Popped the sawstop

First times a charm. Thanks Andy for help in replacing. Paid via PayPal

5 Likes

That sucks - do you know why you tripped it?

I’m really not sure. I’ve cut epoxy on there hundreds of times with no issue. My hands weren’t near the blade and I confirmed no metal in the piece. Really couldn’t tell you why it triggered

Did you save the break I can send it off and see what causes it to trip.

Oh cool I didn’t know you could determine it after the fact. I believe it is with the pile of shame to the left of the miter saw

Out of curiosity, was this a clear epoxy or did you have a colorant in it?

I’m wondering if some of the coloring agents might be conductive enough to trigger the brake. Something like a carbon black, for example.

It was clear epoxy but with preserved flowers in it. The saw popped when it hit a leaf so I think that’s what did it. I can’t see it being anything else

Just FYI for any current or future readers…you can still do something like this, e.g. saw through a flower in some epoxy. One would just need to put the saw into “bypass mode” to disengage the braking safety feature first.

(Expand “Sawstop Safety” and scroll down to “Can I cut conductive materials?”)

1 Like

Absolutely intriguing.

What method did you use to do the preservation? Are they dehydrated or just preserved?

I can see how just a preservation without 100% dehydration might retain enough water in the leaf to trigger the brake, but wow. What a learning experience.

@John_Marlow we might want to add this one to the wiki, I think this may be a first.

2 Likes

They were dried two weeks in silica so they were very dry. They have to be when in resin so they don’t rot. That being said, the leaves were of a variety that were a tad bit waxy.

But yeah very strange but something I’ll definitely watch out for next time! Also didn’t know the brake mechanism could be bypassed; good to know since I believe the powermatic is being retired for another sawstop.

Of course things could have changed since I left, but the option to bypass was not allowed and the “key” that must be used was not made available. Fear was someone would disable the safety feature and “forget” to re-engage leaving a Saw Won’t Stop for the following users.

While I remember there was kind of an unofficial prohibition, enforced by simply making the key unavailable, the bypass function is actually designed to only effect a single on/off power cycle.

I think that since there was an alternative (the “other” saw, which back in the day was a Delta) it was deemed generally unnecessary to let people disable the Saw Stop safety feature, with the hand-wave rationalization being that eventually the key would get misplaced or lost, and then we wouldn’t be able to disable at all.

Now I am wondering if anyone actually knows where they key is…lol.

1 Like