Router table motor

[Jim Becker]

Ben, sliding tables on shapers are a good thing for certain operations for sure. There have been a few offerings like that for router tables for the same reason. Coping is a good example because a fixture attached to a sliding table can be a lot more stable and precise through the movement. Doing certain operations on panels that are flat on the table can also be enhanced because of reduced friction. Etc.

[Chris Parks]

Using a lift not attached to the tale top means the top can be easily lifted of and custom tops made so why not a sliding top, sounds good to me.

Our latest electronic table using 20 series extrusion, forget the electronics and the lift is still applicable to manual operation. It would be very feasible to use a motor to drive the spindle and control it with a manual push button switch but a lift only has to move about 100mm so using a winder is not a big task.

Dust Chute & Showing Spindle Placement In It.jpgRear View of Spindle Lift.jpgSpindle & Lift.jpgWhole Table View.jpg

And just out of interest here is a picture of a protype table which we did not go ahead with due to lots of issues we did not anticipate. It was working at that stage but had so many problems we built the 20 series table. You can see the touch screen controller and VFD control panel attached to the back of the fence. I would not advise anyone to take the electronic version on without the skills needed to trouble shoot the electronics. The fence and lift position could be motor driven using manual controlled switches quite easily and DRO's are cheap to buy.

Router Table .jpg

[David M Peters]

The MLCS 3-1/4HP router motor uses ER-20 collets and has a mechanical variable speed feature. I got one last month for my and have been pleased with it. I got the variable speed option which is just a long stiff cable that extends the speed dial. It works OK but due to cable "flop" doesn't feel very precise to use.

Oddly enough the documentation on their motor doesn't say anything about the collets. Woodpecker heavily promotes the same feature on their motor.

And for what it's worth I made the a similar upgrade - from a Bosch 1617 mounted to the underside of plywood to a "real" router table. I went with Rockler's cast iron package. It's a nice product.

[Patrick Varley]

I'm looking to rebuild my router table and upgrade my lift and motor from a Triton + plate to a true lift and dedicated motor.

Thinking about the build, I've come up with two main wants in the motor - using ER20 collets (so I can mix and match from my CNC) and some sort of remote speed adjustment. Looking through my options, it seems that woodpeckers has a router motor with ER20 collets and Jessem used to have a motor with remote speed control, but it's long out of stock. That got me looking into CNC spindles + VFD for speed control.

Does anybody have any experience using a CNC spindle on their router table? In theory I don't see why it wouldn't work and there are some awfully cheap spindle options out there. My biggest concern is getting a lift combination that'll fit the spindle. I was thinking worse case I use the 3D printer to make a custom shim.

Second question - any recommendations on lifts? I'm down to the JessEm Mast-R-Lift II or the SawStop lift. Any others people recommend?

This got me looking at this again, and it appears you can now buy a 107mm (4.2 in) to 80mm adapter off the Chinese import sites. Might work to let you use the spindle with any of the lifts.

No experience with it, but I'm now tempted. Addresses a lot of issues, even if it still relies on the lift.