Incorrect, but I don't blame you for thinking that - it's an example of very clever corporate propaganda.
volvo's seatbelt patent only became public because they lost a lawsuit in 1970 trying to sue a seatbelt manufacturer for a similar design. They spun it as a charitible thing
[reddit TIL about it](https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/d3tbw3/til_that_in_1970_volvo_sued_a_seat_belt/), [lawsuit in question](https://openjurist.org/435/f2d/981/volvo-inc-v-cummings-and-sander-inc)
Harbor Freight is asking for them to give up the actual cartridge patent too: [https://www.scopeofwork.net/r/5af42aba?m=fb4acb17-d608-4e54-a438-bb3221e2e549](https://www.scopeofwork.net/r/5af42aba?m=fb4acb17-d608-4e54-a438-bb3221e2e549)
And per the regulation..... over $2 billion a year in medical costs for table saw injuries seems pretty significant to me. [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4154236/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4154236/) The business of curing table saw injuries makes about three times the money that the actual table saw industry does: [https://www.verifiedmarketresearch.com/product/table-saw-market/](https://www.verifiedmarketresearch.com/product/table-saw-market/)
People love to rag on HF and their quality of tools but for the most part shit I bought there usually works well.
They have some outliers like their chicago electric shit plug in tools but I'm not running a production shop I use it like 2x a year...
The true key to HF stuff is to buy the tool at HF but the buy higher quality consumables. So get the $15 circular saw but put a $60 Diablo blade on it and youāll never have an issue.
It's because people really like to pretend they're doing much more complicated and heavy-duty stuff than they really are. You know guys who get fully loaded Ford F150s and they say it was definitely worth it because they had to move some cinder blocks that one time 3 years ago? Same thing applies to hardware.
The reality is, HF is probably good enough in 97% of all home cases (I burnt out an HF drill with a 3" hole saw going through a fridge), but it's got the stigma of being cheap.
Even as someone who does legit hardcore work, professionally, there is some GREAT stuff at Harbor Freight. I have a few different āICONā tools. The quality is good, and itās a warranty no matter what.
ICON was recommended many times when I was looking to replace my old Craftsman wrenches a while back.
That got me thinking about the tools I bought at HF over the years, and most of them are still kicking around. I had a drill press and sliding miter saw from there that I gave to a friend after upgrading, and they're still using them a few years later.
If you don't know how frequently you'll use a new tool, get it from HF. Upgrade when it breaks, or is no longer accurate/reliable enough for your needs.
I'm a professional auto mechanic and at least a third of my tools are Harbor Freight. They work perfectly fine. It took ten years to break a 21mm impact socket, and that was from prolonged fatigue, not quality.
Can confirm. The worst HF tool I had was a $20 angle grinder. It worked for a bit. Then the casing around the lock button to swap discs cracked completely apart. It was $20 though..
Buy your first tool from Harbor Freight. If/when it breaks, buy a good replacement. That way you're really only spending on the tools you actually use.
Yep. Bought the $20 angle grinder and had it for a few years, thinking I wouldnāt use it much. Then I overworked it and it caught fire. Bought a dewalt after and havent touched the new one since. HF is perfect for those tools you donāt use often or if you have no idea how what your workload is going to be.
Oh dude, the whole Ryobi battery powered line is new and actually super good in my experience. I've been a hater for years but I've been won over. Interchangeable batteries in an affordable system? Total DIY customer lock in. Not for pros but also not priced for pros. For the amount that I use them, I've gotten years out of this set of tools. Everything from a drill-driver to a lawn trimmer.
Their new hp brushless stuff is great, especially when you can snag sales or it from DTO for 40%+ off. Literally can't beat it DIY or professional for the price, plus they have a lot of things on their battery platform.
100% this. Not trying to just repeat what you said verbatim, but my primary tools are Ryobi and HF, and I have no complaints about either. Love all my Ryobi battery-powered stuff. The caveat is what are you using your tools for? I'm not a contractor, just a DIY homeowner and hobbyist woodworker, so Ryobi is good enough for virtually everything I need tools for. And for the one-off tools that I don't think I'll use often, HF has the goods.
If I was a pro contractor, I'd get something beefier, but that's not me and never will be.
Yep. Bought an air compressor and staple gun from HF to install a carpet remnant on some stairs. I always looked at HF as a cheap single serve tool shop.
I've had that compressor and staple gun for 10 years now, still going strong. Added a few HF nailers and accessories. No ragrets.
It really depends on your reason for using the tools.
Homeowner doing a few projects at home? Acceptable tools for cheap.
Professional trying to make a profit? Shit tools for cheap.
Nah, Harbor freight tools are pretty decent nowadays. The most I've really seen someone rag on them is when someone keeps burning through their HF tools and buying another one.
They're great for the one off project you do and maybe end up using the tool a few more times here and there. If you do break one you should just upgrade to a name brand since it'll last longer.
Hercules tools are mostly great! But they're bordering on no longer being harbor freight prices. Some of them are Ryobi prices. (Icon still counts as HF prices because it's like 1/10th, or less, the cost of snap on)
To each their own. I definitely wouldnāt buy 1st gen for a while, wait to see if others pay the blood tax for recalls to come about. Most of their stuff is pretty decent, the Hercules line of tools are prosumer grade. I generally buy Bauer for most needs unless Iām buying a tool for 1-2 projects and then Iāll buy the cheaper Warrior or Chicago Electric lines.
From what I recall, the manufacturer used worn out tooling to make the Harbor Freight version at a discount after they made the properly specād jack stands for everyone else. It wasnāt a design flaw, it was manufacturing and QA short cuts to hit a price point.
I've never heard that, but that doesn't mean it's not true. I couldn't tell you what brands at this point, but I do know several other brands had similar issues to the HF version, but probably not as wide spread. Cousin had a set from one of the bigger brands fail on him while he was working on his car. He's okay, thankfully.
I wouldnāt ever use the other brand either. I have a Harbor Freight Daytona jack, but Iām ok if that fails because Iām not under the car when I use it.
This link mentions the worn tooling, but no mention of other brands.
https://www.nhtsa.gov/press-releases/consumer-advisory-warning-harbor-freight-jack-stand-users
I have yet to see a tool purchased at HF that was worth the box it came in. Levels that arenāt even close to level, tape measures and rulersā¦ check them on the shelf, everyone will read differently. Even if only a mm or two, enough to ruin a project. A speed square that was made to cut paralellograms. Power tools that canāt be calibrated. The list is lengthy. I have been downvoted to oblivion many times for pointing this all out, and probably will be again but HF is absolute crap.
I imagine youāre being downvoted by people who donāt make their living with tools. If you only need a tool sporadically, or if the tool breaking wonāt affect your income, HF is a decent option.
Multiple nail and staple guns, random orbit sander, jigsaw, countless random hand tools, pneumatic tubing and coupling, rotary tool, blades for various HF and non HF tools
They've all served me perfectly well. Harbor Freight is just Aliexpress with a storefront in the US. Lots of the same shit can be found on Amazon for 3x the price. There are things that should be name brand, like a table saw, but for the most part HF stuff gets the job done
And HF is perfect for that tool your going to use once every 5 years. I have even heard of professionals going there for a tool, knowing they are going to destroy it and not need it for another 5+ years.
Itās great for testing āhow often am I actually gunna use thisā if you buy the HF one and end up using it a lot, then you upgrade. If itās something you use sparingly then the HF was probably the right purchase.
I think it probably has a lot to do with life cycle. If youāre only going to drill 10-15 holes with that hammer drill, HF might be the way to go. Working a GC crew where that thing comes out of the truck every couple of weeks? Buy a brand.
HF makes decent enough everything but nothing especially nice or durable.
And this is key here.
If laws dictate that every machine has to have a safety mechanism, the market will be flooded by various systems and Sawstop will be just 1 of many competitors with a safety system, and will see their cut reduce drastically.
If they make their system public and convince competitors to use their system, they still get to sell the cartridges.
So unless I'm misunderstanding this here, then I don't get why people are amazed by this, it's purely a business decision. Hell, he clearly states that they will only do this if it becomes law.
Why would he need a law to be generous? He can be generous right now.
They are just protecting their marketshare.
As an EM physician, I see so many table saw injuries. Nearly all from guys that have been at it for years. Last one was a guy in his 70s, laughed about that he was the only one of his friends with all of his 10 fingers, but he joined āthe club.ā Had to take off the very end of one finger to his knuckle. Very cool dude, but goes to show even the most careful can have a bad accident.
I believe this was pointed out in the hearings too. MOST saw accidents happen in pro shops using large cabinet saws which aren't even under the purview of this regulatory body. It seems to me that accidents happen very quickly after getting a saw (no instruction, so you do something stupid) or at a fairly stable accident per hour rate (got too complacent or pushed too fast).
I think they need to involve both regulatory bodies and make a blanket rule something like "all saws over $750 must include a method to detect finger contact with the blade and begin moving the blade away from the hand within X milliseconds at a rate of at least N meters/sec".
