This is on sale for $79. Is it a suitable choice for a LowRider build or should I just pony up for the DeWalt?
Bosch Colt 1-Horsepower 5.6 Amp Electronic Variable-Speed Palm Router PR20EVS https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01M0J08MF
It should work you will just have to cut the hole yourself. No promises as I have never tried but they are not that different from appearances.
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Can you find a 1/8" collet? The 1/8" bits are better (in many cases, at least).
That looks like such a nicely put together site. I got stuck looking around it for a while. I wonder how the 660 or 611 do in those tests. That is pretty high rate of precision for a majority of the work people do but it would be nice to know.
Seems like it would be important for specific speeds and feeds. Wood hasn’t ever been that sensitive to me but I would guess adding some error to your steel cutting settings could make a big difference.
There was also a tear down by AvE of the chinese spindles and he just said terrible things. Yet they are used all the time by people who love them. I would take that advice with a grain of salt.
Do you have a link to that teardown, by chance? I did some searching and came up empty.
Can’t seem to find a source for a 1/8" collet so that is a knock against it, as is the note on the precisebits website about at least one of the bearings being bedded only in plastic, which isn’t a comforting thought if you want to run 100% duty cycle.
Oh, probably because it wasn’t AvE… I’m sorry. Here is the link (from one of my first posts about the dewalt vs the chinese spindles):
My point was more that you can analyze what’s wrong with a spindle, and get very depressed, but other than piece of mind, how much actual value difference is there?
Thanks, @jeffeb3
Yes, you can overthink all of this, and I probably am.
I found a source for a 1/8" collet and am going to give this router a try. Will report back if/when I get my machine together (which won’t be until at least next spring, if I’m being honest with myself).
Finally unboxed the router and the base plate looks like the hole spacing is 68mm x 76mm (a bit wider than the 611). Airflow goes top to bottom, it has a 1-6 speed control on top.
Should I be looking at making a similar vacuum shield to the 611 to keep the exhaust from the router off the workpiece?
A crazy Skunkworks project I am considering (probably well into the future) is to tear out the integral fan from the router and replace it with a remote blower and hose. This is a similar concept to the folks that us aquarium pumps and flexible tubing to cool 3d printed parts rather than having a large squirrel-cage blower on the hot-end. Theory is you would get better airflow and less noise and maybe less vibration, but we’ll see if that ever gets off the drawing board…
It’s a decent router, lots of talk about the runout in the past, but I think they’re usable, especially on wood.
On the cooling route, Peter Passuello / CNCnutz on youtube, had the radial blower fans like the ones on 3d printers (but his were huuuge) installed on top of his router for cooling. He’s since moved on to a spindle, but it’s worth a look.
I am in the process if building my LR3. I have the Bosch Colt router handy and was planning on using it instead of buying a new router. How did yours fair? Did you have to design a different tool mount?
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