Festool has a new cordless table saw, CSC SYS 50 EBI.
There are a lot of questions and unknowns, but one thing is certain – this isn’t your usual cordless table saw.
Thank you to Jas for the news tip!
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To start off, the new Festool cordless table saw fits in a tool box – which looks like a customized Systainer – for transport and storage.
The Festool portable jobsite-type table saw has a folding table on the right side, with locking support brackets, for a more compact size.
There’s also a digital display, and – from some of the demo videos I have seen – completely motorized cutting depth and bevel angle adjustments.
That’s not all – it has a sliding table for cross-cutting.
I’m not sure how I feel about a collapsible table saw work surface, but the electronic display, motorized controls, and sliding miter table sure do seem convenient.
There’s no word as to whether the new Festool table saw features SawStop-like active injury mitigation technology. Festool’s parent company acquired SawStop in 2017. Festool has a SawStop-equipped table saw, but not a cordless model.
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I asked Festool USA whether their new table saw will be launching here, and will follow up if I learn more.
Chrisk1970
Ye-aaaah baby
Stacey Jones
Move over M. That thing is the bee’s knees for sure! The cat’s meow. I bet it costs a small fortune though.
JamesBaker
I see €1.800 which is steep. A Dewalt 7492(?) is far cgeaper and just as good (i presume).
Neil Rosen
Where do I get the mortgage application for one of these?
Michael L McCollum
No kidding… may gave to sell a kidney as well
Pete
Before or after selling your firstborn son?
Andrew D.
Nah, I’m sure those 10 easy payments of $1,200 a month with AfterPay will take the sting out of it.
Michael L McCollum
Not to mention have to do 10 payments with Klarna followed by 10 with affirm at same 1200 monthly
Rob B.
Do yourself a favor and forget about this saw. Get the Skilsaw wormdrive. I own both the 8 inch and 10 inch models. You will thank me later.
Keith Hudson
So do I the 99 imported one to England 🏴 so can use my dado set and moulding head love it
John
There was a youtube video that went private last week showing the saw. It will be interesting to see it in action. Popped up on the FOG forum.
Stuart
There are several videos now, but their quality would be nightmarish to embed (portrait-style video with letterboxing).
Tom L
Sorry for my ignorance, but what do you mean about the video?
Stuart
There are a couple of live presentation videos online. Videos recorded and uploaded in portrait/vertical orientation end up with horizontal borders when embedded here, and then readers on mobile devices will see everything even smaller on a vertical/portrait viewscreen.
You can find them here: https://www.google.com/search?q=CSC+SYS+50+EBI&tbm=vid
Anson
This is the one result that’s showing in search right now.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BThNVf8TfmY
My guess is $3500, my compatriot says $4200.
TomD
Those prices for a small portable saw are … well you could get this: https://www.rockler.com/sawstop-3hp-professional-table-saw-w-52-fence-rails-and-extension-table instead.
Sure it’s not as portable but you can get a trailer!
fred
When we were working on larger projects – like 20+ room houses – we’d set up an onsite shop – with a Unisaw, Jointer, Planer, Molding Machine etc. – all trucked into the site
TomD
I think we’ve gone a bit too obsessed with battery tools, personally. Battery powered table saws and chop saws are nice but really, it’s not insanely hard to run a power cable (cheaper, and likely better for the environment, too).
I wonder if we’ll start to see more “dual fuel” tools for things like vacuums and fixed saws.
MM
I think the “dual fuel” idea is a very good one, and I think it has a lot of untapped potential.
Imagine a power-hungry tool like a big table or chop saw, hepa vac, etc, with the following features:
1) Can run on its built-in AC power cord or batteries.
2) Charges its batteries automatically as long as it’s plugged in.
3) If the unit is plugged into AC power and has batteries installed, then it can draw power from BOTH simultaneously to offer more than the normal limit of 1800 watts power for a corded tool. With that kind of power we might actually get high CFM out of a HEPA vac.
4) Act as an inverter or power station with AC receptacles available to plug other tools, chargers, etc, into.
