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Comment by ashtonkem | Hacker News Reader

The benefit to the tool maker of SawStop is clear: not only does it save the fingers of your customers, it destroys a large number of components in the saw after use. This means that the customer must buy a new motor, mount, etc. after almost losing a finger; a trade that I personally would be willing to make.

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I can assure you that it does not damage the motor, mount, arbor, trunnion assembly, or any other major components of the saw. The cartridge is expended, but that is the only part of the saw that needs to be replaced as a matter of course. Whether the blade survives or not is a bit of a crapshoot, but the smart money is on having to replace it.

If you happen to trip the saw with flesh, Saw Stop will send you a free replacement cartridge if you mail them your expended one. They'll run diagnostics and verify that it was tripped on flesh, and mail you a new one.

Source: I've been present in two shops for 4 trips on two different saws, all other people. 3 were an aluminum miter gauge fence (Incra), one was fingers. In both cases the saws are known to have been tripped a great many more times than that. Neither saw has had anything but the blade and cartridge replaced.

Worth noting that replacing a blade can be a fairly expensive proposition depending on the blade you were using, but of course the argument is that the cost of that is far cheaper than medical bills and lost fingers. Seems like a valid argument assuming it's not a false trip.

Also, the safety feature can be temporarily disabled if needed to cut through something like damp wood that might cause a false trip.

A $200 saw blade can be resharpened after such an incident. It’s not as expensive as you might think.

Generally at around the same cost as a cheaper blade. I'm not sure who the actual market is for hella'spensive blades; the difference in cut quality I've not actually seen; certainly not enough to justify the expense.

Do you mail them the expended cartridge Or expended finger?

Do you own one? I have never heard of anyone ever having to replace anything but the cartridge and saw blade.

Even then, the expensive saw blades can be sent back to the manufacturer and resharpened after such an incident.

This is wrong. One must replace the saw blade and the cartridge.

Citation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SawStop#Opposition_from_trade_...

A fire on a Sawstop can cost you close to $400 if you destroy a dado stack and the cartridge, but the saw itself is fine.

An advantage of the REAXX technology is that the blade is fine, only the cartridge is expended.

Why would you just go out and tell lies like this?

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