stresses, no electrical modifications, but I wonder how you get the emergency stop stuff in place. In the videos the standard power off of the tablesaw seems typical as the blade/motor spins down, but the emergency stop is pretty instantaneous. I wonder if it also works with bevel cuts on a tablesaw. Looks promising.

[Dan Hintz]

Hasn't this been "in progress" for several years now?

[Jerome Hanby]

I know there is a brake addition you can build for a Dewalt GWI RAS that is basically a chunk of space heater coil that got switched across the power leads (after disconnecting the AC leads). Not sure how instantaneous the breaking is... Same type of idea used for the regenerative breaking on electric cars.

[John Coloccia]

I don't think this competes with the SawStop, but it certainly fills a niche SawStop has left wide open. IMHO, the SawStop is clearly a superior system from a safety standpoint as it is entirely passive (i.e. requires no operator setup whatsoever) and works far faster, but this is a retrofit and is non-destructive. It's really two different systems and it's difficult to compare them. I do wish him luck and I hope he can work with someone to manufacture this at a price that makes it attractive compared to SS.

[Dave Mura]

Something I could use!

[Peter Aeschliman]

I'm really happy to see another innovator join this market. There's clearly a demand for safer tools, regardless of whether some think it's a waste of money.

I'm also glad the inventor redid his website. This is much better. I would prefer to have him provide close-ups of the blades stopping so that I could see how quickly it's happening. Obviously this isn't a sure-fire way to keep somebody from cutting their finger off because it's detecting contact with the blade guard, not the blade itself. But since it takes a while to stop the saw, it can't wait until you have blade contact to stop the saw (because your finger will be on the other side of the shop before the whirlwind could stop the blade).

It requires users to be very diligent in their blade guard setup so that your finger can't fit underneath the blade guard. For taller rip cuts, you'd have to raise the blade guard quite a bit for the cutting height... if you get a kickback in that scenario, I could see how your hand would be thrown back under the blade guard and into the blade... at that point, the whirlwind may detect contact with the blade guard, but if your fingers got under the blade guard, the blade won't stop quickly enough.

So I'm skeptical that this would be a technology manufacturers would license since it really only goes about halfway to making the saw incapable of cutting your fingers off. It does reduce the risk though... and clearly that's a good thing.

Maybe he could make the blade guard more sophisticated so that your finger couldn't get under the guard. For example, he could include spring-loaded pieces that make up the gap between the blade guard and the table, which are also capable of detecting flesh contact. That way the blade guard is a more effective blocker.

But then again... if you put those blockers in place, why would you need the saw to stop at all?

Anyway, I'm rambling. Very interesting, but I'm not sold on it.

[John Shuk]

Would this work better on a Festool or with the E-Z Smart? Just wondering