Noisy SawStop?

[Brian Penning]

I am going to contact SS cust. service later but was curious if any other owners have the same occurrence.
When quickly turning the elevation wheel to lower the blade below the table I keep getting this weird, fairly loud noise. It's not a squeaky sound but as if the there's a bit of backlash or looseness somewhere. I can also "feel" the noise in the handwheel itself. The handwheel turns effortlessly -maybe almost too easily?
I've lubed everywhere to no avail.
Also, the noise doesn't happen when the blade is tilted over to 45° and lowered.
Believe it or not this is the second SS to do this.
The saw itself works great but the noise is driving me nuts and when I demo the saw to folks I try and avoid raising and lowering the blade.

[David Giles]

Mine will emit a squeak / screech at a certain point in the blade lowering process, but I've attributed that to insufficient lubrication. A thorough cleaning and waxing is past due.

I did lose the arbor drive belt. A cutoff must have gotten stuck and eroded it.

[Roy Wall]

Brian-

Try adjusting the 4" DC Flex Hose underneath........sometimes the "ribs" catch here and there. As you raise and lower the blade, it moves with it...and can make a weird racket!!

[Joe Jensen]

Mine makes that noise too. I always assumed it was a lubrication thing and never worried about it beause it moves so easy. I think mine has always done this. Is it new for yours? You can tell them there is absolutely at least one more doing the same thing as yours...joe

[jason lambert]

I know this is no help but I do not have that issue mind is smooth and quiet.

[Dan Lee]

I had a sort of a grinding noise with when raising the blade, but oddly not lowering.
SS sent me new miter gears took about 3 sets to solve it.

I think they were switching from straight teeth to serpentine teeth on the gears, atleast I ended up with serpentine

[Joe Jensen]

I had a sort of a grinding noise with when raising the blade, but oddly not lowering.
SS sent me new miter gears took about 3 sets to solve it.

I think they were switching from straight teeth to serpentine teeth on the gears, atleast I ended up with serpentine

Did you have to remove the top to replace the gears?

[Dan Lee]

Did you have to remove the top to replace the gears?

No there 'accessable' from the right side door. It was kinda difficult to work on and get 2 hands in there.

BTW There is some adjustment to the gears meshing together the SS tech had me try first.

[Mark Singer]

Mine does it as well. I never considered it a serious problem. It would be nicer if it was silent though

[Dan Lee]

Mine does it as well. I never considered it a serious problem. It would be nicer if it was silent though

In retrospect I agree it was more of a cosmetic kinda thing that didn't effect performance at all. In fact I never really noticed it until I saw it brought up on SMC early last year when my saw was new

The SS folks were totally committed to resolving it though they offered to send a tech out which I was going to take them up on if the 3rd set of gears hadn't of fixed it

[Kevin Groenke]

Yep, it's annoying.

Tried all sorts of cleaning, waxing, dry-lubing, new helical miters on one saw. The nature of the noise changes, but I cannot get it to go away completely.

Fortunately not a functional issue, just annoying.

-kg

[Rick Gifford]

I havent tested for this noise. My SS is brand new and only got setup a few days ago. I'll check it out and see if its something they have fixed. Not a guarantee of course, but if it makes the same noise we'll know its ongoing.

[Brian Penning]

The noise was one of the reasons my 1st saw was returned. When I got the replacement a couple of months ago there was no noise at all. Now it's back.
Feel somewhat better that I'm not the only one.
I suspect the fact that it doesn't happen when the blade is tilted has to be a clue.

[Kim Spence]

Mine too makes this noise. Didn't do it when new, now 1 year old it does. Doesn't really bother me. I suspect its due to the design of the raise/lower mechanism; It goes straight up and down instead of pivoting around some point like a Unisaw. I went through and cleaned out the cabinet and lubed everything a few weeks ago and still does it.

[Brian Penning]

Well as usual got a nice response from SawStop Tech Service(Tony). They have heard of the problem but rarely.
Told me to liberally WD40(I used Breakfree) the black elevation rod screw(with the acme thread) that's connected to the gears. I could get to it from the motor cover side. This will flush out some of the sawdust that accumulates. Then raise and lower the blade a few times.
It worked for me -noise is now gone.

Low

[Greg Cole]

I had a sort of a grinding noise with when raising the blade, but oddly not lowering. SS sent me new miter gears took about 3 sets to solve it.
FWIW, mitered gears tend to be noisy. With the slow RPMs of the gears for the blade height adjustment, it shouldn't be much of a racket.
In case you've ever wondered why a vehicle transmission makes much more noise in reverse than forward, now ya know. ;)
Nice to see SS service is as good as the machinery.

Greg

[Ben Grunow]

I suspect sawdust build up as the cause (mine moans when lowering) as it did not do it when new, only after the build up.

Just think about other things when lowering.

[Rick Gifford]

Check mine, no noise. Thanks to this thread I'll keep a watch on it.

[Roger Bull]

Mine does it too. Only when lowering the blade and going fast. If I slow down the noise stops. Also, it seems to only occur in the middle portion of the travel down.

It is a little embarassing to demo a really nice saw for someone and then have them notice that sound.

I will try the fix Brian mentioned. Mine has been there from day 1 so I am not optimistic that it is just sawdust.

-Roger

[Joe Jensen]

Mine does it too. Only when lowering the blade and going fast. If I slow down the noise stops. Also, it seems to only occur in the middle portion of the travel down.

It is a little embarassing to demo a really nice saw for someone and then have them notice that sound.

I will try the fix Brian mentioned. Mine has been there from day 1 so I am not optimistic that it is just sawdust.

