Festool's Official Kapex Issue Announcement

[Brice Burrell]

Boy there are a lot of engineer's at FOG

Nah, just people that rightfully expect perfection for a saw that costs two to five TIMES the competition.  It's a shame that folks have had to disassemble their saws and diagnose what was wrong with them, rather than being told by the manufacturer that there were some issues and a batch of saws was released into their distribution channels that were built out of spec.

No one had to disassemble their saw to diagnose the problem, Festool knew about the issue and is sending out a replacement part to anyone with the problem. People were speculating what was causing the problem here for fun or out of curiosity, not because they had too.

 

[Steveo48]

.....what was causing the problem here for fun or out of curiosity, not because they had too.

I bet they took their mamma's toaster apart when they were a kid too!  ;D

I'm glad I'm past that part of my life! :

Steve

 

[Brad Evans]

>>> I bet they took their mamma's toaster apart when they were a kid too!  I'm glad I'm past that part of my life!

+1 on that!  In the mid '70s I rebuilt the engine and transmission in my Datsun 510.  Also installed racing suspension; springs, struts, bars, and adjustable eccentric Delrin bushings to dial-in camber.

Wish I had time for that now.  Today I have to settle with fuzzy dice from the mirror and a bobble head Chihuahua in the back for serious mods...

 

[Frank-Jan]

4% failure rate?  That must be new math! ;D

Kapex math baby!  91.075% Dust Extraction  
[/quote]

Didn't you know that 89.63% of statistics are made up on the spot?

Sorry, for the non-constructive attempt of humor on my part. I do feel for the people that are affected by this problem, and hope the issue will be resolved soon.

 

[Tinker]

i hope it does not come across that i was talking down to anyone. Being an ME and not a craftsman but one who l loves wood working, i find myself at a loss in the area of vocabulary in this forum, it seems all the time. i find myself looking up words all the time so i can keep up with all of you guys. I also do not what to imply that  the observations and deductions about the kapex are wrong. Indeed you all my be right. if i do spout any techo engineering babble let me know, it is not intentional but usually out of laziness as it is what comes out of my mouth at work.  it should be noted that it is easier to do the math and draw blueprints, than to build the real thing, as the machinists in the lab tell me all of the time, as they throw my amazing(in my own mind) non-buildable drawings back on my desk. When i see what has to be done to turn them into reality i have to agree.  So if anyone feels like throwing a wet sock at me from time to time please do so as i am the novice in your world.

Years ago, i had a friend who was a construction foreman for a large homebuilding company.  he told me they had something like a dozen or so architects on the payroll.  Every architect had to spend six weeks EVERY year out working on the job at the trades of their specialty.  the object was to learn about the mistooks they were making at the drawing board.

not a bad plan.
Tinker

 

[tallgrass]

it is funny you mention working on the job site. there is no door to my office from lab floor for that very reason. it is easy to isolate yourself from the processes. i actually prefer a close working relationship with the machinists and fab guys. if we do not work together it causes problems.  all this talk of process makes me wonder what the festool process is. considering the problem with the kapex,has anyone had any experience with the festool design process? i would love to know what their design goals were, it would be nice to chat with there designers about the kapex.

 

[Ted Miller]

Years ago, i had a friend who was a construction foreman for a large homebuilding company.  he told me they had something like a dozen or so architects on the payroll.  Every architect had to spend six weeks EVERY year out working on the job at the trades of their specialty.  the object was to learn about the mistooks they were making at the drawing board.

not a bad plan.
Tinker

OT, I was working on a roof over a three story breakfast nook years back, the roof had 9 sets of jacks and the overhang and facia was not meeting up like it should as to the plans. So the architect came out the next day and in front of the home owner and myslef look at the plan and said, "it worked here on paper, not sure why you can get it right", I kid you not. So I took off my pouch and handed it to him with my hammer and said, "you make it work with wood then".

I do hope all the problems with the Kapex are taken care off soon, one is on my list...

 

[Jerry Work]

At one of the Festool USA grand opening events a senior Festool Germany manager gave a presentation on their tool research, design, development and testing processes.  The level of detail and the standards employed are most impressive.  There appeared to be a very close working relationship between the designers and the production staff and they keep rigid records on a large number of parameters during production so they can track if and when something is running out of tolerance. He showed examples of the design goals book that is the first thing prepared for each new tool and that looked to be very complete down to the details on how to measure quality on all the important parameters before they ever begin the design process.  Having been in technical fields in the first half of my career I saw a lot of the seven sigma quality stuff that helped a number of companies become globally competitive, but what I took away from that presentation is that Festool is as good at that game as anyone with whom I have had experience.  My guess is that the Kapex lock/scraping issue likely caught everyone by surprise and they are being very thorough in their root cause analysis before announcing an official fix.  Continuous improvement engineering driven companies are like that.