5) Provides USB power for charging or powering mobile devices.
There’s no reason this couldn’t be implemented right now, UPS systems for computers, etc, already do all of this.
Stuart
Let’s say you’re working on built-in cabinets in a residential setting and need to trim to fit. If you plug a circular saw and dust vac into an outlet, are you going to overload the circuit? What other rooms and devices is on the same circuit?
Cordless power provides more options.
In some cases, Li-ion batteries can deliver greater power than AC.
AC tools are rarely developed or updated these days. Most if not all efforts are on cordless power tools. Why? Because that’s what end users are buying.
Who buys a new corded drill these days? I still have one, and couldn’t tell you the last time I used it.
TimD
I really liked the concept of the flexvolt
miter from dewalt for this reason. However, I heard the power on AC power was mediocre compared to while running on battery.
This stopped me from ever bothering to buy one.
MM
I think you have a point for most tools, Stuart. For most tools the average customer is probably going to be buying cordless. But there are still corded tools being made. And if you’ve already got a tool like that, why not improve its performance and make it generally more useful around the jobsite by adding features to it?
Stacey Jones
I really second MM’s idea. I do think the battery should continue to be removable though. Also don’t know why the AC transformer can’t be tethered to the wall with a long cord and to the battery/PSU with a short cord for DC. Tools should be able to suck more amps from both and I’d be fine if some tools required both to operate.
Daniel
This “dual fuel” technology exist with the Metabo HPT 36V tools. You can plug them in with AC adapter or use a battery. It applies to their table saws, miters, and even some handheld tools like circ saws, drills, anything that’s 36V.
Ant
I think the battery is a way to go. I’m in kitchen and robe fitting business. Most building sites have made cost cuts and don’t supply power any more, unless it’s an apartment block. Lads must bring their own genies on site, which is a nightmare for me. I’m fitting on 6 sites at the moment and could be on different site every day. Set up is time consuming. Invested in battery tools and never looked back. Once you on battery tools, you’ll never get back to all the mess with extentions and splitters.
It’s time and comfort that cordless tools give you. Time is money.
Will be getting this one straight away, as soon as it hits the shelf in any reachable tool shop.
Bill
Fred, how did your residence on the west coast of Florida fair from hurricane Ian? I am in the Miami area and as you probably know we did well on the southeast coast.
JGATZ
Jet table saws all day!!💪🤟🛠️
Frank D
Thank you for sharing.
Fortunately French is my second language.
Super interesting unit, miniaturized, dual 18v, digital controls, … price? Hopefully not outlandish.
Robert
Until the blade guard was put on it looked like the world meanest photocopier.
But seriously, what the use-case? The blade has to be small, maybe 8 inch/200mm. So it would be used for cutting molding & trim, but can it be precise enough? Seems it would flex a lot.
Michael L McCollum
Festool seen your comment…think now they will up the ante to $5k
Bob
Wow that looks cool!!! Well until we see the price. Then it’s like the self propelled track saw (mafel?). Cool but way too expensive for us mere mortals.
Still one can hope DeWalt, Makita, Bosch etc will have something like this in the future.
Andy Grey Rider
I think you have to buy what you can afford, even if that means a manual tool and I say this because I had to learn with my hands before I got to use the Miller, Lathe and other powerful tools.
I feel if you cannot achieve accurate success in manual form; What are you doing with power tools?
It’s like these people that go out and buy the most expensive tool like a very powerful motorcycle, get the helmet because the law requires it but they forget the rest of the PPE.
David
Do the people who buy festool products ever actually use them or are they just show off items for the idle rich? Certainly no contractor could ever justify the truly outlandish prices. How many trim or framing carpenters show up for a job driving a Maserati towing a trailer?
Stuart
I have purchased Festool products – a dust vac and circular saw when my workshop was a spare bedroom in an apartment and dust control was a huge priority. My sander also provides far better performance and sander than any of the basic sanders I have owned or used before that or since.
I have been on the fence about a rectangular pad sander for a very long time now.
