Safer chainsaw concept

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Matt Allens

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Oct 11, 2025
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My girlfriend's family heats with wood in Michigan, so I've been running their older Jonsered chainsaw and it made me wonder about safety improvements. The inertia brake works, but it seems to still rely on user reaction. Would an electronic brake triggered by sudden movement make sense for newer users?
 
Matt Allens said:
My girlfriend's family heats with wood in Michigan, so I've been running their older Jonsered chainsaw and it made me wonder about safety improvements. The inertia brake works, but it seems to still rely on user reaction. Would an electronic brake triggered by sudden movement make sense for newer users?
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Brake or no brake, the most important safety features on a saw is you and how you handle it. Learn safe saw handling and follow rules such as firm grip with both hands, avoiding kickback and the conditions that cause it and keeping body parts out of the line of fire in case of kick back or too much follow through finishing a cut
 
Okay, so imagine using a gyro brake like those e-saws have, but for this. Cool idea, but you'd need a super quick sensor and a design that can't mess up by triggering at the wrong time or lagging. That means more work and, you guessed it, more money. The plain old mechanical brake system we already have? It just works, plain and simple.
 
You would have to prove to me that it would work better in all situations. Extra wiring is not a good thing on a chainsaw.
As for needing user interaction for the brake to work, it should be able to activate even when it is not hit by a body part (usually hand) due to the amount of weight and lever action of the hand guard.
The present brakes have been refined since the 80s. Even have triple brakes that activate when the operators hand is removed from the rear handle on some saws.
What we have at present works well. If you don't want to wear safety gear or operate the saw safely, that is up to the operator.
And don't drink the battery acid.
 
Fair points from all of you. My angle was if newer users might benefit from a brake that doesn't rely on hand position or reaction time. From what I'm getting, the current systems are already activating without manual input through inertia, so maybe I need a better understanding of how much delay is actually in play there. Does anyone know if there's published data on activation time vs user hand speed?
 
STIHLTECH said:
As a retired auto tech that started in the mid 70s, DO NOT put more electronic/ modules on a chainsaw/small engine. Look at cars today. Do we really want to go there?????
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Precisely why I drive a 1995 Ford. I hope to go to my grave never having had a 21st-Century vehicle, a microwave or a smart phone. So far so good.....
 
Fair enough, there’s something really nice about the simplicity of saws and the nostalgia of older tech.
 

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