Here’s my latest, sometimes you just don’t know what happened!
Hi James,
Well been watching your videos and you seem to have had every issue possible. As for the router it’s definitely not a normal occurrence in my experience or anything I’ve read about from others with the Dewalt. The only thing I would recommend is, I always see you use oak, which is an extremely hard wood that puts a lot of strain on the router, If you continue to use oak on long cuts I would lessen your DOC on each pass to take off the strain on the bearings and brushes. As for better routers you can go the water cooled VFD route but they are a bit more pricey, or look into a Bosch, seems ever since Black and Decker bought Dewalt there quality has dropped. That being said let’s not forget these routers aren’t built to run such long hours or on a CNC machine which is why I suggested a water cooled VFD spindle.
On a side note I would suggest you stop moving your rails manually as you did in the video or you will be needing new stepper motors in the future.
I hope you concur your photos soon, but been fun following your progress learning.
Another question fella’s, what is the best speed to be routing at? Should it be in the 16k to 18k range or higher in the 20k to 22k range? Just wondering.
Other than pine, what would you suggest using?
From what I have gleaned here on the forum, it sounds like with the max speed you seem to be running that you are wearing out the brushes in the router motor
In the interest of full disclosure I do not run a dewalt but I do understand the principles of universal motors as are used on the 611.
everything I have seen here suggests running the 611 at a speed setting of 1-3 on the units speed dial tis should extend the life of the brushes considerably.
I agree with @BrianSaban manual movement of the steppers should be kept to a minimum, done so very slowly, and NEVER with the power applied to the motors.
When un-powered moving the motors acts like an electrical generator and that juice feeds directly into the arduino/gshield.
You can actually get the fan on the arduino/gshield to spin if you move things too fast. sensitive electronis dont like to have thier electrons disturbed in such a fashion too much.
Your other issues may have been caused electrical interference on the system caused by your brushes going bye bye.
Kinda like when the original spindles would crap out. All manner of unhappy things would happen then.
It looks like you may need to just replace the brushes in the Dewalt
Here is a video that shows you how. The replacement brushes can be purchased on Amazon for about $20 Amazon.com
If you run your router at high speed (above 3) you will wear the brushes out pretty fast. There is no need to ever run it above 2 for the type of work you are doing.
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I had the brushes go pretty quickly in my Dewalt. Especially because I was tending to run at MAX rpm.
Changing them was no big deal. I already had the torq bit needed to open the case up.
I decided to buy a second router while waiting for the brushes to come in. I went with the Makita because it has access ports on the sides for easy changing of the brushes. My thinking being that I can periodically check the brushes to see how worn they are so I don’t risk having the router die mid print (again)
Some people have put Hour Meters on their routers so they can just change the brushes after ever 200 hours of operation
I have also learned to blow out the dewalt regularly with air. . I thought I had burned out another set of brushes and blew it out. Still running on the same set.
my first set of brushes went in two months. This last set is over 6 months
Mine went after 150-200 hours of machining.