students in the BASTLI lab at the Swiss federal Institute of technology Zurich had been stuck using underpowered and unreliable saws for quite some time. The saws typically got stuck while cutting through PCBs and were generally a drag to use. When group member [Mario Mauerer] came across a big and powerful brushless motor in his basement, he decided it was time to upgrade the lab’s cutting tools.
Along with fellow student [Lukas Schrittwieser] he built a test rig to see how powerful the motor really was, and satisfied with the results, the pair set off to build their own table saw. The enclosure was wrapped up pretty quickly, leaving the pair to source a power supply. rather than purchase one, they built a 700w monster switching PSU to power their saw.
As you can see in the video below the saw chews through most things with the greatest of ease, but the students added a “boost button” to the saw just in case they need to run it at full tilt.
While we can’t exactly overlook the lack of finger and eye protection in their demonstration, it does look like a terrific little tool to have around.
