I currently have the Xcarve with the quiet spindle, but now want a router that is faster and more powerful. I would like to cut more complex designs, but the time to cut can be so lengthy. Any suggestions on what to buy and the best place to buy? Thanks
dewalt
The dewalt 611 is what many people are using.
https://www.inventables.com/technologies/x-carve-dewalt-611-spindle-mount
The Dewalt 611 is the new standard spindle for Inventables, and is well worth the upgrade from the old spindle. I did a side-by-side test of cutting a house number sign (basically pockets around the numbers), and the Dewalt was 17x faster. The old spindle took 105 minutes to cut it, the Dewalt took 6 minutes. If I’d done a cleanup pass with the Dewalt, it would have ONLY been 14 minutes, or 7.5x faster than the spindle.
Oh wow! That’s significant! I will look into the Dewalt. Thanks all for the input!
I would also suggest to get the dewalt but I would really look for a router that has a .5" collet this will give you alot more options when it comes to bits
yeah that would be nice i really think the dewalt could fit a .375" bit if someone made a collet for it but really dewalt sales the DW616 and this router has a much greater rpm range for what we do plus has a .5" collet and really its not a whole lot bigger or even heavier I really need to make some mounts for this router and fit it to the x-carve
http://www.sears.com/dewalt-dw616-1-3-4-hp-fixed-base-router/p-SPM5896830307?TecPara=41_
No speed adjustment might be a good thing!!! Then one could use a spindle speed controller such as the Harbor Freight Router Speed Controller, that’s if it does not have soft start feature, which i don’t see listed. This would be similar to my setup. I removed all of the electronics from my 611 and just hard wired it to the speed controller. Might be something worth looking into.
For those who might be interested.
Here are a few weight figures.
Thank you to @sketch42 for weighing his Makita.
Here is the Dewalt DWP611. It weighs in at 3.05lbs. This is 0.25lb lighter than the Makita
Here is the weight of the DW616 (witch accommodates a 1/2" collet). Weighing in at 5.3lbs
Here is the difference in weight between the 611 and 616. The 616 weighs in at 2.25lbs more than the 611. The weight of the 618 is 1.75 times greater than that of the 611.
Edit: I failed to mention that the Makita was weighed With its Collet and Collet Nut. Where as Both Dewalts had the collet and collet nut removed while weighing. This will accomadate for a slight amount of differences in weight between the two.
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Have you had a chance to evaluate the DeWalt 616 or 618?
I’m on a mission to make bit changes easier, and I’m thinking that with a 0.5" router like the 616 or 618 I could then use a MuscleChuck - I love that thing.
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that mmuscle chuck seems like a cool idea but really it seems like it is just as much work as using the stock collet when switching from 1/8" to 1/4" to 1/2" bits it would be nice to have a product like the tormach has
Which Tormach product? Is this the whole machine, or just a spindle that could be used \ the XC…?
no I was just talking about the bit changer that the tormach has a pretty standard desgin for the commerical cnc world
Ah, ok. Yeah, I’m just getting frustrated w\ the spindle lock & single wrench 611 change method, so much so that I just do my roughing with a smaller bit so I can avoid a change and changing machine position.
While I am not interested in some auto-bit change, I am definitely interested in a possible quick-change collet like the MuscleChuck, it works great on my router lift and DW618, just nothing out there in the 1/4" collet space so I’m wondering if I can just upgrade the XC to a 616 or 618 to leverage the quick change chuck…
no i think its doable with that muscle check because you could just buy all 1/4" shank bits and use something like a tapered shaft mill to get down to the smaller bit sizes and that would make it go alot faster
If you can handle a 7 pound router I really like the Bosch 1617EVS, it is very powerfull (2.25hp) and uses a two wrench collet that can accept up to 1/2 inch shanks.
And it has a wide RPM range of 8,000 to 25,000
@AllenMassey is there a mount out there for the Bosch1617 already? I could 3d print something as well, but for a 7# router I’d prefer a mount made from something other than plastic…
You really need a 3.5 inch diameter aluminum mount. Like this http://www.veloxcnc.com/proddetail.asp?prod=RM-BOSCH-1617EVS
To use that one you would need to make an adapter to fit it to the Z carriage.
Looks like a good option, pretty sure adapting that mount to the carriage would be the easy part … I have a CNC machine after all 
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