Jerry

it is funny you mention working on the job site. there is no door to my office from lab floor for that very reason. it is easy to isolate yourself from the processes. i actually prefer a close working relationship with the machinists and fab guys. if we do not work together it causes problems.  all this talk of process makes me wonder what the festool process is. considering the problem with the kapex,has anyone had any experience with the festool design process? i would love to know what their design goals were, it would be nice to chat with there designers about the kapex.

 

[Brad Evans]

Like many companies, I suspect they rely on outside vendors for fabrication of many parts.  Perhaps their process for incoming parts inspection needs to be improved.  Total speculation on my part...

 

[greg mann]

Brad could be right. Or, even if done in-house, the problem could still be missed. Usually, when a problem like this occurs around our neck of the woods we find there was a series of cascading events, any one of which doesn't happen and we escape unscathed.

The plate in question is a stamped part. The detents are either coined in or ground in . I haven't looked close enough to know for sure. Either way, a stamping can (will?) have residual stresses much like wood can exhibit. Sometimes, when we rip a board we get unwanted movement. If the detents were coined on the opposite side of a coil from a previous batch it could set up a different reaction when the part is flexed. This is speculation on one possible cause out of maybe a dozen or so. A failure of this sort is not necessarily that easy to track down by way of serial numbers. Lets assume this was a part farmed out and the supplier changed his process slightly without keeping track of lots and without telling Festool. Things like that happen far more often that we would like to think and on products far more deeply engineered than miter saws. I have no doubt that Jerry is correct about Festool designing to specific performance goals am willing to bet this issue (clearance) was addressed somewhere in a design FMEA, but sometimes these things can go unanticipated, only to show up long after the fact. Root cause analysis is also something that must be done carefully so that wrong conclusions are not made.

I don't always agree with Rick but we have both amde the observation about German engineering tendencies toward minimum clearance tolerancing. I think this is one time where it has bitten them.

 

[bruegf]

Engineers create the designs - technicians figure out how to make work inspite of the design

Fred

 

[tallgrass]

Engineers create the designs - technicians figure out how to make work inspite of the design
........

 

[tallgrass]

  ;D

 

[Michael Kellough]

German engineering tendencies toward minimum clearance tolerancing. I think this is one time where it has bitten them.

I used to do mechanical effects for films.
We had to both design and build our stuff.

The golden rule I learned doing that is this,

If you can't make it perfect, make it adjustable.

 

[Tony M]

German engineering tendencies toward minimum clearance tolerancing. I think this is one time where it has bitten them.

I used to do mechanical effects for films.
We had to both design and build our stuff.

The golden rule I learned doing that is this,

If you can't make it perfect, make it adjustable.

I'll have to keep that one in the arsenal!

 

[monte]

You could always make wrapping paper,  wallpaper,  screensaver, Festool post-its with it. (green type on a lighter green paper)

If you can't make it perfect, make it adjustable.If you can't make it perfect, make it adjustable.
If you can't make it perfect, make it adjustable.If you can't make it perfect, make it adjustable.
If you can't make it perfect, make it adjustable.If you can't make it perfect, make it adjustable.
If you can't make it perfect, make it adjustable.If you can't make it perfect, make it adjustable.
If you can't make it perfect, make it adjustable.If you can't make it perfect, make it adjustable.
If you can't make it perfect, make it adjustable.If you can't make it perfect, make it adjustable.
If you can't make it perfect, make it adjustable.If you can't make it perfect, make it adjustable.
If you can't make it perfect, make it adjustable.If you can't make it perfect, make it adjustable.
If you can't make it perfect, make it adjustable.If you can't make it perfect, make it adjustable.
If you can't make it perfect, make it adjustable.If you can't make it perfect, make it adjustable.
If you can't make it perfect, make it adjustable.If you can't make it perfect, make it adjustable.
If you can't make it perfect, make it adjustable.If you can't make it perfect, make it adjustable.
If you can't make it perfect, make it adjustable.If you can't make it perfect, make it adjustable.
If you can't make it perfect, make it adjustable.If you can't make it perfect, make it adjustable.
If you can't make it perfect, make it adjustable.If you can't make it perfect, make it adjustable.
If you can't make it perfect, make it adjustable.If you can't make it perfect, make it adjustable.
If you can't make it perfect, make it adjustable.If you can't make it perfect, make it adjustable.
If you can't make it perfect, make it adjustable.If you can't make it perfect, make it adjustable.