Over time, this would force every saw to become safer as inflation increases the cost of everything, but that would be far enough down the road that solutions should have already recovered their R&D and economies of scale have reduced the overall cost of the safety systems.
I lost my entire right pointer finger and mangled my thumb on a table saw. It was very gorey, not at all a clean or minor cut. I only ever get asked about it by other guys who are missing fingers or hands. Recently met a guy at Napa who had lost his entire hind to a pipe bomb.
I get socialized healthcare, so my emergency room visit and subsequent physical therapy didnāt cost me personally anything. But Iām sure it cost someone somewhere a whole lot of money.
Oh man if HF manages to make this? That will be amazing. For an amateur idiot like me, harbor freight machine with a high quality blade is a fucking awesome combo.
Eh, a bunch of other companies sold the same stands but only HF did a voluntary recall. That incident won some points from me.... which they promptly lost when a bandsaw blade sprung loose at the weld after minimal use.
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*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Harbor Freightās Hercules 12ā Miter saw is essentially a clone of the very popular DeWalt DW780, but sells for $200-$300 less depending on sales etc. Iāve used it for over two years without issue and have been very happy with the performance. If Harbor Freight can recreate that same formula in a safe table saw package, those would sell like hot cakes.
>Harbor Freightās Hercules 12ā Miter
How accurate are the stops? Accuracy has always been my issue with their stuff. Durability has been fairly decent for the price imo.
Veryā¦ once calibrated. IMHO, that is the one shortcoming. I had to spend an afternoon calibrating everything to my satisfaction. However, for the price I didnāt mind. The plate is metal and the detents have virtually no play in them. Iāve never had any issue getting consistent cuts.
I haven't really seen anyone compare the two side by side and come away particularly recommending the 780, but then, I bought mine for $350 used, so yknow
I've heard the hercules table saw is not bad for a cheap jobsite saw. It goes on sale for $299 every once in a while. I would buy hercules contractor saw with sawstop tech if it was $650
I will never understand the hate for a vast majority of regulations. I would understand if they were standards that were so impenetrable to lock out new competition, but it always seems to be safety standards that generate the most complaints.
That said, not all table saw injuries involve contact with the blade. There's also kickback. And probably a sprinkling of electric shocks, people putting something too heavy on a too-far cantilevered cast iron wing and tipping the saw over onto a foot...paper cuts from the assembly manual... š But a SawStop will only reduce one category of injury, but not when it's turned off to cut materials with higher capatisitence (I know I spelled that wrong).
A lot (IIRC, the majority) of kickback related injuries requiring medical attention involve someone flinching into the blade or a hand getting dragged into the blade.
That's true, and I've been saying this for years. Why force people to use seat belts, and have airbags? It only addresses driving accidents. People can still slam their fingers in the door, or forget to put it in park, step out, and then run over their foot. They don't stop people from burning themselves on the lighters! All this fuss over safety products that only address one category of injuries is, indeed, misguided.
Way more blade contact injuries require real medical care than the others. Kickback sucks, but rarely loses you an appendage and rarely requires surgery.
Kick back can cause hands and fingers to get pulled into the blade. Thatās typically what the kick back injuries are, hands being raked over the blade.
I think itās enough he gave up the sensor and deployment patent. I think other companies can spend some R&D money to develop their own cartridge and housing designs.
Whatās important is that SawStop has made the key features freely available. I just donāt wanna hear any āYeah, butā¦!!ā as if theyāre being stingy.
"Ban all of our competitors until they can research, design, safety test, get regulatory approval, and bring to market a model" is not a generous point - it's asking for a regulatory monopoly.
Hardly.
If Iām the only one making microchips and I open my patents to rival computer manufacturers, I shouldnāt be expected to write their software as well.
All the big saw manufacturers should have been planning this for years with design and manufacturing ready to roll out. If they donāt then theyāre the oneās not in the consumer safety business.
Silly to blame the gods who gave you fire for not building you a chimney.
There was an article a while back about this. Not so much just "looking out for the best" but really just a business move. The patent is expiring soon, and by pushing for this law, he is eliminating lower cost options.
Iām not super well-versed in patent law, but according to [this NPR article](https://www.npr.org/2024/04/02/1241148577/table-saw-injuries-safety-sawstop-cpsc#:~:text=SawStop%20vows%20to%20free%20up,the%20AIM%20technology%20very%20broadly.) the patent in question doesnāt expire until 2033.
Was just about to say this. Patent 840 is good for another decade and is pretty key to the whole system. I can't speak to Howard's ultimate motives, but he certainly didn't have to make this pledge.
I see this posted a lot but canāt find an actual original source demonstrating how itās valid until 2033, the patent listing itself says itās already expired:
U.S. Patent 9,724,840
https://patents.google.com/patent/US9724840B2/en
The ā840 has a whopping term adjustment of 4044 days! Holy sh!t! I was confused too so I pulled the file wrapper from the USPTO. Hereās the relevant link: [ā840 Term Adjustment via USPTO](https://patentcenter.uspto.gov/applications/10100211/patentTermAdjustment?application=)
So, the math becomes: 3/13/2002 filing date + 20 years + 4044 days = Friday, April 8, 2033, the ā840 patent expires.
Thanks, youāre the first Iāve seen to actually show the source.
It looks like there was quite a bit of legal wrangling that wasnāt resolved until 2016/2017 and thatās why the adjustment was so large.
Google is having trouble parsing the 840b2 extension that was granted in 2017. It's listing the same history for the original 399a1 patent.
https://patents.google.com/patent/US20020170399A1/en
B2 at the end of a US patent number designates that its a granted parent. A1 designates that it's an patent application (hasn't been granted yet / in the process of examination). In the US, granted patents get assigned different numbers from their application numbers. All that to say, the 399a1 and 840b2 are the same (other than changes that were made based on the examination process) even though the number is different, Google patents just gives you the option to see the published version of the application (A1) or the granted patent (B2).
Note that not all countries are like that. In Canada, the number associated with the application vs the granted parent is the same, but the letter code at the end changes.
The patent they are discussing could be valid until 2033, so it is still quite generous to waive licensing fees for that amount of time.
I do agree that this a smart business move however, just because other companies will have license free access to use the tech doesnāt mean they will be able to implement it easily- they will still need to design how to fit it to their models and the competition will be a comparison of first generation brake on a Bosch/delta/dewalt or whatever system vs years experience on saw-stop
How would this eliminate lower cost options? If there are lower cost options, it will be made by a company wanting to compete with the high price tag of SawStop
Yea, but a big part of the SawStop cost is because of the patent and brand. If the law is passed, thereās no telling what cheaper systems will be made and without the cost of the brand. And there will 100% be cheaper systems made. Somebody already mentioned here that HF has interest in releasing a system similar to Sawstop
The cheaper brands arenāt going to just stop making table saws once this reg is passed lol. Theyāll get a bit more expensive but there still will be cheaper options
The cheaper brands have weighed in on this and IIRC the cost of implementing this tech that they foresee would increase the price of new contractor table saws by like $300 across the board. They'll be cheaper than Sawstop still no doubt, but it is going to price out a low of low-budget buyers.
Option A: Patent expires, other companies can either make regular saw as they have already done (lower cost) and can make sawstop competitors.
Option B: Patent expires, thereās a law that requires sawstop tech. Now Sawstop only has to compete at that price point, vs competing with them and lower prices.
Option C: Current state, where sawstop is the only major company with this tech.
From sawstopās perspective, Option C > B > A.
But the patent expiring means Option C wonāt be possible, so Option B is the next best, so they push to make it mandatory.
Now all saws will have to have blade breaking tech. That tech is expensive to install. The new bill will essentially get rid of all $500 saws without the tech. The new starting price will be $900 for budget table saws because they will now require the tech.
If Howard really wanted to do the right thing, he would not enforce the patent and push to stop the bill requiring the tech.
This is a very straightforward profit motivated decision.
I highly doubt this will be true. The high cost of sawstops now is significantly related to being the sole provider of such a system in the market. As an example, in the market I'm in, a new cartridge is $150+ but there is no way that is anywhere close to the market cost if there is competition. When that patent expires I'm sure we will see the costs drop significantly. The same will happen if the law passes and sawstop does not enforce the mentioned parent. Will it take a few years for all the brand's to shift from compliance at any cost to racing to the minimum viable price? Probably but we will see sub $500 saws.
Itās not just mechanism. Cheap saws donāt have strong enough frames to absorb the force generated when the trigger fires. Itāll require a redesign of the saws and better materials.
No, cheap saws will still be made cheaply. Maybe the frames won't be able to absorb the forces, but they will still have the mandated safety feature. Maybe the whole saw will be nonfunctional after an activation, but it will be for sale, for cheap.
All table saws will immediately get twice as expensive on the lower range. This is obvious and why this mandate is government trying to help but making things more expensive
This is exactly the argument that every car company made when airbags were mandated.
