SolidWorks helps design safe table saw
SolidWorks Corp. said today that an Oregon company has used its design software to make a table saw that "only cuts wood - not fingers."
With offices in Concord, SolidWorks develops and markets software for design, analysis, and product data management.
According to SolidWorks, one of its customers, SawStop LLC of Oregon, has invented a table saw that immediately retracts the blade when it touches a finger.
As SolidWorks tells the story, lifelong woodworker Steve Gass applied his doctorate in physics to design a saw that runs with a small electrical current on the blade; when the blade touches something that conducts electrical current, such as a finger, the current drops and engages a brake.
"As the blade's teeth sink into the brake, the momentum forces the blade to drop below the table," the SolidWorks press release noted. "The entire process takes only a three milliseconds, which is a fraction of the time it takes to blink your eye."
SolidWorks is part of Dassault Systemes S.A., a French company.
(By Chris Reidy, Globe staff)