Some of their tools are great, others are not. I have heard so many bad things about their Kapex miter saws that it’s highly unlikely I will ever consider buying one, even if they do boast superior dust collection.
Lyle
I bought a Kapex from Festool that was refurbished. I like it, but the dust extraction is terrible. I’ve even mentioned this to the Festool rep. I have a Festool dust extractor and I bought the 27mm hose. I’m probably going to put the whole lot in the car and bring it the next time they do an in person demo just to make sure I’m not doing something wrong.
J. Newell
I think that the Kapex really needs a larger diameter hose for dust extraction to work. I have one in my basement and have used it with a CT36 and 36mm hose with results that are pretty close to dust elimination.
Layne
That goes for every manufacturer, there’s gonna be hit and misses.
Stuart
Agreed, my point is that Festool tools aren’t just a status symbol as David was suggesting.
Michael Hammer
I’m a contractor with a bunch of Festool products. I see my competitors also have a lot of Festool products. Their sanders are the best on the market with superior dust collection. I have yet to see on any job site a comparable to the planex system. Many times contractors get Festool because they are way out ahead of their competitors. When Kapex came out, no other company could compete with the dust collection, weight, and compactness of the saw. For along time they were the only track saw with dust collection. Professional contractors, not just in a trade sense but also a business sense, have no qualms about spending money on equipment that increases efficiency, production, and or a healthier work environment. Lamello is a great example of this, very expensive but solves a lot of problems. Blaklader is another great example of expense that pays off with comfort and efficiency. Sorry, David, you’re way off the mark on this one. If you have an opportunity to go to JLCLive, you will see the cream of the crop professionals buying truck loads of the brands I mentioned including Festool. In fact, their booth is one of the largest and busiest at the show.
J. Newell
Agree. The sanders and dust extractors are really product leaders. The Domino is…the Domino. The track saws can be incredibly useful and accurate if you learn how to use them. There are several tools that, while not remarkable themselves, have unique accessories that may be really valuable for some people – the vertical positioning jig for the Vecturo comes to mind but there are probably some others. The point is that there is both real innovation and product-class leadership at Festool. Not across the entire line, but in more than just a few niche products.
Fyrfytr998
Honestly for me……..this doesn’t eliminate the need for my Festool track saw. I’d bet money that for the cost of this table saw, a person can buy the track saw, a Bora centipede, and a sheet of foam to cut on, and still save money and have more functionality at a job site.
Bob
Didn’t know what a bora centipede was. Now that I know, I need one. Dang it! 🙂
I agree I think you can do about 90% with the track saw. And even with the table saw you’re still going to need the track saw to break down large sheet goods.
Another thought is I don’t think Europe allows dado stacks on the smaller table saws??? so that removes a big advantage of a table saw.
Still it’s a very impressive tool. Looking forward to more YouTube reviews.
John
There are things(such as scribing a 2” wide filler strip) that you can’t do with a track saw. Something like this could be very handy. Unfortunately, I’m sure it’s way too expensive for most of us to own. A small table saw like this would be a great thing to have, and I’m sure it’s way more precise than one of those crappy portable dewalts.
TimD
While I love my track saw, it doesn’t even come close to the speed of a table saw for making repetitive smaller cuts.
William
If this has the Sawstop tech, under $2500 and is available in the US, I will be buying one.
JamesBaker
€1728,- for a basic set wo batteries and table/cart. Not bad.
Rafe
Looks neat but don’t try and make jobsite tools cabinet shop tools, not gonna happen. A sliding crosscut deck mostly gains it’s usefulness from sheet processing or running cut packages with positive stops on the fence. If you wanna pay $3000 for a glorified miter gauge to each their own.
Nathan
Interesting idea but a few concerns. I like the readouts but don’t want the motor drive for adjustments.
I like the flip table vs the extension hanging off extrusions. I say this owning a dewalt model. Shame they didn’t input some gear drive or hell motor driver readout fence. might as well right you adjust that more than angle. Or I do.
and for the depth of movement of the slide table – how does that compare to a sliding mitre saw – like their KAPEX.