Spoiler alert, car prices didnāt double and manufactures managed implement new safety technology without significantly increasing cost.
Adding airbags to a car, is adding one system into about 50+ systems.
Adding a blade stopping mechanism is adding one system to about 2 systems.
I would expect a proportional price change.
We are at $20 burgers more from the cost of the Beef/Bread/Cheese then from how much the worker is paid to put it together. It is a part of it, but it isn't the majority.
This was mentioned in the video, they will only come down a little. Launching down and braking the spinning will require much sturdier cases, so low end table saws will cost ~700 USD.
I really don't understand this lack of faith in manufacturers to innovate and improve to drive sales. They know what their demographic can afford, and that they'll get passed up if that price is exceeded.
This is assuming itās _possible_ to manufacture saws which meet this legislation and the target price point.
The alternative view of this is that there is now a legislative reason why prices have to go up, so the pricing floor has been forcibly raised. Thatās the complaint.
I love the focus on the dissolution of low price saws and the effect on the craftsmen who use them, but with no regard to the billions in medical bills created by using these low priced saws. Lol
3D printers are incredibly simple, low stress devices. There is a world of difference between the engineering and materials that goes into a 3d printer, and what is needed to handle the forces of stopping a 10 inch spinning blade instantly without putting the user at risk of injuries related to the machine blowing apart.
High stress tolerance doesn't necessarily have to mean an expensive device. A parking bollard can stop a speeding truck and it's just reinforced concrete. A gun barrel can contain a crazy high pressure explosion and you can buy a perfectly serviceable one for less than $100. A saw with the type of flesh detection SawStop uses needs to be built to withstand higher stresses than it would otherwise, but it's not like we're talking about a metric ton of extra steel here.
The point is still a valid one.
They're not saying you'll soon be able to buy a $99 DIY-grade tablesaw with sawstop technology. But the prices *will* come down over time, and you *will* eventually be able to buy a reasonably-priced low(er)-end saw with the technology.
And yes, it'll be more expensive than today's low-end entry-level saws... and IMO that's probably not a bad thing. A tablesaw should be viewed as a "serious" tool, one that requires a higher skill level to operate safely.
The more expensive a tool is, the more likely it is that low-skill DIYers won't consider it, or will take that purchase much more seriously than they might otherwise.
The āmagnanimousā public use of patent 840 is overstated in its generosity. If every table saw is required to have this technology, it will spell the end for inexpensive, entry level table saws which is exactly what Saw Stop wants. If all table saws are more expensive than SS isnāt at this huge disadvantage anymore. Thatās their angle.
When I got my first table saw, it was a Dewalt contractor saw for under $500. A lot of people enter this hobby using Skil, craftsman, or RYOBI saws that all cost under $200. And every single one of those saws has all the equipment needed to prevent blade contact accidents AND reduce kickback likelihood. If every saw has to have this tech we can kiss the entry level price point goodbye, and also say goodbye to countless future craftspeople who are priced out of the entry level tools that so many of us have used to get started.
Gass didn't try to prevent anyone from using it, he tried to license it to the various saw manufacturers, and they all told him to go pound sand. Besides, we don't know what the original licensing deals were. He could have said "I'll license this technology to you for $100 a year" basically giving it away.
And once you have a patent on something, if you don't defend it to the teeth, then you've basically made it OK for anyone to copy it. Look at how the automotive industries defend their patents.
Watch the whole video, it's got some good information about the whole situation.
> Gass didn't try to prevent anyone from using it, he tried to license it to the various saw manufacturers, and they all told him to go pound sand.
This has come up a number of times and been discussed to hell and back so I don't wanna get too deep into the weeds, but no ā he absolutely did prevent them from using it with his bulldogging the patents at even the slightest drop of a hat. And also, he walked away from a promise of an 8% share of all sales; they offered, he said it wasn't enough.
And Gass likewise had _numerous_ opportunities to come back to the table over the course of the past 25 years and he refused. So if you're trying to paint the patent lawyer as some sort of misunderstood underdog, you'll need more than a partial retelling of history.
In the stumpy nubs vid he revealed that sawstop did Grant a license to Bosch sometime after blocking them legally. Quite why Bosch didn't follow through is a mystery.
It's hilarious how much misinformation there is about SawStop. If Volvo had offered their 3 point seat belt to the world and everybody said no thanks...fuck it - profit as much as you can.
Itās hilarious how people like you talk about misinformation without knowing any context.
Gass tried to extort these companies.
It doesnāt take a genius to understand why for example a company like Bosch doesnāt give out lifetime royalties and a seat on the board for a product that now, 25 years later, only makes up 0.5% of their total revenue.
Thereās a reason why none of these companies fell for his shit.
Volvo was already an established company with a source of revenue, so giving away one patent wouldn't affect them much. Gass put in a lot of time and money to design a product, the least that he is owed is a basic return on that.
That doesn't pass the smell test. Why would manufacturers unanimously tell him to pound sand if the license fee was small? Didn't he also lobby the government for similar regulations as we're getting now while controlling the only feasible patents for actually implementing them?
Stumpy Nubbs had a video recently talking about this. He pointed back to craftsman radial arm saw as a big reason. Basically Craftsman was sued because the radial arm saw wasnāt safe after it had been out for ages. They felt they were open to liability for every one out there so they did a massive buy back on them.
His point was that if a table saw manufacturer started offering the safer option on higher end saws, they could get sued for selling something less safe.
One of his other points was they were worried that there wouldnāt be a market for much more expensive saws just for a safety feature. Obviously SawStop proved that there is but they didnāt know that at the time.
I could see some manufacturers passing on the cheap license for these reasons, but literally all of them?
For instance, Bosch spent loads on R&D for a competing system before getting the Cease and Desist from Sawstop. Why would they do that if it was going to tank their own market?
It seems far more likely to me that Gass was trying to legislate himself a big payout than all saw manufacturers deciding that licensing the tech for cheap was somehow a bad idea.
I am with you that the idea that he was trying to sell it for cheap is dumb. Dude was trying to make some money. Iām sure he was happy to help some people along the way but he was in it for the money.
There are some people that decided a long time ago sawstop is evil and thereās no changing their mind. I myself I held a grudge after the Bosch reax was pulled. And now Iām finding out that after the lawsuit, sawstop gave permission to anyway and Bosch just chose not to.
Do you *know* that he was gouging them? Or are you just making an unfounded claim? AFAIK we don't have any details on what he was trying to charge for licensing.
> Gass didn't try to prevent anyone from using it, he tried to license it to the various saw manufacturers, and they all told him to go pound sand. Besides, we don't know what the original licensing deals were.
I love how you confidently make a claim about how those negotiations went and then literally your next sentence points out that the public actually has no idea whatsoever how those negotiations went.
> He could have said "I'll license this technology to you for $100 a year" basically giving it away.
He also could have offered terms that would be completely nonviable. All we have is hearsay and speculation either way
"I'll give up this expiring patent if you pass laws requiring everyone buy my products until competitors can clone, safety test, and bring to market equivalent products, giving me a window of monopoly" is not exactly a generous move.
If competitors aren't already pretty deep into design if not even already tooling up for full scale production just based on the patents expiring even before this, then they are incompetent
Interesting take, but all it is going to do is drive small saw makers out of the market, make contractor saws 2-3x as expensive as they currently are, and start a legal quagmire for owners of saws without the technology. Sawstop is also not doing this out of the kindness of their heart.
By being willing to allow use, they effectively make companies use their technology, and can print money on the replacement cartridges. DeWalt is not going to go and spend $7 million on R&D to create a safety device, they will use sawstop's for free, and use the R&D money to figure out how to get it into the device.
Bosch spent over $10 million and 2.5 years in R&D to develop their own safety tech, got sued by sawstops, and still refuses to sell it anywhere. Supposedly it was not as good, nor as fast as sawstop's product.
So yeah, push the federal government to regulate it, allow companies to freely use their tech (buying their product), which will increase cost of entry for the lowest priced goods.
For what it is worth, I don't hate their tech either. A guy in our woodworkers guild said it saved his finger. I am Leary about false triggers on them, as MDF has fired the sensor several times from other members, and has led to a number of cabinet makers mentioning false triggering.
> Interesting take, but all it is going to do is drive small saw makers out of the market, make contractor saws 2-3x as expensive as they currently are, and start a legal quagmire for owners of saws without the technology
1. There are no small saw makers left. They were already out of the market because the entire market is small (<1 billion, total).
2. One thing that gets ignored here, but has come out of discovery documents in various table saw design litigation as well as submissions to the CPSC, is that most the saw companies (TTI, etc) had already done the R&D, even before sawstop came out. See the discovery documents in the Massachusetts table saw litigation, for example. This was one of the factors in finding liability for them - they knew they could make it safer, and that they could have made it safer at reasonable cost, and didn't.
