Where is my CMS router table?

[Christian93117]

Richard,

Thanks for your question. It is required by our product liability insurance.

Christian

 

[WarnerConstCo.]

You guys really didn't know that the UL was all about insurance, lawyers and politics?

It is a way to cya.

Thanks for the informative posts Christian.

 

[graphex]

I, for one, really appreciate your transparency, Christian. I personally think that the more transparency the better, especially when it comes to standards-setting/compliance organizations like UL. I'm also a pot-stirrer. To that extent I decided to ping UL directly to get a little bit of their side of things:

Here is what I sent to them (yep, I'm a pot-stirrer):

Inquiry Details or Comments: I'm waiting for a router table product called the CMS system from the German company Festool to become available in the United States (versions of this router table are currently available in Europe and other areas). I've heard that UL is a major obstacle preventing this product's availability in the United States, and am curious as to why this might be. I don't really understand how UL works, or why it is in the position of being the arbiter of safety for the entire US, but I've been waiting for this product to come to the United States for years and have heard that UL is blocking it from being available. Based on a number of high-quality products I own from Festool, this product's availability elsewhere, and reports from users of this product, I can't imagine there is a legitimate safety concern that necessitates blocking its availability to US customers. Frankly, it puts an evil face on UL for me, pushing me to use other tools which I feel have less quality and obviously worse safety. My concern is that UL is arbitrarily setting tool use methodology requirements based on tradition and not true safety and I encourage you to think carefully about the chilling effect arbitrary rules can have on innovative products in the United States.

And just a few hours later I got a remarkably not-too-much-of-a-form-letter response:

Dear Mr. McKibben,

Thank you for your questions and interest in Underwriters Laboratories (UL).

UL is a company that evaluates products to established UL Standard for Safety and if we find the product complies with the applicable requirements, the product is eligible to bear the UL Listing Mark.  We do not prevent any company from bringing products to market.  If Festool wants to mark their product with the UL Mark (or any other's safety agency's Mark) all they need to do is open a project and have the product evaluated for compliance with the Standard for Safety. 

UL Standards are not just documents that UL writes and companies have to comply with.  UL Standard for Safety are developed by Standards Technical Panels (STP) that represents a cross-section of stakeholders affected by the product's manufacture, sales and use.  These STP would include Producers, Testing Organizations, Supply Chain representatives, Code Authorities, Government Officials, Consumers, Commercial/Industrial Users and International Delegates.  The STP decides what is "safe" and works to keep up Standards current with changes in product designs.  Standard requirements are not arbitrary, but rather decisions based on bringing experts together to keep the user safe.  We work closely with the US Consumer Product Safety Commission to ensure we have up to date information on accidents to ensure the safety addresses risks associated with products.

In addition, there is nothing preventing Festool from bringing their product to the US market anyway.  UL Listing is not a legal requirement to sell or import products in the US. 

If you have any further comments or questions, please don't hesitate to contact us.

Regards,

Wayne Benns
Senior Customer Service Engineer

So of course UL is saying that Festool is free to go ahead and release something without their approval, they're practically daring them to. Of course if this happened, they'd be largely uninsurable, and the door would be open for other manufacturers to point out the lack of UL approval that "some competitors have" and directly hurt sales. I understand UL's position, and largely agree with their role and methodology. BUT, I want a CMS, and it frustrates me that I can't go buy one.

I'm curious how closed or open the UL certification process is... Is Festool free to talk openly about specific things which they're trying to work with UL on? I'd love it if regular reports on the process were forthcoming, and to the extent that UL does seem to at least have some ears to the ground, it might help if FOG members were aware of specific issues and could try to engage in some discourse with UL and/or the larger safety industry in general.

 

[chrisrosenb]

Richard,

Thanks for your question. It is required by our product liability insurance.

Christian

I used to work for a Company that let their Insurance Company tell them how to run it.
The Insurance Company controlled things so much that they lost customers & went out of business. 

 

[John Stevens]

it would be cheaper to get driving on the correct side of the road organised

Oh, please.  What other nation drives on that side?  Australia?  I rest my case. 

Regards,

John

 

[wintu]

i hate to wait for festool products that is NAINA but i dont blame them for trying to cover their back with UL approval . lawsuits in USA are just ridiculous.

 

[Rob-GB]

it would be cheaper to get driving on the correct side of the road organised

Oh, please.  What other nation drives on that side?   Australia?  I rest my case.   

Regards,

John

Only these  [wink] It was rather tongue in cheek my post, but you did ask!  ;D

Anguilla
Antigua & Barbuda
Australia
Bahamas
Bangladesh
Barbados
Bermuda
Bhutan
Bophuthatswana
Botswana
British Virgin Islands
Brunei
Cayman Islands
Channel Islands
Ciskei
Cyprus
Dominica
Falkland Islands
Fiji
Grenada
Guyana
Hong Kong
India
Indonesia
Ireland
Jamaica
Japan
Kenya
Lesotho
Macau
Malawi
Malaysia
Malta
Mauritius
Montserrat
Mozambique
Namibia
Nepal
New Zealand
Pakistan
Papua New Guinea
St. Vincent & Grenadines
Seychelles
Sikkim
Singapore
Solomon Islands
Somalia
South Africa
Sri Lanka
St Kitts & Nevis
St. Helena
St. Lucia
Surinam
Swaziland
Tanzania
Thailand
Tonga
Trinidad & Tobago
Uganda
United Kingdom
US Virgin Islands
Venda
Zambia
Zimbabwe

Regards Rob.

