THE TEST: SawStop provided us with a demo cartridge and we tested the SawStop on Thursday, January 13th.
I cut a variety of materials such as: wood, plywood, melamine, acrylic, mdf. etc. I enabled the bypass and cut aluminum, green treated and stapled pine. When in bypass mode you will get a code in flashing lights indicating whether the SawStop would have triggered. The lights indicated that the SawStop WOULD NOT have been triggered by cutting the green treated or the stapled pine, so I proceeded to cut them with the SawStop on.
I then got out the drumsticks and cut one in bypass mode. It's amazing how easy it is to cut through a drumstick, pretty gory and except for the lack of blood, not unlike a shop accident. I've always thought of doing this during shop orientations, but decided that it could encourage sophomoric actions (the last thing they need is encouragement).
I'd been asked by some rec.woodworkers to push the stock rapidly into the blade in order to get an idea how much damage would be done in the case of a slip or similar accident.
So to test the SawStop I jammed the drumstick into the blade nearly as fast is I could, the blade promptly disappeared and with virtually no resistance I proceeded to IMPALE the chicken leg onto the riving knife (oh the shame).
RESULTS: SawStop works: the blade definitely stopped and definitely dropped (observers indicated that this happened too fast to discern). Since the drumstick was impaled on the riving knife, I have NO IDEA, how much damage the drumstick sustained from the blade before it's encounter with the riving knife. As you can imagine this was a little embarrassing. Here we've spent $6000 on saws that "save fingers", and I've got a chicken leg skewered by a chunk of steel, not so impressive.
Coincidentally, the SawStop went off again the first time we tilted the blade as we had neglected to provide adequate clearance for the aluminum fence on the sliding table. DOH!!! Steven and/or David: any chance of getting a replacement brake cartridge for our whoops? Again observers were dumbfounded. Results: a tiny nick on the crosscutting fence.
I was expecting a significant jolt/vibration/lurch of the saw when the SawStop was triggered, but aside from a solid THUD and the "disappearance" of blade, there are little dramatics.
MORE IMPRESSIONS My initial impressions (inserted below) are still pretty valid.
These are very nice saws. They are smooth, quiet, and basically a pleasure to use, definitely comparable+ to a PM66. To date our students have had few problems making the switch from the unisaws. The riving knife is great!: easy to change, never in the way and effectively keeps stock going in a straight line. I sanded the gloss off of the extension tables and they are ok now. After 15-20 brake cartridge changes it is pretty second nature (this is just an issue of learning where the "locating pins" are). Arbor nuts/washers drop directly into the hose attached to the "dust shroud" we have enough suction to move the nuts to the most inaccessible part of the DC pipe. I suppose it's time for an access port. We LOVE the paddle switch, a machine has never been so easy to shut off. The "power disconnect switch" however is on the bottom back corner of the left side of the cabinet and is a pain to get to with the sliding table attached to the saw, oh well.
Now that SawStops are in service, I suspect it won't be long before Delta/Jet/Grizzly get sued (and lose) because they failed to provide such a system. Perhaps they will be beating a path to SawStop for licensing sooner rather than later. Let the market decide I suppose, should be interesting to watch.