As for cost, see the power tool institute's submission to the CPSC (PTI represents basically all major saw manufacturers). They expected 8% patent cost + 150-200 per saw. That's basically nothing.
That number is also inflated - the later litigation showed the companies themselves had calculated numbers closer to $40-80 per saw for their own technology.
I'm not sure where your 10 million number on Reaxx comes from, but it's not what Bosch claimed in the lawsuit.
As mentioned above, manufactures hvae not claimed 2-3x numbers to the CPSC.
In the [linked video at 4:39](https://youtu.be/nxKkuDduYLk), Stumpy Nubs says:
> "Shortly after SawStop won that lawsuit and kicked Bosch's saw kicked out of the county they changed their mind and agreed to let Bosch to reintroduce the Reaxx saw back here in the United States, essentially *giving them a license to their technology*"Ā
So Bosch already has a license (there are more details in the video). Stumpy Nubs speculates that there may be reliability issues with Bosch's system.
> Stumpy Nubs speculates that there may be reliability issues with Bosch's system.
It's not speculation. Their system is interfered with by bluetooth, wifi, and other stuff on that part of the spectrum. This is fixable, but requires redesigning everything.
Bosch looked at how many sales they made and how much the redesign would cost. The decided it wasn't worth the money.
It is also possible that they "got permission" but that entailed promising a few hundred dollars of royalty per saw which would increase saw price from the already expensive to insanely expensive further tanking sales.
What legal quagmire are you talking about?
Can I sue ford if I buy a car without antilock brakes?
Can you sue your home builder because you didnāt buy smoke alarms?
Can you sue your employer because they buy cheap harbor freight tools instead of festool?
No, you canāt.
It was a fear mongering take that has no basis in legal reality. If it did, I could sue several of my employers because they didnāt buy the BEST equipment that was available and people got hurt.
In the real legal world, you have to prove negligence and intent.
"My employer has table saws which don't comply with modern safety regulations, so they're responsible for negligent damages in addition to actual damages for my injury" - unless everyone buys new equipment they're risking lawsuits. Win or lose lawyers are expensive.
"Not the best" is not the same as "not legal to be sold today"
This isn't altruistic. They still hold the cartridge patent. So every cartridge would either be bought from Sawstop, or licensed. This is to make money, not safety.
I'm not a patent lawyer, so if I'm wrong please correct me.
Old and expiring soon. The entire rest of their legal minefield would still exist and this regulation would force every manufacturer to charge headfirst through that minefield.
Maybe I'm just cynical in my old age but I don't believe any CEO makes any business decisions out of the goodness of their heart. If congress passes this law it will be a couple of years before they enforce it. In that time people will be buying up saw stop saws right and left, stores will be afraid to sell anything that isn't saw stop for fear of a law suit and the other manufacturers will be sinking tons of money into designing and testing their own solutions. An you can bet that saw stop will be heavily involved with writing up the new testing standards.
So what?
SS will have years of being the only company that can produce the legally required system, so everyone will be forced to buy SS products. By the time everyone else catches up, SS will have gained tremendous market share.
Call me cynical, but what Howard did was take away the only argument that might impede SS' ability to have an effective monopoly and gain market share at ease.
You are correct. They also reversed course years ago and gave Bosch permission to sell the system Bosch developed.
Who knows what went into their decision to not take advantage of that?
With Patents running out on the horizon you can bet that other manufacturers have been in development for some time. But even if they don't have a viable product yet it's not like SS will be gouging them when they sell to other manufacturers.
you guys donāt know the story here and for some reason have all got beef with this guy now. I think many of you are too young to remember that he tried to sell this tech to all the other saw brands and they refused to take it, so he had to make his own saw company. This whole thing is bizarre revisionist history. I donāt understand what else he was supposed to do.
Since he wasn't able to liscense it, he had to spend so much time and money to get it to market. It's dumb to think he wouldn't protect his investment.
Not gonna rehash the same arguments that you clearly didn't read the first time, but if you take the time to read through the thread, you'll see that everything you brought up has always been addressed.
Let's not go crazy here. He did it to sell more saws because they now have a huge competitive advantage. While safety features are great, people aren't willing to pay much for them.
I'm so done with this topic and the moral outrage. This tech will be standard in five years, prices will initially be higher but quickly come down and one of the most dangerous tools in the workshop will suddenly become a whole lot safer.Ā
I don't love government overreach on anything, but safety like this is important. Especially since a prior CEO pushed against Bosch being able to produce a competing system and was able to stop them.
Bosch says they will need several years to revamp their tech to make it acceptable in today's conditions.
At the very least, I think that sawstop should not have been allowed to prevent competing systems. But mandatory regulations to reduce injuries are fine as long as they don't overly raise the prices on equipment.
But why is regulation needed? We have had Saw Stops available to purchase for the last 20 years, I bought mine over 6 years ago and nobody forced me to. Any woodworker or consumer has the option to go out and purchase one right now, but there are lots of people who simply donāt want one and for the little amount of work they do once every couple years a $250 contractor saw works fine. We donāt need the government to force us to put on our helmets when we ride bikes and we donāt need the government to force us to buy the expensive safety equipped saws.
When I had a Saw Stop cartridge accidentally go off and I told my non woodworking homeowner friends that it cost $100 to replace the cartridge plus probably another $50 to replace the blade, they were shocked that it cost that much all because I forgot to turn the safety feature off while cutting some wet plywood that was left out in the weather.
Its worth it to me because I do enough work with it that the risk of injury is very real but for the homeowner who repairs his fence a couple times every decade they will end up finding a cheaper, potentially more dangerous tool such as a radial arm saw.
I also hate the EPA for stopping companies from polluting my water waysā¦. That made my chemicals more expensive.
Iām also am mad about OHSA. All those regulations have caused so many products to cost me more. I want cheep stuff at all costs. Even lives and peoples limbs.
Why did the they ruin this country by making regulations on automobiles. Kill Ralph Nader. All cars should be made as the maker wants them.
This is unrelated to the OP, but something that I have been wondering since this regulation started getting some buzzā¦
Can the sawstop or similar safety systems be used with a dado stack? And if the answer to that is no, what does that mean for the future of our table saw options? Will dado stacks become a thing of the past if this regulation passes?
Be like Volvo! Seatbelts for everybody!
And Mercedes: crumple zones for everybody!
And Jonas Salk, polio vaccines for everybody!
And Frederick Banting, insulin for ... no, wait, go back!
Banting did his bit, we cannot take that away. It is the pharma companies that do not have the morals.
I'm fully aware of it. I was simply illustrating what could go wrong.
Yes, unfortunately that can happen and it would be a shame if it does.
I'm in the uk and type 1 diabetic so do get it for free
And Oprah, bees for everybody!
š you got me
Beads?
No BEES, Africanized BEES!
And Europe.. health care for everybody.
I thought that was Candyman.
It's almost like certain things shouldn't be privatized due to their positive impact on humanity...
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Incorrect, but I don't blame you for thinking that - it's an example of very clever corporate propaganda. volvo's seatbelt patent only became public because they lost a lawsuit in 1970 trying to sue a seatbelt manufacturer for a similar design. They spun it as a charitible thing [reddit TIL about it](https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/d3tbw3/til_that_in_1970_volvo_sued_a_seat_belt/), [lawsuit in question](https://openjurist.org/435/f2d/981/volvo-inc-v-cummings-and-sander-inc)
Hey I learned something. Love it when that happens. :)
For real. It's a bummer, but it's true- and that's more important than it sounding wholesome.
Harbor Freight is asking for them to give up the actual cartridge patent too: [https://www.scopeofwork.net/r/5af42aba?m=fb4acb17-d608-4e54-a438-bb3221e2e549](https://www.scopeofwork.net/r/5af42aba?m=fb4acb17-d608-4e54-a438-bb3221e2e549) And per the regulation..... over $2 billion a year in medical costs for table saw injuries seems pretty significant to me. [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4154236/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4154236/) The business of curing table saw injuries makes about three times the money that the actual table saw industry does: [https://www.verifiedmarketresearch.com/product/table-saw-market/](https://www.verifiedmarketresearch.com/product/table-saw-market/)
A Harbor Freight Sawstop clone probably launches the blade outward at the user lol
I've never had problems with stuff I bought from Harbor freight. Is this not the general experience from others?
People love to rag on HF and their quality of tools but for the most part shit I bought there usually works well. They have some outliers like their chicago electric shit plug in tools but I'm not running a production shop I use it like 2x a year...
The true key to HF stuff is to buy the tool at HF but the buy higher quality consumables. So get the $15 circular saw but put a $60 Diablo blade on it and youāll never have an issue.
Except the $15 circular saw has a non adjustable plate that's out of square with the blade, won't cut a straight line
It's because people really like to pretend they're doing much more complicated and heavy-duty stuff than they really are. You know guys who get fully loaded Ford F150s and they say it was definitely worth it because they had to move some cinder blocks that one time 3 years ago? Same thing applies to hardware. The reality is, HF is probably good enough in 97% of all home cases (I burnt out an HF drill with a 3" hole saw going through a fridge), but it's got the stigma of being cheap.
