Thinking of an Electronic Table Saw Fence

[Greg Portland]

The sooner you stop relying on measuring devices the more accurate your work will become.

[John TenEyck]

The sooner you stop relying on measuring devices the more accurate your work will become.

My work is plenty accurate enough for woodworking purposes. Some of my friends make fun of me because I carry a set of vernier calipers in my shop apron - and use it often. But I get your point, and my work is accurate now only because I do measure. Having said that, I'm not about to throw huge dollars at the issue just to gain a few seconds since I'm not doing this for a living.

Thanks guys. Keep those ideas and comments coming please.

John

[frank shic]

+1 digifence which can be adapted to almost any saw

[Peter Aeschliman]

I have the wixey. I really liked it at first. My only (major) gripe is the battery life. The thing has burned through so many batteries that it's too expensive to use. My batteries only last a few weeks. The only way to keep them from running out is to take the battery out every time I leave the shop, which is a total pain.

My other complaint is related to quality, which makes setup difficult. For those of us with long fence rails, you have to join together two pieces of extruded aluminum to form the wixey rail. It says outright in the instructions that the ends of the two pieces may not butt up to each other correctly, causing a gap (which will ruin the accuracy of the read out). It says that you have to manually file down the adjoining ends to get a clean joint. I can't imagine that a human being would be able to file the surface down by hand more accurately than a machine can cut. I tried and only made it worse. Eventually I had to clamp the two pieces to a known flat board with the two pieces butting up to one another, and cut them using my miter saw. That solved the problem.

Wixey should offer two models: one for long fence rails, and one for shorter fence rails... no more of this filing/cutting hocus pocus. They should also use AAA batteries and offer a real off switch. The current off switch only shuts off the display since it has to remember your settings. I'd much rather reset the fence every time I'm in the shop than have to replace the battery every 2 weeks.

[scott spencer]

I agree with you about the batteries Peter. Here's my solution to at least keeping the cost of batteries in check.
http://www.amazon.com/Powertron-Lith...8970128&sr=8-2

[Peter Aeschliman]

holy cow, that's really cheap. I guess I've been getting ripped off at the hardware/drug store!

[Karl Brogger]

Unless this is for a commercial use saw,where money making is the #1 concern,I'd leave the skill and craft part IN the manual fence.

Even in a commercial setting it'd be a waste of money. You waste time chasing .001", when it doesn't matter. Even with a Tiger-Stop fence its still faster just with a good standard fence setup. I took the digital scale off my planer because my OCD had trouble letting go of planing something at 2.252 instead of 2.250.A Tiger-Stop for a pop up saw is about $5k, but those go to 12'. There they make sense, but I don't see the point on a tablesaw. Accuracy isn't that important to me on a tablesaw, small variances either don't matter, or are negated because I'm cutting to a mark. For most hardwood stuff its going through something else to get sized like the planer, for box parts I'm content with having the width of the lines on the scale on the beam. I don't know how big those lines are, but it really is close enough for 99% of tablesaw operations. And as far as cutting to a line, if I'm making a bevel cut on a stile for a face frame I mark it and cut to that line as the math gets a little tiresome when cutting a bevel on a 13/16" piece of lumber at 46-1/2 degrees.

[john bateman]

For anyone wanting to try this on the cheap, Eagle America has something for $50.
http://www.eagleamerica.com/product/...0/new_products

I bought one and it took a bit of finagling to get it to work on my Ridgid TS3650. I'd agree with others that 95% of the time you'll never need it.

But something I wanted to make required that I move the fence many times in multiple increments of 0.058" and this thing allowed me to do that.

[Tim Janssen]

I have the wixey. I really liked it at first. My only (major) gripe is the battery life. The thing has burned through so many batteries that it's too expensive to use. My batteries only last a few weeks. The only way to keep them from running out is to take the battery out every time I leave the shop, which is a total pain.

My other complaint is related to quality, which makes setup difficult. For those of us with long fence rails, you have to join together two pieces of extruded aluminum to form the wixey rail. It says outright in the instructions that the ends of the two pieces may not butt up to each other correctly, causing a gap (which will ruin the accuracy of the read out). It says that you have to manually file down the adjoining ends to get a clean joint. I can't imagine that a human being would be able to file the surface down by hand more accurately than a machine can cut. I tried and only made it worse. Eventually I had to clamp the two pieces to a known flat board with the two pieces butting up to one another, and cut them using my miter saw. That solved the problem.

Wixey should offer two models: one for long fence rails, and one for shorter fence rails... no more of this filing/cutting hocus pocus. They should also use AAA batteries and offer a real off switch. The current off switch only shuts off the display since it has to remember your settings. I'd much rather reset the fence every time I'm in the shop than have to replace the battery every 2 weeks.

Interesting. I mounted the Wixey on my SawStop fence and fence tube and had no issues, nothing to file or adjust. I have no problem with battery life either. I don't use my saw that often, but even with the the Wixey turned off the battery still supplies power to maintain memory.
001.jpg

[Don Jarvie]

Looking at your setup you maybe better off with a Bies or Bies clone (Vega, etc). You can add an additional tape for the Cman so when the fence slides over the Cman has its own tape. The top rail in the Bies has enough room for both.