-Roger

This is exactly how mine behaves. Moaning is the best way to describe the sound. Mine is only when lowering fast, and only in the middle of the range of travel...joe

[Hans Braul]

For what it's worth, I have the same problem on my General 350. Tried lubing, cleaning etc. I just put it down to an annoyance I can live with.

[Bryan Cowing]

Maybe it's stomach is hungry! Better throw it a wiener!:D

[Mike SoRelle]

This is exactly how mine behaves. Moaning is the best way to describe the sound. Mine is only when lowering fast, and only in the middle of the range of travel...joe


Moaning huh? I know people you love their SawStops, but there are limits you know! :eek: :D


Mike

[Anthony Anderson]

Got my SawStop in March or April of last year, and mine was made a pretty bad "clicking" noise when elevating, but not as bad when lowering, but still noticeable. I found it annoying, and knew that if my previous Craftsman contractor saw didn't do this, then SawStop definately should not make this noise. It was the elevation miter gears. At the time Sawstop had me to lube/WD-40 the gears as well. I even removed and installed the gears three or four times to see if I could find what was causing the noise. I tried to remesh the gears three or four times. SawStop sent me a replacement pair of the standard gears to replace, but those made the noise as well. At the time SawStop had just redesigned the elevation miter gears, and instead of having straight miter gears, they went to a spiral miter gear. After about a week of trying to solve the problem, and the potential fixes, SawStop mailed me a new set of the redesigned gears, from Taiwan, and there is absolutely no noise from the elevation now. The problem was that some of the straight/original miter gears did not mesh together properly, the new redesigned gears solved the problem. I am extremely happy with SawStop customer service and my SawStop. HTH, Bill

[Brian Penning]

Got my SawStop in March or April of last year, and mine was made a pretty bad "clicking" noise when elevating, but not as bad when lowering, but still noticeable. I found it annoying, and knew that if my previous Craftsman contractor saw didn't do this, then SawStop definately should not make this noise. It was the elevation miter gears. At the time Sawstop had me to lube/WD-40 the gears as well. I even removed and installed the gears three or four times to see if I could find what was causing the noise. I tried to remesh the gears three or four times. SawStop sent me a replacement pair of the standard gears to replace, but those made the noise as well. At the time SawStop had just redesigned the elevation miter gears, and instead of having straight miter gears, they went to a spiral miter gear. After about a week of trying to solve the problem, and the potential fixes, SawStop mailed me a new set of the redesigned gears, from Taiwan, and there is absolutely no noise from the elevation now. The problem was that some of the straight/original miter gears did not mesh together properly, the new redesigned gears solved the problem. I am extremely happy with SawStop customer service and my SawStop. HTH, Bill

Yeah, the 1st question the tech at SS asked me was which type of gears were on my saw. I had the helical so the WD40 to the elevation rod was the next step and it took care of the noise.

[Kevin Groenke]

Now you've all got me obsessing about this again.

I am 99% certain it is not the miter gears, the noise did not change significantly when we switched to the helical gears.

I've turned the handwheel and horizontal shaft with the miter gear removed and its all but free of noise/resistance.

My primary suspect is the thrust bearings on the elevation adjustment acme screw. These thrust bearings are housed in the casting directly above the vertically oriented miter gear. These are a bear to remove and even harder to put back, I took them out, cleaned and lubed them on one of our saws and the noise actually got louder. These are an unusual bearing consisting of a top and bottom plate with balls in a race between them, there are no seals what-so-ever. I think the bearings are vibrating a bit and the casting is amplifying the vibration somehow. The bearings are under load when the arbor is being raised and when it's tilted so they don't vibrate.

I may dig into this again this weekend, I'll report back if I'm able to affect any change. I am going to start by removing the gas shock, if that changes the load on the bearing, the noise will at least change.

-kg

[Steve Gass]

Depending on whether you are hearing a moan or a chatter, the noise you are hearing could is probably coming from vibration in the threaded rod that raises and lowers the elevation assembly or some chattering in the rear guide shaft in the elevation mechanism.

The elevation on the saw moves up and down on two shafts - a large support shaft at the front and a small guide shaft at the back. Because there is almost no load on the rear shaft, any drag can cause it to chatter little as it slides.

There are two things that can cause drag in the rear shaft. The first is sawdust or any other type of dirt in the bronze bushing. The other is that the bronze bushing is a spherical bushing and should be free to rotate in its housing to align with the shaft. If the bushing doesn't rotate freely, it can cause enough drag on the shaft to cause the elevation to chatter slightly as the elevation is lowered. So, start by cleaning and relubricating the the rear shaft if you are seeing any chattering as the blade is lowered.

If the noise is more of a moan, it is probably vibration in the elevation threaded rod sliding in the cast iron elevation as the shaft turns. Cleaning and applying a fresh coating of grease to the threaded rod seems to clear this right up.

Steve Gass, President
SawStop, LLC

[Ben Grunow]

Nice to hear from SS on this one. I'll look into that. Thanks Steve.

Ben

[Don Bullock]

Now I'll have to go out and check mine for the noise. Thank you to Mr. Gass for stepping in and letting us know what areas may be causing the noise. Are the two things you mentioned going to be areas of concern over time? Will the drag on the shaft by the bronze bushing or the vibration in the elevation threaded rod cause premature wear and eventually need to be replaced? :confused:

[Steve Gass]

Don,

I guess only time will tell for sure, but I don't think either source of vibration is going to cause a wear problem. The number of cycles that any given elevation mechanism is going to see is tiny compared to the expected lifetime of the bushing or the threaded rod. However, just for peice of mind, I'd probably try and keep them lubricated so the noise wasn't there.

Steve