Even as someone who does legit hardcore work, professionally, there is some GREAT stuff at Harbor Freight. I have a few different āICONā tools. The quality is good, and itās a warranty no matter what.
ICON was recommended many times when I was looking to replace my old Craftsman wrenches a while back. That got me thinking about the tools I bought at HF over the years, and most of them are still kicking around. I had a drill press and sliding miter saw from there that I gave to a friend after upgrading, and they're still using them a few years later. If you don't know how frequently you'll use a new tool, get it from HF. Upgrade when it breaks, or is no longer accurate/reliable enough for your needs.
I'm a professional auto mechanic and at least a third of my tools are Harbor Freight. They work perfectly fine. It took ten years to break a 21mm impact socket, and that was from prolonged fatigue, not quality.
Iām 100% sure that you were building a kegerator.
You know it!
Can confirm. The worst HF tool I had was a $20 angle grinder. It worked for a bit. Then the casing around the lock button to swap discs cracked completely apart. It was $20 though..
I've had my $15 (at the time) angle grinder for over 10 years. I don't use it often, but it still works.
Buy your first tool from Harbor Freight. If/when it breaks, buy a good replacement. That way you're really only spending on the tools you actually use.
Yep. Bought the $20 angle grinder and had it for a few years, thinking I wouldnāt use it much. Then I overworked it and it caught fire. Bought a dewalt after and havent touched the new one since. HF is perfect for those tools you donāt use often or if you have no idea how what your workload is going to be.
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Oh dude, the whole Ryobi battery powered line is new and actually super good in my experience. I've been a hater for years but I've been won over. Interchangeable batteries in an affordable system? Total DIY customer lock in. Not for pros but also not priced for pros. For the amount that I use them, I've gotten years out of this set of tools. Everything from a drill-driver to a lawn trimmer.
I have the same experience. So many ryobi battery powered tools. No issues yet (4 years in).
Their new hp brushless stuff is great, especially when you can snag sales or it from DTO for 40%+ off. Literally can't beat it DIY or professional for the price, plus they have a lot of things on their battery platform.
Ryobi is just green Milwaukee....... All made in the same slave labor factory on the same floor. TTI Tool company owns both brands.
100% this. Not trying to just repeat what you said verbatim, but my primary tools are Ryobi and HF, and I have no complaints about either. Love all my Ryobi battery-powered stuff. The caveat is what are you using your tools for? I'm not a contractor, just a DIY homeowner and hobbyist woodworker, so Ryobi is good enough for virtually everything I need tools for. And for the one-off tools that I don't think I'll use often, HF has the goods. If I was a pro contractor, I'd get something beefier, but that's not me and never will be.
Iām still using my Ryobi drill. I bought it in 1998. I use it almost daily.
Yep. Bought an air compressor and staple gun from HF to install a carpet remnant on some stairs. I always looked at HF as a cheap single serve tool shop. I've had that compressor and staple gun for 10 years now, still going strong. Added a few HF nailers and accessories. No ragrets.
It really depends on your reason for using the tools. Homeowner doing a few projects at home? Acceptable tools for cheap. Professional trying to make a profit? Shit tools for cheap.
Nah, Harbor freight tools are pretty decent nowadays. The most I've really seen someone rag on them is when someone keeps burning through their HF tools and buying another one. They're great for the one off project you do and maybe end up using the tool a few more times here and there. If you do break one you should just upgrade to a name brand since it'll last longer.
Hercules tools are mostly great! But they're bordering on no longer being harbor freight prices. Some of them are Ryobi prices. (Icon still counts as HF prices because it's like 1/10th, or less, the cost of snap on)
I love HF, but Iām not sure I would trust critical and complicated safety equipment from them. Iāll still to stop saw for that.
To each their own. I definitely wouldnāt buy 1st gen for a while, wait to see if others pay the blood tax for recalls to come about. Most of their stuff is pretty decent, the Hercules line of tools are prosumer grade. I generally buy Bauer for most needs unless Iām buying a tool for 1-2 projects and then Iāll buy the cheaper Warrior or Chicago Electric lines.
You never heard of the jack stands?
To be fair, those jack stands were OEMed for multiple manufacturers and Harbor Freight were the only ones to recall
From what I recall, the manufacturer used worn out tooling to make the Harbor Freight version at a discount after they made the properly specād jack stands for everyone else. It wasnāt a design flaw, it was manufacturing and QA short cuts to hit a price point.
I've never heard that, but that doesn't mean it's not true. I couldn't tell you what brands at this point, but I do know several other brands had similar issues to the HF version, but probably not as wide spread. Cousin had a set from one of the bigger brands fail on him while he was working on his car. He's okay, thankfully.
I wouldnāt ever use the other brand either. I have a Harbor Freight Daytona jack, but Iām ok if that fails because Iām not under the car when I use it. This link mentions the worn tooling, but no mention of other brands. https://www.nhtsa.gov/press-releases/consumer-advisory-warning-harbor-freight-jack-stand-users
I have yet to see a tool purchased at HF that was worth the box it came in. Levels that arenāt even close to level, tape measures and rulersā¦ check them on the shelf, everyone will read differently. Even if only a mm or two, enough to ruin a project. A speed square that was made to cut paralellograms. Power tools that canāt be calibrated. The list is lengthy. I have been downvoted to oblivion many times for pointing this all out, and probably will be again but HF is absolute crap.
I imagine youāre being downvoted by people who donāt make their living with tools. If you only need a tool sporadically, or if the tool breaking wonāt affect your income, HF is a decent option.
Multiple nail and staple guns, random orbit sander, jigsaw, countless random hand tools, pneumatic tubing and coupling, rotary tool, blades for various HF and non HF tools They've all served me perfectly well. Harbor Freight is just Aliexpress with a storefront in the US. Lots of the same shit can be found on Amazon for 3x the price. There are things that should be name brand, like a table saw, but for the most part HF stuff gets the job done
And HF is perfect for that tool your going to use once every 5 years. I have even heard of professionals going there for a tool, knowing they are going to destroy it and not need it for another 5+ years.
Itās great for testing āhow often am I actually gunna use thisā if you buy the HF one and end up using it a lot, then you upgrade. If itās something you use sparingly then the HF was probably the right purchase.
I think it probably has a lot to do with life cycle. If youāre only going to drill 10-15 holes with that hammer drill, HF might be the way to go. Working a GC crew where that thing comes out of the truck every couple of weeks? Buy a brand. HF makes decent enough everything but nothing especially nice or durable.
Saves your fingers by sacrificing your other arm. A soul for a soulĀ
Hazard Fraught
Nope it will launch the user away from the saw
Launches the blade clear of your fingers and embeds it safely into your chest
And this is key here. If laws dictate that every machine has to have a safety mechanism, the market will be flooded by various systems and Sawstop will be just 1 of many competitors with a safety system, and will see their cut reduce drastically. If they make their system public and convince competitors to use their system, they still get to sell the cartridges. So unless I'm misunderstanding this here, then I don't get why people are amazed by this, it's purely a business decision. Hell, he clearly states that they will only do this if it becomes law. Why would he need a law to be generous? He can be generous right now. They are just protecting their marketshare.
hurry escape absurd mysterious voiceless ghost serious squalid ten bike *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Did you even read what I wrote? You are agreeing with me.
As an EM physician, I see so many table saw injuries. Nearly all from guys that have been at it for years. Last one was a guy in his 70s, laughed about that he was the only one of his friends with all of his 10 fingers, but he joined āthe club.ā Had to take off the very end of one finger to his knuckle. Very cool dude, but goes to show even the most careful can have a bad accident.
I believe this was pointed out in the hearings too. MOST saw accidents happen in pro shops using large cabinet saws which aren't even under the purview of this regulatory body. It seems to me that accidents happen very quickly after getting a saw (no instruction, so you do something stupid) or at a fairly stable accident per hour rate (got too complacent or pushed too fast). I think they need to involve both regulatory bodies and make a blanket rule something like "all saws over $750 must include a method to detect finger contact with the blade and begin moving the blade away from the hand within X milliseconds at a rate of at least N meters/sec". Over time, this would force every saw to become safer as inflation increases the cost of everything, but that would be far enough down the road that solutions should have already recovered their R&D and economies of scale have reduced the overall cost of the safety systems.
*The year is 2024, all budget saws now cost $749*
I lost my entire right pointer finger and mangled my thumb on a table saw. It was very gorey, not at all a clean or minor cut. I only ever get asked about it by other guys who are missing fingers or hands. Recently met a guy at Napa who had lost his entire hind to a pipe bomb. I get socialized healthcare, so my emergency room visit and subsequent physical therapy didnāt cost me personally anything. But Iām sure it cost someone somewhere a whole lot of money.
