Another example of extreme dogfooding: When the VT fuse (now known as the proximity fuse) was being developed during WWII there was some concern that duds would fall into the hands of the Germans who would then clone them for their own use (the Germans never did develop a usable VT fuse). To counter this the US engineers came up with a mechanism for sending false returns to the shells, causing them to detonate prematurely. Problem is, how do you test this? The only shells that were available were actual live shells, and there wasnāt time to manufacture some sort of custom practice shell that popped out a flag saying Bang when it was triggered (a standard blue inert shell wouldnāt trigger at all). So they sent up a B17 with the necessary radio gear in it and some engineers to control it, and fired live proximity-fused shells at it.
It provides a level of comfort that NO TABLE SAW USER SHOULD EVER HAVE
Actually you have a point there, thereās a well-established phenomenon called risk compensation in which people behave more dangerously when they know thereās less risk involved so that the average accident rate often stays constants before and after a new technology or safety measure is introduced (see e.g. Handbook of Risk). So this may not reduce the accident rate after all. Unfortunately thereās no way to tell in advance what the effect will be.
NOW you tell me about this blade stopping device! Where were you when I needed it? The interesting thing was how little time it took me to get back up to full typing speed with 9 fingersā¦
I have run one of my fingers through a table saw. Stupidly, I was cutting a piece of wood that was too small and should have been done on a bandsaw, scrollsaw, or some other piece of equipment that better deals with smaller workpieces.
Not much of a cut, but the pad of one of my index fingers was completely shredded. I bled like a stuck pig with a head wound.
The skin eventually closed, but I have an interesting fingerprint and scar tissue there as a reminder.
A few thoughts:
Itās expensive. And if it goes off, itās even more expensive.
Itās unnecessary. Safely used, my table saw has not hurt me.
It provides a level of comfort that NO TABLE SAW USER SHOULD EVER HAVE. The three-fingered shop teacher is right: some tools are very dangerous and should be treated with respect. Losing that respect because itās been rendered safe will only cause other problems.
(For example, kick-back. This does nothing to prevent that. Yes, there are guards for that but sometimes theyāre impractical and there are situations in which they donāt work.)
Going back to the 1960s, Charles Dalziel demonstrated his Ground Fault Circuit Interruptor (now built into every bathroom electrical outlet in the USA) by handing his young daugther a live 110VAC line connected to one and telling her to jump in the pool. If the GFCI didnāt do its job, sheād have been toast. Literally.
As I recall, the issue with this is liability (as usualā¦). The company would get sued into oblivion the first time that it didnāt work and that would be that.
By that reasoning, car manufacturers should stop adding safety features?
Actually, that did happen in the car industry. Seat belts were common in airplanes in the 30ās, but didnāt make it into cars until the late 50ās for that same reason.
To greatly the false positive problem, they could install a sensor a few centimeters in front of the blade, which would make a LOUD sound and cut off the power to the motor when activated. The sensor would use the same logic as the main sensor, it only would be a bit more sensitive. Obviously activating the āpre-alarmā sensor would not stop the main sensor from activating.
I have to say that most of the software I have written is entirely made up of dogfood because the tools I create are generally used by me or us or an adjunct team. I am therefore sometimes even using the tool for production use even while its in development.
The market for table saws is $200-400 million but they cause almost $4 billion in damage annually. Power tools companies arenāt liable for the damage, which is borne by individual users, workers comp, and the health system.