In between some meetings, I had some fun following my whim through a design iteration for a different style of switch guard.
I started from this
It was too short and flimsy, so I took it into fusion and played around with it. It felt like it would end up a total pain to adjust speed with it glued on.
I busted out the trusty calipers and snagged some images of the switch and opened fusion. 9 steps later and I think I have something I like.
Grippy enough that I think it will handle vibrations (Dab of glue should hold otherwise. And flimsy enough that I can quickly flip it out of the way for adjustments.
That is a cool design. Design iteration is kinda fun.
IMO the reason that original Thingiverse design doesn’t work is because it is a copy of @Kanova802 design, (which isn’t 3D printed and works wonderfully.
@TheyCallMeJohn - Thanks for the shout out on my son’s design. He originally entertained the idea of 3d printing and quickly realized using a thermoformed solid part was much more robust. In fact, they are actually machined from sheet material on my 1F woodworker and then individually thermoformed in a precision fixture which was also milled on the 1F as well.
@rcmatz - I agree with John, your design is pretty cool and I love seeing the thought process that unfolds with the different iterations as your design evolves. That is the mindset of a tinker, maker or inventor, to see a problem and work on a solution to make something better, easier, faster or more efficient.
Very nicely done indeed! I too got fed up with the inadequate design from Thingiverse and, since I had to replace the Makita’s power cord with a longer one (drag chain), I just removed the motor controller from the router, which includes the speed dial. Then soldered onto the factory wires and now have the speed dial attached to the outside-front of my CNC table. It never moves unless I want it to, even with the enclosure all buttoned up.
Gotta say I love the idea of just moving the speed control to the front of the cabinet and away from all the vibration. Means you can also change your speed on the fly. I’d steal this idea in a heartbeat but just got my coil cord in the mail and it doesn’t make sense to run a non stretchy cord beside a stretchy one, if you get my drift.
I do want to give some words of warning: the wires on the speed control are extremely small; ~28-32 AWG. I had to use a straight razor blade to barely score the insulation at a very shallow angle, and my fingernails to finish stripping them. I’ve been soldering for 30 years and even for me this was a bit challenging.
Love your idea, @SurfinGump .
I’ve thought about wedging something in to lock the router’s dial at max speed and then mounting a router speed dial (like one of these: Amazon.com : router speed control dial ) to my table near the controller. The biggest difficulty would be figuring out the speed at each dial point, but I’m sure with a little googling and experimentation I could figure it out easily enough.
Tape is doing the trick for now, but it’s failed me twice, so there’s a good chance I’ll be making a change sometime soon.
Aiph5u
(Aiph5u (not affiliated with Onefinity))
12
However, even if you know for what the numbers stand, this is still a trim router which will not reliably hold the indicated speeds under higher loads due to the type of motor inside and in particular cannot deliver relevant torque over the speed range (see here for details).
I bought a cheap digital tachometer from Jeff Bezos and determined the following RPMs per number on the Makita dial, your mileage may vary: 1=9,700 – 2=12,300 – 3=17,000 – 4=22,300 – 5=27,000 – 6=30,000
This is getting written down in my manual of " extra stuff not in the operating manual". I know you say these numbers are fairly arbitrary, but as the expression goes " close enough for the girls I dance with".
.
