Sawstop trigger

[Jack Frederick]

Yesterday I removed the dust collector hood to make a thin rip. Upon stopping the saw I move the fence to the right and reached to lift the insert to re-install the dust hood. I touched the blade and heard the cartridge fire. I have triggered the cartridge before with wet wood/metal but the blade drops below the table and it all happens in a hurry. Here the blade did not drop, the cartridge did lock up the blade but only about 1/16” so it didn’t eat the blade. I’m going to give SS a call tomorrow to discuss and I am not going to run my best blades until I figure out what happened. Anyone seen anything like this?

[Bob Falk]

yes, I did the same thing one time. I suspect you grounded the blade to the table with the riving knife or some other metal part, which triggered the cartridge. When it happened to me, my blade was fine. I suspect they don't get as damaged because they aren't spinning and likely the reason the blade didn't drop.....not enough momentum. It is designed to use the momentum of the spinning blade to drop below the table.

[Dave Fitzgerald]

I had an activation recently when I turned on the saw. The blade did not drop. The Sawstop tech reminded me that the energy to engage the blade and drop it below the table comes from the spinning blade itself, so that much of what you saw is as expected. In my case the problem was that tension for clamp holding the riving knife / blade guard was a little out of adjustment - an easy fix.

What concerns me in your situation is that the the brake fired when the motor was off, albeit powered. Blade contact in that situation should give you a warning light instead of a cartridge activation. I'd like to hear what the Sawstop folks tell you about that.

With a low-/ no-speed activation you may (or may not) still be able to use the blade, although SawStop will always tell you to toss it. There is a good tutorial on the Ridge Carbide site about assessing the condition of the blade following an activation. Worth the trouble if you have a costly blade; probably not worth the bother and risk if you were using a relatively cheap one.