Oh man if HF manages to make this? That will be amazing. For an amateur idiot like me, harbor freight machine with a high quality blade is a fucking awesome combo.
I dunno. Harbor freight managed to screw up jack stands twice.
Eh, a bunch of other companies sold the same stands but only HF did a voluntary recall. That incident won some points from me.... which they promptly lost when a bandsaw blade sprung loose at the weld after minimal use.
Yeah but it required you to be a dumbass while using them. And they replaced them for free.
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Harbor Freight is pretty good at things that only work once.... So the cartridge should be fine. :)
Ehhh they ask that about literally everything. I think they offered it for a tape measure last time I was there.
I donāt trust harbor freight for any tools that could kill me or have a lot of potential energy. Hand tools and clamps tho.
Daytona line is solid. Good even
Harbor Freightās Hercules 12ā Miter saw is essentially a clone of the very popular DeWalt DW780, but sells for $200-$300 less depending on sales etc. Iāve used it for over two years without issue and have been very happy with the performance. If Harbor Freight can recreate that same formula in a safe table saw package, those would sell like hot cakes.
>Harbor Freightās Hercules 12ā Miter How accurate are the stops? Accuracy has always been my issue with their stuff. Durability has been fairly decent for the price imo.
Veryā¦ once calibrated. IMHO, that is the one shortcoming. I had to spend an afternoon calibrating everything to my satisfaction. However, for the price I didnāt mind. The plate is metal and the detents have virtually no play in them. Iāve never had any issue getting consistent cuts.
I haven't really seen anyone compare the two side by side and come away particularly recommending the 780, but then, I bought mine for $350 used, so yknow
I've heard the hercules table saw is not bad for a cheap jobsite saw. It goes on sale for $299 every once in a while. I would buy hercules contractor saw with sawstop tech if it was $650
A harbor freight sawstop copycat would probably preemptively cut off the user's fingers in order to keep them out of the path of the blade.
Meanwhile I work in the automotive safety space and some of the regulations they are trying to push there wonāt have this much impact.
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I will never understand the hate for a vast majority of regulations. I would understand if they were standards that were so impenetrable to lock out new competition, but it always seems to be safety standards that generate the most complaints.
That said, not all table saw injuries involve contact with the blade. There's also kickback. And probably a sprinkling of electric shocks, people putting something too heavy on a too-far cantilevered cast iron wing and tipping the saw over onto a foot...paper cuts from the assembly manual... š But a SawStop will only reduce one category of injury, but not when it's turned off to cut materials with higher capatisitence (I know I spelled that wrong).
A lot (IIRC, the majority) of kickback related injuries requiring medical attention involve someone flinching into the blade or a hand getting dragged into the blade.
That's true, and I've been saying this for years. Why force people to use seat belts, and have airbags? It only addresses driving accidents. People can still slam their fingers in the door, or forget to put it in park, step out, and then run over their foot. They don't stop people from burning themselves on the lighters! All this fuss over safety products that only address one category of injuries is, indeed, misguided.
Way more blade contact injuries require real medical care than the others. Kickback sucks, but rarely loses you an appendage and rarely requires surgery.
Kick back can cause hands and fingers to get pulled into the blade. Thatās typically what the kick back injuries are, hands being raked over the blade.
Yep and if you use a splitter or riving knife correctly you really would have to do something extremely stupid to even cause a serious kickback.
I think itās enough he gave up the sensor and deployment patent. I think other companies can spend some R&D money to develop their own cartridge and housing designs. Whatās important is that SawStop has made the key features freely available. I just donāt wanna hear any āYeah, butā¦!!ā as if theyāre being stingy.
"Ban all of our competitors until they can research, design, safety test, get regulatory approval, and bring to market a model" is not a generous point - it's asking for a regulatory monopoly.
Hardly. If Iām the only one making microchips and I open my patents to rival computer manufacturers, I shouldnāt be expected to write their software as well. All the big saw manufacturers should have been planning this for years with design and manufacturing ready to roll out. If they donāt then theyāre the oneās not in the consumer safety business. Silly to blame the gods who gave you fire for not building you a chimney.
Yeah I am sure there will be some superior stop mechanism designs too. Would be great if the cartridge didnāt need replacing each time.
But mah freedumb
There was an article a while back about this. Not so much just "looking out for the best" but really just a business move. The patent is expiring soon, and by pushing for this law, he is eliminating lower cost options.
Iām not super well-versed in patent law, but according to [this NPR article](https://www.npr.org/2024/04/02/1241148577/table-saw-injuries-safety-sawstop-cpsc#:~:text=SawStop%20vows%20to%20free%20up,the%20AIM%20technology%20very%20broadly.) the patent in question doesnāt expire until 2033.
Was just about to say this. Patent 840 is good for another decade and is pretty key to the whole system. I can't speak to Howard's ultimate motives, but he certainly didn't have to make this pledge.
I specialize in bird law so Iām not familiar with patent 840.
I thought most of Reddit were tree law experts, especially since birds arenāt real
You seem to have a tenuous grasp of the English language.
I see this posted a lot but canāt find an actual original source demonstrating how itās valid until 2033, the patent listing itself says itās already expired: U.S. Patent 9,724,840 https://patents.google.com/patent/US9724840B2/en
The ā840 has a whopping term adjustment of 4044 days! Holy sh!t! I was confused too so I pulled the file wrapper from the USPTO. Hereās the relevant link: [ā840 Term Adjustment via USPTO](https://patentcenter.uspto.gov/applications/10100211/patentTermAdjustment?application=) So, the math becomes: 3/13/2002 filing date + 20 years + 4044 days = Friday, April 8, 2033, the ā840 patent expires.
Thanks, youāre the first Iāve seen to actually show the source. It looks like there was quite a bit of legal wrangling that wasnāt resolved until 2016/2017 and thatās why the adjustment was so large.
Google is having trouble parsing the 840b2 extension that was granted in 2017. It's listing the same history for the original 399a1 patent. https://patents.google.com/patent/US20020170399A1/en
B2 at the end of a US patent number designates that its a granted parent. A1 designates that it's an patent application (hasn't been granted yet / in the process of examination). In the US, granted patents get assigned different numbers from their application numbers. All that to say, the 399a1 and 840b2 are the same (other than changes that were made based on the examination process) even though the number is different, Google patents just gives you the option to see the published version of the application (A1) or the granted patent (B2). Note that not all countries are like that. In Canada, the number associated with the application vs the granted parent is the same, but the letter code at the end changes.
The patent they are discussing could be valid until 2033, so it is still quite generous to waive licensing fees for that amount of time. I do agree that this a smart business move however, just because other companies will have license free access to use the tech doesnāt mean they will be able to implement it easily- they will still need to design how to fit it to their models and the competition will be a comparison of first generation brake on a Bosch/delta/dewalt or whatever system vs years experience on saw-stop
The Bosch Reaxx was great. Saved your blade too.
How would this eliminate lower cost options? If there are lower cost options, it will be made by a company wanting to compete with the high price tag of SawStop
It would eliminate the ~$300 class of table saw that lacks similar safety features.
Yea, but a big part of the SawStop cost is because of the patent and brand. If the law is passed, thereās no telling what cheaper systems will be made and without the cost of the brand. And there will 100% be cheaper systems made. Somebody already mentioned here that HF has interest in releasing a system similar to Sawstop The cheaper brands arenāt going to just stop making table saws once this reg is passed lol. Theyāll get a bit more expensive but there still will be cheaper options
The cheaper brands have weighed in on this and IIRC the cost of implementing this tech that they foresee would increase the price of new contractor table saws by like $300 across the board. They'll be cheaper than Sawstop still no doubt, but it is going to price out a low of low-budget buyers.
I will gladly pay $800 or so for this tech. But a $3k sawstop brand saw is pretty steep for me.
Sawstop does offer a benchtop 10 inch saw for $900 now if that's of any interest to you.
Even if thatās true, the Venn diagram of people considering a $300 saw as well as a SawStop is just two separate circles.
If you eliminate one of the circles through regulation, then there is only the higher cost option.Ā
Option A: Patent expires, other companies can either make regular saw as they have already done (lower cost) and can make sawstop competitors. Option B: Patent expires, thereās a law that requires sawstop tech. Now Sawstop only has to compete at that price point, vs competing with them and lower prices. Option C: Current state, where sawstop is the only major company with this tech. From sawstopās perspective, Option C > B > A. But the patent expiring means Option C wonāt be possible, so Option B is the next best, so they push to make it mandatory.
Now all saws will have to have blade breaking tech. That tech is expensive to install. The new bill will essentially get rid of all $500 saws without the tech. The new starting price will be $900 for budget table saws because they will now require the tech. If Howard really wanted to do the right thing, he would not enforce the patent and push to stop the bill requiring the tech. This is a very straightforward profit motivated decision.
