Router woes: ANYONE ELSE WITH A T10, T11 or DW625 HAD THIS?

[Mrwilson]

i am glad this thread showed up

I have a T4 used about 5 or 6 times since new
it starts when it wants to

it got thrown into a cupboard and forgot about

time to play and see if i can fix it

Steve

Hi there Steve, did you get your T4 sorted? I had the same problem with a T5 which I thought was caused by the speed control board. The large yellow capacitor had come off the board so I re-soldered it and thought I'd sorted it, however it started doing what yours is doing shortly afterwards.

Turned out to be the on/off switch, only a couple of quid on the Trend site, no problems since replacing that.

Shug

 

[mseries]

The Trend part numbers are

magnet: WP-T10E/098
speed control board 230V WP-T10/103
speed control board 115V WP-T10EL/103

The Dewalt equivs may be cheaper

 

[Steve Blackdog]

I thought I would resurrect this thread.

My DW625 has this same speed control problem. I have had it in the RT upside down for a number of years and it has worked well. Yesterday I ran it at full chat for a while cutting finger joints. I went to change the speed to a lower setting, and nothing happened. Now it is full speed only.

I’m almost betting that we will find that the speed control magnet disc is the culprit. I can’t blame Dewalt for this, as I replaced the whole guts of the machine myself, so it has an new armature and all the bits and pieces. I am guessing that vibration and gravity have been doing what the laws of physics intended.

As the DW625 is designed primarily to be used right way up, I suspect that this problem only occurs when permanently kept in a table.

I will probably use Eric the Viking’S fix of a little thread lock. However, I these magnets are very brittle and I expect that if you ever need to get one off that has been thread locked in place, it will be break and have to be replaced.

All very interesting.

I will report back when I have taken the top off for a good look.

Cheers

Steve

 

[Eric The Viking]

Look for scuff marks - magnet on the grille at the back.

And I think you may be worrying unnecessarily about the fragility of the magnet - I wouldn't use a lump hammer, obviously, but I suspect it's a rare earth magnet or two embedded in plastic. My Loctite fix has lasted, incidentally, although I brought the router indoors this Christmas because of the horrid dampness of my garage workshop.

Thinking on that, because of the different rates of expansion, I'd guess the thing is most likely to walk along the shaft in the summer when the fit is slightly looser. It's a while back now, but I think mine started to misbehave in September (check the posting dates if curious).

Cheers, E.

PS: I was cross at the time, but other than that the T11 hasn't missed a beat.

 

[Steve Blackdog]

Look for scuff marks - magnet on the grille at the back.

And I think you may be worrying unnecessarily about the fragility of the magnet - I wouldn't use a lump hammer, obviously, but I suspect it's a rare earth magnet or two embedded in plastic. My Loctite fix has lasted, incidentally, although I brought the router indoors this Christmas because of the horrid dampness of my garage workshop.

Thinking on that, because of the different rates of expansion, I'd guess the thing is most likely to walk along the shaft in the summer when the fit is slightly looser. It's a while back now, but I think mine started to misbehave in September (check the posting dates if curious).

Cheers, E.

PS: I was cross at the time, but other than that the T11 hasn't missed a beat.

Now, the different rates of expansion are interesting. We had a temperature drop down to -7 C the other day. The garage may well have dropped to freezing. If the mild steel of the shaft shrank in the cold it might have separated from the plastic magnet thing.

 

[Sideways]

For people with the MOF96E ELU's, the same little brown disk pushes onto the end of the shaft in the same way. My Elu's have traces of glue from the factory assembly, but the discs pull off easily enough regardless. I add a spot of nail varnish after reassembly. On the MOF96E, the brown disk is fitted more or less flush with the end of the shaft, it's not driven far enough down that anything useful could be put around the end of the shaft to secure it. The speed control board on the elus are also largely "potted" in resin to protect the components.
I have to say that I think the MOF96 design and its derivatives are a poor choice for inverted use. In normal use the plung springs balance the weight of the router body and the downforce from the users hands. Inverted, the springs and gravity are working together down the axis of the machine while the plung lock only operates on one column off axis, this results in a force trying to tilt the axis of the cutter. The machines are well built but the engineer in me cringes at the idea.

 

[Steve Blackdog]

For people with the MOF96E ELU's, the same little brown disk pushes onto the end of the shaft in the same way. My Elu's have traces of glue from the factory assembly, but the discs pull off easily enough regardless. I add a spot of nail varnish after reassembly. On the MOF96E, the brown disk is fitted more or less flush with the end of the shaft, it's not driven far enough down that anything useful could be put around the end of the shaft to secure it. The speed control board on the elus are also largely "potted" in resin to protect the components.
I have to say that I think the MOF96 design and its derivatives are a poor choice for inverted use. In normal use the plung springs balance the weight of the router body and the downforce from the users hands. Inverted, the springs and gravity are working together down the axis of the machine while the plung lock only operates on one column off axis, this results in a force trying to tilt the axis of the cutter. The machines are well built but the engineer in me cringes at the idea.

So what would you give as an example for a good machine to use inverted in a table?

 

[Doug B]

I have to say that I think the MOF96 design and its derivatives are a poor choice for inverted use. In normal use the plung springs balance the weight of the router body and the downforce from the users hands. Inverted, the springs and gravity are working together down the axis of the machine while the plung lock only operates on one column off axis, this results in a force trying to tilt the axis of the cutter. The machines are well built but the engineer in me cringes at the idea.

I would agree with all makes but the T11, that locks on one column with the plunge lock & adjusts via a nut on the top of the router plate on the other column, so both are supported.
You can get chatter if you rely just on the adjuster to lock off the depth but not if you also use the plunge lock on the other column.

 

[SVB]

I had a similar issue with a CMT version of this router.

router-trouble-t105252.html?hilit=Cmt%20speed

Fixed by changing the controller board.

 

[Sideways]

For people with the MOF96E ELU's, the same little brown disk pushes onto the end of the shaft in the same way. My Elu's have traces of glue from the factory assembly, but the discs pull off easily enough regardless. I add a spot of nail varnish after reassembly. On the MOF96E, the brown disk is fitted more or less flush with the end of the shaft, it's not driven far enough down that anything useful could be put around the end of the shaft to secure it. The speed control board on the elus are also largely "potted" in resin to protect the components.
I have to say that I think the MOF96 design and its derivatives are a poor choice for inverted use. In normal use the plung springs balance the weight of the router body and the downforce from the users hands. Inverted, the springs and gravity are working together down the axis of the machine while the plung lock only operates on one column off axis, this results in a force trying to tilt the axis of the cutter. The machines are well built but the engineer in me cringes at the idea.

So what would you give as an example for a good machine to use inverted in a table?

For me, the American style routers with a base plate that grips all round a tubular body. Bosch make a couple of models in 240v. Similar to but larger than the single handed body grip trim routers.

I didn't know that detail about the T11. Having a depth hold down and the plunge lock on opposite sides should help a lot.

 

[Eric The Viking]

Thanks for the thought about using the T11's plunge lock. I rarely use really large cutters, and I've never used the plunge lock in the table, but just occasionally I get chatter with my large CMT multi-profile cutter (used for decorative mouldings). I'd put it down to poor stock choice and technique, but it might be router movement.

I really like the height adjustment through the table. I drive mine with a socket in a battery drill for coarse height, and the box spanner (with a movable scale ring) for fine, and can work to about 0.05mm with care, although that's within the sag of table+baseplate at the moment. This year's "for me" project is a new, properly-rigid top...