Folks,
Thought I'd report on this combo. Having two kids in college I bought the cheapest aligner (TS-Aligner Jr Lite - what a name!) from Ed to adjust my newish Rigid TS3650.
The TS book claimed a trunion error of under 0.015" is fine, and when I set the saw up it seemed to be better than that using a combination square. The TS-Aligner book says 0.005" is the goal. So I set the system up to take some data. The Aligner Jr Lite doesn't mount properly on the crummy miter guage that comes with the saw - it can't rest on the saw table, so I biased it up a half-inch using a precision 0.5" flat metal stock. After doing that the Aligner showed my trunion to be off 0.0065". I was astonished that the Aligner could repeat that measurement time after time. Sighing, thinking that the adjustment would be a hassle, I read the procedure. Turns out you loosen six bolts, and then move a little positioning lever. It took no more than
5 minutes to get the thing to 0.001" accuracy! And, again, the Aligner gave a repeatable readout every time I ran the test.One is supposed to align the fence visually and with a framing square to a miter slot. But the Aligner showed I had nearly 0.010" error, which was also easily corrected. Comparing the framing square to the precision square I also bought from Ed, I found that the big old Home Depot square is pretty unsquare. Over 8" it's off by 0.006", so I imagine that over it's 24" length it's off a lot.
For fun I checked the squareness of my old, cheap, Sears combination square and was surprised to find it spot on with no light visible between it and the precision square.
Anyway, though I bet the more expensive versions of the TS-Aligner are more convenient, I'm delighted with the Jr Lite, and plan to use it for other things, like checking prop shaft alignment on our sailboat.
As for the TS3650 which gets occasional reviews here, it's a wonderful saw that cuts with great accuracy. Other than the lousy miter guage, I highly recommend it.
Jack