Has anyone mounted a Wixey or iGauging remote digital gauge on a Sawstop. I have the ICS and would very much like to have a digital readout on my blade height.
[OP]
Contributor
Has anyone mounted a Wixey or iGauging remote digital gauge on a Sawstop. I have the ICS and would very much like to have a digital readout on my blade height.
Contributor
Use a seperate digital height gauge. I would not want anything potentially changing the conductivity of my ICS personally. I have never felt the need on my ICS to have digital readout though so what do I know.
Glad its my shop I am responsible for - I only have to make me happy.
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Having spent a couple hours inside one this past weekend helping a friend replace all the electronics and some mechanicals (long story of Craigslist woe) I would say its certainly doable. I'd put it somewhere up font near the elevation screw.
But...an above the table height gage would be a lot easier IMHO. And I wonder if blades don't have slightly different diameters?
Contributor
I am guessing you would zero it to the table surface so blade diameter would not matter.
Make sure to account for tilt clearence as well.
Glad its my shop I am responsible for - I only have to make me happy.
Member
It is easy to do blade tilt on most saws. But most blades swing an arc when they are raised and lowered, so you might need a carefully built linkage to make a height gauge work properly. You also need to decide if you want it to read tip height above the table, measured vertically, or slant height along the plane of a tilted blade. They will be different. Any non-manufacturer authorized modification would certainly void the warranty.
Last edited by Alan Schaffter; 07-01-2012 at 11:35 PM.
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Alan hit on two what I think are significant issues, the latter wouldn't bother me with my PM but it would with a SS...
Of all the laws Brandolini's may be the most universally true.
Deep thought for the day:
Your bandsaw weighs more when you leave the spring compressed instead of relieving the tension.
[OP]
Contributor
Alan's right on about the warranty. I wouldn't do anything without permission from SS until the warranty expires.
The Sawstop blade moves straight up and down. That's why a digital gauge is so tempting to me. I only want it for relative measurements. You guys are all correct about absolute measurement being a pain. I have a digital height gauge on my router table and only use it for relative measurements.
Have you looked at this web site for digital height gauge plans? http://gardnerswebsite.com/sawheight/index.html . There the guy uses a 3 axis accelerometer to interpolate the blade height from the tilt of the trunion. He claims accuracy to within .001". that's pretty darn good.
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I really couldn't tell what height was being read- perpendicular or slant. The slant height would be the amount of trunion movement, while the perpendicular height would be slant height times the sine of the tilt angle. Due to blade tip shape, you would need to zeroize for each tilt setting. To compute perpendicular height you need a small processor connected to the output from a height sensor and tilt sensor. It starts to get a bit complicated and expensive and therefore of questionable value when you can get one of these for about $20-
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