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Comment by sharperguy | Hacker News Reader

A seatbelt is a small fraction of the total cost of a car. I wouldn't be surprised if a table saw with this feature is 10x the cost of one without it or more. It adds a ton of complexity to a fairly simple tool.

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At scale the cost will come down. The actual tech is remarkably simple (which is a compliment to the design and engineering). The saw blade is wired up in such a way that it becomes a capactive touch sensor. When tripped a sacrifical brake is blasted into the blade that causes it stop and drop into the table.

It isn't going to cost 10x.

https://www.sawstop.com/why-sawstop/the-technology/

It's expensive because of the patent holders, not the technical complexity.

When the government mandates it there's no reason not to increase the price, just like how college tuitions rose exponentially when the government guaranteed the loans.

The modules are expensive, and it destroys the blade, which can be very expensive when using real industrial ones meant to be resharpened.

Personally I've had a very poor experience using a sawstop, as well as witnessing it cause younger guys to get overly confident

I have good news for you and your fingers. This will not increase the price of your next table saw by 10x.

It's closer to 2x the cost but that's a fairly fat margin since the Sawstop models ate the whole upper end. With a competitor they could probably get down to 1.5x.

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