[keith micinski]

I have read about some people having battery life issue with the Wixey, but luckily I am not one of them. As far as accuracy goes, even if you got lucky and your tape was right on every marking, which they rarely are, being able to read it and put the marker at the correct spot repeatably probably isn't going to happen. Do you need a Wixey to do accurate quality work? Absolutely not, but it sure does make it easier and more enjoyable to know you have a repeatable accurate setup at all times. Also I forgot about being able to zero out the scale to make multiple cuts in a piece which is a big time saver and really helpful. I bet that most of the people that think you don't need or shouldn't want a digital fence have never used one. If they had, they would probably have a different opinion, just like most of the people do that told me the iPad that I am currently typing this on was a complete waste of money and that they were going to be a big flop because no one has a use for a tablet computer. Sometimes you just have to use something to know what it's about.

[Bruce Wrenn]

holy cow, that's really cheap. I guess I've been getting ripped off at the hardware/drug store!

DollarTree has a card of three for a buck. I stock up every couple years.

[J.R. Rutter]

I researched a lot of digital readouts before settling on this one ... and it has been GREAT !!! !!!

http://www.proscale.com/products/digi/digi-fence.htm

It's like a set of digital calipers on steroids ... these guys make all kinds of digital stuff for the commercial market ... if they made it - it will last ... which is more than I can say for most of the Chinese garbage on the market, including the Wixey stuff.

ProScale is quality. I have had a handful of them on various machines and still use them on a planer and a shaper fence every day.

I was at AWFS and checked out the tigerstop.

You basically type in the measurement you want in a digital display and there's either a screw drive or belt/pulley system that moves the fence or stop to the exact location instantly. Then you make your cut.

It uses stepped motors that are constantly being monitored so if you try to force the fence in a certain direction, the motor fights back and puts it back to its original position. It was pretty neat, the guy was really hammering at the fence showing the abuse it can take.

Then if you install a new blade or something you can recalibrate with a "tare" like button and it automatically sets it up.

I think the miter saw version was at least $1K, and the table saw version is more. Not exactly price friendly for hobbyist but I could see it as a big time saver for production use.

I picked up a used TigerStop for the table saw a few years ago. It does make more sense in a commercial setting where multiple people are using the saw. We do work to fine tolerances right off the saw sometimes and this just rules out person-to-person errors. As Karl pointed out though, a lot of table saw work has secondary machining afterwards that makes extreme accuracy a moot point. I do like the TS though . . .

The sooner you stop relying on measuring devices the more accurate your work will become.

Well, measuring devices that rely on eyesight I can agree with. I have half a dozen tape measures scattered throughout my little operation, but they are only used for rough measurements and to make sure that the right parts get put into the right assemblies. 1/16" is pushing it for accuracy of these tapes after they get dropped a couple of times. I rely on a few devices, like the ProScales and TigerStops that are calibrated. Accuracy flows downstream from the machining operations based on these very accurate and repeatable devices.

Back to the OP - I would start with a fence design that has a hairline set very close to the measuring tape, and a tape that has very fine lines. If you need more consistency that that, then the ProScale is hard to beat.

[David Kumm]

Neat old saw John. As I said earlier and having thought more I still would look for a good unifence or Bies type- and the low cursor is better. After you have lived with the fence you will be in a better position to judge the merits of an electronic version yet still have the accurate backup. You might decide on a different main saw and keep the uni as a second down the road. Happens. I have both Wixey and Proscale. Some of my Wixeys are great, others less consistent. The proscale is a step up and so reliable I don't doubt it. Dave

[John TenEyck]

Looking at your setup you maybe better off with a Bies or Bies clone (Vega, etc). You can add an additional tape for the Cman so when the fence slides over the Cman has its own tape. The top rail in the Bies has enough room for both.

Today I investigated the stamped scale in my Unisaw rails and, sure enough, they are not that accurate compared to my tape measure. In fact, they vary in an inconsistent manner along the length. Pretty good at 6", off well more than 1/32" at 10", but not bad at 24". That explains the mystery behind the cut inaccuracies I sometimes observed. Since the rail is round there's no way to add a separate tape, and the more I think about it I'd rather not have to rely on a DRO as I'm sure I'll be checking it to verify it's correct.

So, I'm probably going to order the 50" Vega Pro today from Amazon as it's something like $265 currently. I'm not sure I'll need or like a fence that's 40" long, but we'll see. But I really do like that the Vega has the micro adjust positioning feature, as does my old Unisaw fence though it's not as refined, and that it has tracks for accessories. And being able to have a tape for both saws will be great. I use the C-man primarily with a cross-cut sled, but it will still be nice to easily set the fence when I use it that way. And I'll always be able to add a DRO in the future if I want.

Thanks again everyone for your input. I'll let you know how the story turns out.

John