Something to make your bum twitch!

[Nick]

Great invention if it works everytime though!
http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=E3mzhvMgrLE&NR=1

[Kim]

Yeah the saw stop has been around since 2004 and it seems like great technology. If I have this right you must question their business tactics though...It went something like this. The company invents and patterns the saw stop technology and in 2004 brings out its own brand of TS to which it is fitted exclusively...That runs along fine and dandy for a while into the copyright period when it is suggested that saw stop had decide to approach other saw manufacturers, among them Ryobi, with a view to sell 'licenced' use of the saw stop tech ..Apparently the manufactures wanted exclusive use only and the price for licenced use must have been high because no one took them up choosing instead to wait out the rest of the copyright as they do, reverse engineer as they do, change a couple of natty bits as they do, and then claim it as their own for SFA.

It appears these guys then sat back and waited for some bloke by the name of Osorio to go and push his hand through the blade of a TS at work....apparently the guards had been removed from that saw prior to the accident and, it was a Ryobi TS. The saw stop people then allegedly funded Osorio's legal action against Ryobi pursuing the line that they, Ryobi, had caused the injury by selling a defective product, because despite them being made fully aware of a technology that was offered to them which they could have fitted to their machine to prevented the injury occurring, they had made a commercial decision not to do so.......Osorio won the case and was awarded $1.5m....Bottom line is that it now appears US legislators will, or perhaps already have, passed a bill that will force manufacturers to use saw stop technology or have their machines removed from the market as unsafe...and guess who will benefit from that little deal....Clever move I guess but a bit under handed all the same me thinks.

http://www.finewoodworking.com/item/415 ... oodworking

Cheers

Kim

[Nick]

Ha! Just the way 'big' business has always been done in the states Kim isn't it? Remember Edison (DC proponent) discrediting Westinghouse's AC system in order to win (at all costs) & get America to buy/use his system?
Extract taken from Wikipedia:
"Edison's publicity campaign

Edison carried out a campaign to discourage the use[18] of alternating current, including spreading disinformation on fatal AC accidents, publicly killing animals, and lobbying against the use of AC in state legislatures. Edison directed his technicians, primarily Arthur Kennelly and Harold P. Brown,[19] to preside over several AC-driven killings of animals, primarily stray cats and dogs but also unwanted cattle and horses. [20] Acting on these directives, they were to demonstrate to the press that alternating current was more dangerous than Edison's system of direct current.[21] He also tried to popularize the term for being electrocuted as being "Westinghoused". Years after DC had lost the "war of the currents," in 1903, his film crew made a movie of the electrocution with high voltage AC, supervised by Edison employees, of Topsy, a Coney Island circus elephant which had recently killed three men.[22]

Edison opposed capital punishment, but his desire to disparage the system of alternating current led to the invention of the electric chair. Harold P. Brown, who was being secretly paid by Edison, built the first electric chair for the state of New York to promote the idea that alternating current was deadlier than DC.[23]

When the chair was first used, on August 6, 1890, the technicians on hand misjudged the voltage needed to kill the condemned prisoner, William Kemmler. The first jolt of electricity was not enough to kill Kemmler, and only left him badly injured. The procedure had to be repeated and a reporter on hand described it as "an awful spectacle, far worse than hanging." George Westinghouse commented: "They would have done better using an axe."[24]

[Dominic]

I would take a more positive attitude to what Mr Saw Stop was doing. The US market is/was way behind the rest of the world in terms of safety, manufacturers have only just started fitting riving knives as standard after the government forced them to. Given the size of the US market, such lack of safety oversight can distort world prices and hold back important technological developments.
So his actions may seem aggressive, but if the big companies cared as much about workplace safety this stand-off would not have occurred. Its just a shame they have left it for lawyers to sort this out.
So good on Mr Sawstop, for pushing safety onto a recalcitrant industry and helping make TS use that much nicer, and or safer.
Cheers
Dom

[kiwigeo]

So good on Mr Sawstop, for pushing safety onto a recalcitrant industry and helping make TS use that much nicer, and or safer.
Cheers
Dom

Somehow I don't think safety was the prime driver of Sawstop's decision to fund Osorio's case against Ryobi.

[Mark Fogleman]

So good on Mr Sawstop, for pushing safety onto a recalcitrant industry and helping make TS use that much nicer, and or safer.
Cheers
Dom

Somehow I don't think safety was the prime driver of Sawstop's decision to fund Osorio's case against Ryobi.

Amen Dominic!

Kim I don't remember SawStop being involved in the Osorio case other than being a witness. Osorio's Worker's Compensation Insurance Company (not sure there are equivalents in AU/NZ) was the real plaintiff and wanted to be reimbursed for Osorio's medical and lost wage expenses and also their legal expenses. The "Bad Guy" in this story was the greedy legal team for the insurance company, not SawStop and definitely not Osorio who was operating without a fence .

My understanding of the history of SawStop goes this way (I could be wrong but I've followed this very closely):
Gass (Mr.SawStop) comes up with the design, makes some prototypes and gets a Patent application filed.
He then starts to pitch the device to all the major tool manufacturers.
They all tell him to pack sand.
He then designs a superior line of Table Saws to the General,Jet/ Powermatic and Delta offerings and makes it completely in the USA...not Taiwan, People's Republic of China or India like his competitors.
He installs the SawStop device on his Table Saws.
He sells tens of thousands of them...at a premium for US labor, US sourced raw materials and SawStop device...even in the recession. The SawStop device has yet to allow a single traumatic incident with the device activated.
Major Table Saw manufacturers realize they are having their lunch taken from under their noses and are at risk for lots of defective product suits because they sell a tool with a terrible blade guard/splitter mechanism design which makes the owners remove them.
Osorio case happens and the Flat Earth believing, no seatbelt wearing, Fox News loving woodworkers start imagining Jack booted Nanny State government agents removing their finger eating Table Saws from their cold, dead, less than 5 fingered hands.
A few other blade braking (not breaking) technologies appear and have yet to be implemented by the major tool companies who have their heads in the sand or are waiting for the SawStop patent to expire.
As a result, Table Saw operators continue to have kickback which pulls their hands into blade.
Think it couldn't happen to you? Watch the video at the bottom of this page (no blood involved):
http://www.newwoodworker.com/basic/kickback2012.html

[auscab]

I wonder what happens if you hit a nail ? would there be enough current drop to set it off ?

[kiwigeo]

So good on Mr Sawstop, for pushing safety onto a recalcitrant industry and helping make TS use that much nicer, and or safer.
Cheers
Dom

Somehow I don't think safety was the prime driver of Sawstop's decision to fund Osorio's case against Ryobi.

Amen Dominic!

Kim I don't remember SawStop being involved in the Osorio case other than being a witness. Osorio's Worker's Compensation Insurance Company (not sure there are equivalents in AU/NZ) was the real plaintiff and wanted to be reimbursed for Osorio's medical and lost wage expenses and also their legal expenses. The "Bad Guy" in this story was the greedy legal team for the insurance company, not SawStop and definitely not Osorio who was operating without a fence .

I'll happily admit to not following the case closely and relying on Kim's version of events....