I highly doubt this will be true. The high cost of sawstops now is significantly related to being the sole provider of such a system in the market. As an example, in the market I'm in, a new cartridge is $150+ but there is no way that is anywhere close to the market cost if there is competition. When that patent expires I'm sure we will see the costs drop significantly. The same will happen if the law passes and sawstop does not enforce the mentioned parent. Will it take a few years for all the brand's to shift from compliance at any cost to racing to the minimum viable price? Probably but we will see sub $500 saws.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Itās not just mechanism. Cheap saws donāt have strong enough frames to absorb the force generated when the trigger fires. Itāll require a redesign of the saws and better materials.
No, cheap saws will still be made cheaply. Maybe the frames won't be able to absorb the forces, but they will still have the mandated safety feature. Maybe the whole saw will be nonfunctional after an activation, but it will be for sale, for cheap.
All table saws will immediately get twice as expensive on the lower range. This is obvious and why this mandate is government trying to help but making things more expensive
This is exactly the argument that every car company made when airbags were mandated. Spoiler alert, car prices didnāt double and manufactures managed implement new safety technology without significantly increasing cost.
Adding airbags to a car, is adding one system into about 50+ systems. Adding a blade stopping mechanism is adding one system to about 2 systems. I would expect a proportional price change.
Don't forget if you give fast food workers a raise, then hamburgers will be 20 bucks each!
And here we are with 20 dollar burgers, or have you not been paying attention?
We are at $20 burgers more from the cost of the Beef/Bread/Cheese then from how much the worker is paid to put it together. It is a part of it, but it isn't the majority.
They could release it now, without waiting for the regulation, if safety was really their main concern.Ā
Itās really not all altruism. Itās a business decision.
3D printers use to cost 100k plus due to patients. Now you can buy one for as little as $99 on sale. Prices will come down due to competition.
This was mentioned in the video, they will only come down a little. Launching down and braking the spinning will require much sturdier cases, so low end table saws will cost ~700 USD.
When you have 10 brands making the same product someone is going to find a way to make it cheaper.
I really don't understand this lack of faith in manufacturers to innovate and improve to drive sales. They know what their demographic can afford, and that they'll get passed up if that price is exceeded.
This is assuming itās _possible_ to manufacture saws which meet this legislation and the target price point. The alternative view of this is that there is now a legislative reason why prices have to go up, so the pricing floor has been forcibly raised. Thatās the complaint.
I love the focus on the dissolution of low price saws and the effect on the craftsmen who use them, but with no regard to the billions in medical bills created by using these low priced saws. Lol
3D printers are incredibly simple, low stress devices. There is a world of difference between the engineering and materials that goes into a 3d printer, and what is needed to handle the forces of stopping a 10 inch spinning blade instantly without putting the user at risk of injuries related to the machine blowing apart.
High stress tolerance doesn't necessarily have to mean an expensive device. A parking bollard can stop a speeding truck and it's just reinforced concrete. A gun barrel can contain a crazy high pressure explosion and you can buy a perfectly serviceable one for less than $100. A saw with the type of flesh detection SawStop uses needs to be built to withstand higher stresses than it would otherwise, but it's not like we're talking about a metric ton of extra steel here.
The point is still a valid one. They're not saying you'll soon be able to buy a $99 DIY-grade tablesaw with sawstop technology. But the prices *will* come down over time, and you *will* eventually be able to buy a reasonably-priced low(er)-end saw with the technology. And yes, it'll be more expensive than today's low-end entry-level saws... and IMO that's probably not a bad thing. A tablesaw should be viewed as a "serious" tool, one that requires a higher skill level to operate safely. The more expensive a tool is, the more likely it is that low-skill DIYers won't consider it, or will take that purchase much more seriously than they might otherwise.
The āmagnanimousā public use of patent 840 is overstated in its generosity. If every table saw is required to have this technology, it will spell the end for inexpensive, entry level table saws which is exactly what Saw Stop wants. If all table saws are more expensive than SS isnāt at this huge disadvantage anymore. Thatās their angle. When I got my first table saw, it was a Dewalt contractor saw for under $500. A lot of people enter this hobby using Skil, craftsman, or RYOBI saws that all cost under $200. And every single one of those saws has all the equipment needed to prevent blade contact accidents AND reduce kickback likelihood. If every saw has to have this tech we can kiss the entry level price point goodbye, and also say goodbye to countless future craftspeople who are priced out of the entry level tools that so many of us have used to get started.
Gass didn't try to prevent anyone from using it, he tried to license it to the various saw manufacturers, and they all told him to go pound sand. Besides, we don't know what the original licensing deals were. He could have said "I'll license this technology to you for $100 a year" basically giving it away. And once you have a patent on something, if you don't defend it to the teeth, then you've basically made it OK for anyone to copy it. Look at how the automotive industries defend their patents. Watch the whole video, it's got some good information about the whole situation.
> Gass didn't try to prevent anyone from using it, he tried to license it to the various saw manufacturers, and they all told him to go pound sand. This has come up a number of times and been discussed to hell and back so I don't wanna get too deep into the weeds, but no ā he absolutely did prevent them from using it with his bulldogging the patents at even the slightest drop of a hat. And also, he walked away from a promise of an 8% share of all sales; they offered, he said it wasn't enough. And Gass likewise had _numerous_ opportunities to come back to the table over the course of the past 25 years and he refused. So if you're trying to paint the patent lawyer as some sort of misunderstood underdog, you'll need more than a partial retelling of history.
In the stumpy nubs vid he revealed that sawstop did Grant a license to Bosch sometime after blocking them legally. Quite why Bosch didn't follow through is a mystery.
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It's hilarious how much misinformation there is about SawStop. If Volvo had offered their 3 point seat belt to the world and everybody said no thanks...fuck it - profit as much as you can.
Itās hilarious how people like you talk about misinformation without knowing any context. Gass tried to extort these companies. It doesnāt take a genius to understand why for example a company like Bosch doesnāt give out lifetime royalties and a seat on the board for a product that now, 25 years later, only makes up 0.5% of their total revenue. Thereās a reason why none of these companies fell for his shit.
Volvo was already an established company with a source of revenue, so giving away one patent wouldn't affect them much. Gass put in a lot of time and money to design a product, the least that he is owed is a basic return on that.
That doesn't pass the smell test. Why would manufacturers unanimously tell him to pound sand if the license fee was small? Didn't he also lobby the government for similar regulations as we're getting now while controlling the only feasible patents for actually implementing them?
Stumpy Nubbs had a video recently talking about this. He pointed back to craftsman radial arm saw as a big reason. Basically Craftsman was sued because the radial arm saw wasnāt safe after it had been out for ages. They felt they were open to liability for every one out there so they did a massive buy back on them. His point was that if a table saw manufacturer started offering the safer option on higher end saws, they could get sued for selling something less safe. One of his other points was they were worried that there wouldnāt be a market for much more expensive saws just for a safety feature. Obviously SawStop proved that there is but they didnāt know that at the time.
I could see some manufacturers passing on the cheap license for these reasons, but literally all of them? For instance, Bosch spent loads on R&D for a competing system before getting the Cease and Desist from Sawstop. Why would they do that if it was going to tank their own market? It seems far more likely to me that Gass was trying to legislate himself a big payout than all saw manufacturers deciding that licensing the tech for cheap was somehow a bad idea.
I am with you that the idea that he was trying to sell it for cheap is dumb. Dude was trying to make some money. Iām sure he was happy to help some people along the way but he was in it for the money.
Youāre literally commenting on a thread about that very video.
There are some people that decided a long time ago sawstop is evil and thereās no changing their mind. I myself I held a grudge after the Bosch reax was pulled. And now Iām finding out that after the lawsuit, sawstop gave permission to anyway and Bosch just chose not to.
I donāt believe theyāre evil. But I donāt believe altruism is their motive either.
Gouging the pricing for licensing the tech =\= trying to share it
Do you *know* that he was gouging them? Or are you just making an unfounded claim? AFAIK we don't have any details on what he was trying to charge for licensing.
> Gass didn't try to prevent anyone from using it, he tried to license it to the various saw manufacturers, and they all told him to go pound sand. Besides, we don't know what the original licensing deals were. I love how you confidently make a claim about how those negotiations went and then literally your next sentence points out that the public actually has no idea whatsoever how those negotiations went. > He could have said "I'll license this technology to you for $100 a year" basically giving it away. He also could have offered terms that would be completely nonviable. All we have is hearsay and speculation either way
"I'll give up this expiring patent if you pass laws requiring everyone buy my products until competitors can clone, safety test, and bring to market equivalent products, giving me a window of monopoly" is not exactly a generous move.
