Close to a decade ago a clever inventor came up with a safety feature for power tools that could detect when a blade made contact with human flesh and instantly retract it to prevent injury. Unfortunately, it destroyed the tool in the process.
The SawStop technology was amazing, and probably life-saving, but it left a lot of people without saws. Bosch’s new REAXX Portable Jobsite Table Saw does the exact same thing, except that it can be reset to working order again in just 60 seconds.
The secret to the saw’s near-instant reaction time is an explosive cartridge that’s triggered when the saw blade detects the conductivity of human flesh. Sort of like how your smartphone’s display is able to detect your fingers. The blade is instantly retracted into the table saw preventing serious physical injury, but without warping, bending, or permanently damaging it in any way. And it has all the tools built-in needed to flip the two-shot cartridge around and get back to work in about 60 seconds.
The REAXX table saw also has a series of easy-to-understand LED warning lights letting the operator know if it’s safe to operate. And the flesh-detecting system can be temporarily de-activated when cutting conductive materials that might accidentally trigger it. It will be available in late 2015 for $US1500, and while there’s no word on how much the replacement cartridges will sell for, the fact that they actually exist is what’s important here. Because last we checked, finger replacements aren’t yet available.
[Bosch]