Meanwhile that motor table idea is a big deal in EU – as many new shop saws do this too. I don’t even think someone makes a table saw for EU use that doesn’t have a motorized feed table. IE hand off.
doesn’t look big enough for sheet goods but perhaps it is. Might be more a case where you’re supposed to knock down the sheet into pieces – and then cut your drawers or other bits on this. What’s the table size on this vs others.
I’m wishing someone would make a 40 – 48 inch table setup for a portable saw, even if it requires a prop up table like this. Also a few companies, incra come to mind, make a slide table to replace your mitre gage on any other table saw. Something like that is a great compromise.
MM
I like machine tools which have manual handwheels for controls, but that also have either a power rapid feed or perhaps a hi/low range to make large movements easier.
Need to move the mill table a fraction of an inch or adjust the saw angle by a few degrees? Manual. Need to run the mill table three feet to the left to set up a new cut? Power rapid. Need to reset the saw from 45 degrees to 0? Power rapid. Though rapid feeds on a compact machine like this is one heck of a luxury.
Perry
For the table saw extension , are you referring to something like the Rousseau table saw stand ?
Kevin
Does it have DRO? The picture is a little too low res to be sure
MM
From the description and the pic it seems like it has DRO for angle and depth.
Stuart
Yes – the display is between the controls on the front panel.
Perry
I could definitely see myself getting this for cutting stair parts or for cabinet installation if it’s as precise as they make it sound. There are a few decent small jobsite table saws, but none that I’ve used have the vibration dampening or smoothness that inspires confidence cutting prefinished stock
chip+hershberger
For the people who poo poo cordless ,you must work in a vary controlled environment .
Today I installed cabinets ,temp pole had 1 working outlet 120 feet away from the room we were working in.
2 painters,3 tile guys ,and 2 of us cabinet guys shared 1,only 1 single working outlet.
We only needed power for a light,and microwave at lunch,no one else had a 3way extension except us.
Rolling out,and wrapping up 120 foot of extension cord takes minimum of 10 minutes per day gets expensive for labor .
Nevermind twice resetting the tripped breaker.
Is it worth it to some trades people,absolutely it is.
xu lu
I believe solar generators with their ever increasing capacity and powerful invertors with surge capacity may well become the solution for some bench and mitre saws, planers etc in field. The price on these generators is dropping fairly quickly and the tool choice is bigger and less compromised in design.
Simonas
Is it gonna take a d… and an arm to purchase? I guess Dewalt, Milwaukee and Bosch have already made it. Rack and pinion side fence, variable speed control, -1 (or even -2 degrees to 47) are pretty common..
What is not usual? Price, and parts made of Teflon.
Jean-Marc Nimal
I’ve seen it demonstrated, so here are a few answers:
All blade movements are electronic, precision is to .1mm (height) or .1° (tilt). Height is automatically adjusted when tilting so it stays constant.
No SawStop. They considered it but the priority here was to be cordless.
You can of course use it on another surface.
The box is a custom systainer made to deploy the saw very easily; and you can stack it as usual. Weight for the full box is 20kg.
Price in Europe is expected to be about 1.8k€ + taxes without batteries/chargers
J. Newell
Thank you – I am probably not reading carefully enough…is this a dual-battery system, or 18v?
Ripton
Dual battery36 volt
HTG
Festool UK (where I am) e-mailed a link to this page:
https://www.festool.co.uk/products/cordless-products/cordless-table-saw/577380—csc-sys-50-ebi-set-gb
Interesting. It looks like an amazing job-site saw, but I don’t need a job-site saw. I almost wish I did, mind you. It looks like a lot of fun…
mike
Don’t get too excited just yet. This think has very small capacity. If you are an architect and make scaled model houses, or a small furniture or container maker hobbyist, this is a neat tool for literally dialed in accuracy. If you are a carpenter on a jobsite, stick to dewalt or even milwaukee.
Of course the price will probably make the decision for you.