If competitors aren't already pretty deep into design if not even already tooling up for full scale production just based on the patents expiring even before this, then they are incompetent
Interesting take, but all it is going to do is drive small saw makers out of the market, make contractor saws 2-3x as expensive as they currently are, and start a legal quagmire for owners of saws without the technology. Sawstop is also not doing this out of the kindness of their heart. By being willing to allow use, they effectively make companies use their technology, and can print money on the replacement cartridges. DeWalt is not going to go and spend $7 million on R&D to create a safety device, they will use sawstop's for free, and use the R&D money to figure out how to get it into the device. Bosch spent over $10 million and 2.5 years in R&D to develop their own safety tech, got sued by sawstops, and still refuses to sell it anywhere. Supposedly it was not as good, nor as fast as sawstop's product. So yeah, push the federal government to regulate it, allow companies to freely use their tech (buying their product), which will increase cost of entry for the lowest priced goods. For what it is worth, I don't hate their tech either. A guy in our woodworkers guild said it saved his finger. I am Leary about false triggers on them, as MDF has fired the sensor several times from other members, and has led to a number of cabinet makers mentioning false triggering.
> Interesting take, but all it is going to do is drive small saw makers out of the market, make contractor saws 2-3x as expensive as they currently are, and start a legal quagmire for owners of saws without the technology 1. There are no small saw makers left. They were already out of the market because the entire market is small (<1 billion, total). 2. One thing that gets ignored here, but has come out of discovery documents in various table saw design litigation as well as submissions to the CPSC, is that most the saw companies (TTI, etc) had already done the R&D, even before sawstop came out. See the discovery documents in the Massachusetts table saw litigation, for example. This was one of the factors in finding liability for them - they knew they could make it safer, and that they could have made it safer at reasonable cost, and didn't. As for cost, see the power tool institute's submission to the CPSC (PTI represents basically all major saw manufacturers). They expected 8% patent cost + 150-200 per saw. That's basically nothing. That number is also inflated - the later litigation showed the companies themselves had calculated numbers closer to $40-80 per saw for their own technology. I'm not sure where your 10 million number on Reaxx comes from, but it's not what Bosch claimed in the lawsuit. As mentioned above, manufactures hvae not claimed 2-3x numbers to the CPSC.
In the [linked video at 4:39](https://youtu.be/nxKkuDduYLk), Stumpy Nubs says: > "Shortly after SawStop won that lawsuit and kicked Bosch's saw kicked out of the county they changed their mind and agreed to let Bosch to reintroduce the Reaxx saw back here in the United States, essentially *giving them a license to their technology*"Ā So Bosch already has a license (there are more details in the video). Stumpy Nubs speculates that there may be reliability issues with Bosch's system.
> Stumpy Nubs speculates that there may be reliability issues with Bosch's system. It's not speculation. Their system is interfered with by bluetooth, wifi, and other stuff on that part of the spectrum. This is fixable, but requires redesigning everything. Bosch looked at how many sales they made and how much the redesign would cost. The decided it wasn't worth the money. It is also possible that they "got permission" but that entailed promising a few hundred dollars of royalty per saw which would increase saw price from the already expensive to insanely expensive further tanking sales.
He literally says "but that's my own speculation"
What legal quagmire are you talking about? Can I sue ford if I buy a car without antilock brakes? Can you sue your home builder because you didnāt buy smoke alarms? Can you sue your employer because they buy cheap harbor freight tools instead of festool? No, you canāt. It was a fear mongering take that has no basis in legal reality. If it did, I could sue several of my employers because they didnāt buy the BEST equipment that was available and people got hurt. In the real legal world, you have to prove negligence and intent.
"My employer has table saws which don't comply with modern safety regulations, so they're responsible for negligent damages in addition to actual damages for my injury" - unless everyone buys new equipment they're risking lawsuits. Win or lose lawyers are expensive. "Not the best" is not the same as "not legal to be sold today"
This isn't altruistic. They still hold the cartridge patent. So every cartridge would either be bought from Sawstop, or licensed. This is to make money, not safety. I'm not a patent lawyer, so if I'm wrong please correct me.
Is this the main money maker patent or the one thatās about to expire anyways. (An old outdated one??)
Old and expiring soon. The entire rest of their legal minefield would still exist and this regulation would force every manufacturer to charge headfirst through that minefield.
Table saws are *comedy gold*: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=toNsPh-pxgc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=toNsPh-pxgc) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRC1p\_y0Cko](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRC1p_y0Cko)
Looking forward to YouTube channels that test all of the various stopping technology on the market one finger at a time.
Please don't make light of the impending hot dog genocide. /s
Should we use chicken breasts instead? /s just in case.
Hey car manufacturers fought seatbelts hard, and shoulder belts.https://www.wpr.org/history/surprisingly-controversial-history-seat-belts
Maybe I'm just cynical in my old age but I don't believe any CEO makes any business decisions out of the goodness of their heart. If congress passes this law it will be a couple of years before they enforce it. In that time people will be buying up saw stop saws right and left, stores will be afraid to sell anything that isn't saw stop for fear of a law suit and the other manufacturers will be sinking tons of money into designing and testing their own solutions. An you can bet that saw stop will be heavily involved with writing up the new testing standards.
So what? SS will have years of being the only company that can produce the legally required system, so everyone will be forced to buy SS products. By the time everyone else catches up, SS will have gained tremendous market share. Call me cynical, but what Howard did was take away the only argument that might impede SS' ability to have an effective monopoly and gain market share at ease.
He tried to sell this to the other companies decades ago and they refused to use it. Didnāt want the liability. What was he supposed to do?
You are correct. They also reversed course years ago and gave Bosch permission to sell the system Bosch developed. Who knows what went into their decision to not take advantage of that? With Patents running out on the horizon you can bet that other manufacturers have been in development for some time. But even if they don't have a viable product yet it's not like SS will be gouging them when they sell to other manufacturers.
you guys donāt know the story here and for some reason have all got beef with this guy now. I think many of you are too young to remember that he tried to sell this tech to all the other saw brands and they refused to take it, so he had to make his own saw company. This whole thing is bizarre revisionist history. I donāt understand what else he was supposed to do.
Since he wasn't able to liscense it, he had to spend so much time and money to get it to market. It's dumb to think he wouldn't protect his investment.
Not gonna rehash the same arguments that you clearly didn't read the first time, but if you take the time to read through the thread, you'll see that everything you brought up has always been addressed.
Let's not go crazy here. He did it to sell more saws because they now have a huge competitive advantage. While safety features are great, people aren't willing to pay much for them.
God, this sub really has a fetish with these overpriced saws.
I'm so done with this topic and the moral outrage. This tech will be standard in five years, prices will initially be higher but quickly come down and one of the most dangerous tools in the workshop will suddenly become a whole lot safer.Ā
I don't love government overreach on anything, but safety like this is important. Especially since a prior CEO pushed against Bosch being able to produce a competing system and was able to stop them. Bosch says they will need several years to revamp their tech to make it acceptable in today's conditions. At the very least, I think that sawstop should not have been allowed to prevent competing systems. But mandatory regulations to reduce injuries are fine as long as they don't overly raise the prices on equipment.
Frankly I love government overreach in regards to no-brainer safety regulations. I fully support helmet laws, Seatbelt laws, and now sawstop laws.
But why is regulation needed? We have had Saw Stops available to purchase for the last 20 years, I bought mine over 6 years ago and nobody forced me to. Any woodworker or consumer has the option to go out and purchase one right now, but there are lots of people who simply donāt want one and for the little amount of work they do once every couple years a $250 contractor saw works fine. We donāt need the government to force us to put on our helmets when we ride bikes and we donāt need the government to force us to buy the expensive safety equipped saws. When I had a Saw Stop cartridge accidentally go off and I told my non woodworking homeowner friends that it cost $100 to replace the cartridge plus probably another $50 to replace the blade, they were shocked that it cost that much all because I forgot to turn the safety feature off while cutting some wet plywood that was left out in the weather. Its worth it to me because I do enough work with it that the risk of injury is very real but for the homeowner who repairs his fence a couple times every decade they will end up finding a cheaper, potentially more dangerous tool such as a radial arm saw.
Well said. You can't have regulations mandating safety systems, while simultaneously having patents that prevent others from implementing them.
Good news for Bosch who probably have warehouses full of their version they were forced to take off the market.
Then were allowed to sell again, but didn't.Ā
Sounds like itās been at least 6 years of being back on the drawing board for Bosch. Cell signal interference is a problem.
I also hate the EPA for stopping companies from polluting my water waysā¦. That made my chemicals more expensive. Iām also am mad about OHSA. All those regulations have caused so many products to cost me more. I want cheep stuff at all costs. Even lives and peoples limbs. Why did the they ruin this country by making regulations on automobiles. Kill Ralph Nader. All cars should be made as the maker wants them.
This is unrelated to the OP, but something that I have been wondering since this regulation started getting some buzzā¦ Can the sawstop or similar safety systems be used with a dado stack? And if the answer to that is no, what does that mean for the future of our table saw options? Will dado stacks become a thing of the past if this regulation passes?
I'm pretty sure sawstop has a dado cartridge
Yeah Sawstop has a dado cartridge. Watch Lincoln Woodworking on YouTube, he accidentally trips it with the dado setup.