I recently purchased the DCS374B bandsaw to use along with the SWAG Portaband table to use it as a small table mounted bandsaw. It’s not so bad using it one handed (using one hand to keep the trigger depressed) but I thought if I could rig up a foot switch between the battery and the saw, that would be even better.
I thought this would be a straightforward task (just put the foot switch in-line with B+ and B-) but not so fast, says Dewalt. The battery well on the saw only has 4 prongs: B+, B-, C3 and TH. So I send all four of the lines from a battery connected to a battery well I harvested from an old tool, through a 4-pole relay to a 20V Max battery shell connected to the bandsaw. The battery also powers the relay coil, so hitting the foot switch causes the relay’s normally open contacts to close.
When I hit the foot switch and depress the trigger, the saw actually runs for 1-2 seconds, then stops, and the LED dims out right away. This makes me think that the saw is detecting a condition it doesn’t like and therefore shuts itself down right away. But since I’m passing all four lines straight from a Dewalt battery to the same prongs on the saw, I don’t understand how the saw knows the difference.
The saw runs fine with a battery attached to the saw’s battery well, so I know that the saw is otherwise working correctly.
Anyone have any ideas?