 

[graphex]

Do routers spin the other direction in Australia? I can see how it might be hard to make a Left-To-Right router table pass UL certification...

 

[Ken Nagrod]

Thankfully Rob has provided us with a list of countries to correct the steering columns in.  Other than for the mailman, they just seem to work better on the left! [poke]

As a side note, I love watching Top Gear, but that right side stuff always bothers me, especially when Jeremy complains about us lefties.

 

[Nigel]

I can't believe that. If Festool are offering just about everything else in their line to ship out 1 more tool cannot make a difference especially when Festool works on a system that it does. I'm willing to bet there are at 100 tools or accessories that are being sold in NA that are not "in demand/popular."

Yes, it would be quite simple to do with accessories, but with powered items the electrical requirements are different to any other country. So in order to sell a particular tool in the US, it needs to be re-designed, with a unique part number, and a new production line set up. That all costs money, and Festool has to be confident they'll make that money back through sales.

I'm pretty sure that CMS and Preciso aren't very popular here due to their cost and yet they are sold here. I'm sure the same goes for the UK in a lesser extent. The fact that I only know of 2 people on this forum that own either a CMS or the Preciso out of the amount of people who chat here regularly from the EU should also disprove that or i guess prove my ignorance. [tongue]

In SA, the elecrical requirements are 220V @ 50Hz, which is the same as mainland Europe, so the above doesn't apply.

        None of this applies to the cms anyway as all it has is a power switch.The tools and electrics are already approved and available.

    Sounds like the main hurdle is the idea of mounting a circular saw upside down.Can't see a problem with the router module though. [2cents]

 

[jonny round boy]

         None of this applies to the cms anyway as all it has is a power switch.The tools and electrics are already approved and available.

Yes, it does apply to the CMS. It's not *just* a power switch, that switch is connected to a plug and a socket, both of which are different to anything already in production for the CMS. It may only be a minor change, but it still requires the re-design, part number, and production changes I mentioned.

 

[Nigel]

         None of this applies to the cms anyway as all it has is a power switch.The tools and electrics are already approved and available.

Yes, it does apply to the CMS. It's not *just* a power switch, that switch is connected to a plug and a socket, both of which are different to anything already in production for the CMS. It may only be a minor change, but it still requires the re-design, part number, and production changes I mentioned.

  Ok JRB accepted.Surely Festool could manage it though.I would imagine the  socket would be similar to the CTL vacs....

 

[graphex]

I'm wondering if the plug-its being interchangeable has something to do with it. Maybe the router is ok, but the TS crosses the line (for some reason in UL's mind), yet the TS plate, being just a hunk of aluminium, isn't certified by UL. So what's to stop Festool from making the CMS available with the router only, yet offer a plate for TS only in configurations with no power switch? That might be the rub... maybe UL wants some keying mechanism to prevent anything but a router from functioning on the US CMS. Pure speculation, but who knows?

 

[image132]

Well I can understand why the TS module or the preciso aren't going to work after that Ryobi story on here and how they are pushing to have all table saws with that new stop system.

As Christian stated the CMS base its self has to be UL approved separately and I can't understand how that can fail. It is literally a safety switch on a table. ???

 

[Gene Howerton]

How is the plug in any different than the one I use with my Benchdog table.  I have a switch that I plug the router into and the from the switch to the wall plug, this is pretty much the same as the CMS.  Also the switch I bought from Bench Dog is UL approved, crazy that UL would not approve the same thing with Festool.

 

[windmill man]

Come on chaps [big grin],

Where is the "Can DO" attitude the Americans are famous for.

There is a solution to all this, there is no law stopping one private individual suppling another! [wink]

 

[GPowers]

Come on chaps [big grin],

Where is the "Can DO" attitude the Americans are famous for.

There is a solution to all this, there is no law stopping one private individual suppling another! [wink]

I looked into the approach discussed above and it got very expensive. Since there was no official time table for the CMS delivery, I when the Non-Festool route. I purchased  the Kreg router table and the PG monster router motor. It worked for me as I do not do job site work. I was look to compactness due to limited garage space.  Instead I sold our third car. That made lots of space.

 

[mouppe]

Tired of waiting for the CMS, I built my own. UL approval still pending.

[attachthumb=#]

 

[spikfot]

Tired of waiting for the CMS, I built my own. UL approval still pending.

[attachthumb=#]

Routers work better if you turn them on.

 

[WarnerConstCo.]

Come on chaps [big grin],

Where is the "Can DO" attitude the Americans are famous for.

There is a solution to all this, there is no law stopping one private individual suppling another! [wink]

Yes very.

I do have some friends traveling there in a couple months though.