SawStop: Two Sizes of Brakes
George VondriskaDescription
SawStop’s brake technology is amazing, but you’ve got to make sure you’re using the right brake, depending on what diameter blade you have in. Once you see this video you’ll understand completely why it’s so important to change brakes when you change from a conventional blade to a dado head.
The question I've been asked a lot about SawStop saws, what's the deal with the two different brakes that you have to have, why isn't it just one-size-fits-all? I've got a conventional table saw blade in here in my SawStop right now and, of course, the saw unplugged so I can show you some stuff. Down at the bottom of the blade, look at the proximity to the brake. SawStop recommends that's about a thickness of a nickel down there. When I take this blade off and we look at switching to a dado head, this is all gonna make sense.
This, of course, is a 10-inch table saw blade. So, we'll pop that off. Now, if I switch to my 8-inch dado head and I'm just gonna put on the rim blade just so you can see what the diameter difference does. When the rim blade is on there and it's 8 inches instead of 10, the brake can't travel far enough to make up the difference between the radius of the 10-inch blade and the radius of the 8-inch blade. As a result, we need to do a brake swap.
And now, when I put my 8-inch blade on there, the distance from the blade to the brake is where we were at with the 10-inch blade and it's appropriate brake. The other things that noteworthy, is that the brake for the dado head is quite a bit wider 'cause typically dado heads are wider than conventional table saw blades. A couple different attributes going there. That's why we have to change those brakes when we go from a 10-inch to an 8-inch and it's also why this brake works for an 8-inch dado head but it wouldn't work for a 6-inch dado head where we'd have a further reduction in the radius of the blade. Just as a little side note, this is my friend Chester who likes living- oh he really likes it in the table saw.
And no, I don't really have rats in my saw, that was just for your viewing pleasure 'cause you can't take this stuff too seriously. So, hope you enjoyed that clip explaining the two different brakes 'cause them's the breaks about SawStop saws.
Noticed you're using a Dadonator . . . the SawStop technical folks have told me that this dado set is not recommended for use on my PCS because of the full-size chipper blades. Something about the extra mass of the full-sized chippers vs. 'wing-type' chippers (like the Freud SD-508) . . . I believe they said the brake would still work (pretty much as advertised, perhaps a fraction of a second slower to get to a full stop), but that the extra mass could also cause arbor damage if the brake is triggered. I know you're not Consumer Reports (meaning you probably haven't sacrificed a Dadonator/dado brake to test this out!) . . . but do you know anyone who has experienced the dado brake triggering with a Dadonator?