Grounding a DeWalt router- suggestions?

[SteamMaker (Michael I.)]

Hi Guys,

I’m planning on adding a ground to my DeWalt router to avoid any potential issues with my GRBL board. I saw one person put a 3rd wire outside the yellow casing and grounded to a housing screw. Looks like a solid solution but wanted to get others advice on how they might have approached it?

Thanks!
SteamMaker

[cgallery (Phil Thien)]

My attempts at grounding my Dewalt didn’t provide much satisfaction. My method was simply to run a ground wire (I used 16 or 18-gauge stranded with green insulation) to a screw on the router body, and connected the other end to an earth ground.

One thing I had tried was covering the yellow cap with a copper mesh made from a copper pot scrubber that I unrolled. That seemed to work pretty well but I freaked out when I saw a small strand of copper fall inside one of the air holes in the yellow gap, so I undid it.

In retrospect, what I should have done was cover the router with a cotton sock, THEN the copper sock, then grounded all that to my green wire.

What I did instead, is order the new board.

[SteamMaker (Michael I.)]

Copper pot scrubber-thats pretty wild. Nikola Tesla would be proud!

I’m just wanting to ground my router, not send free electricity around the world

[EvanDay]

Most I have seen on here go with attaching a grounding wire to the router body in some way. Either that or some variation of Phil’s (@cgallery ) solution. I have the Makita, but this is what I did which is similar to the Dewalt:

Makita Router - adding a three prong plug

Others have done this with the Dewalt, but just a quick write up on how to add a plug with a ground to the Makita router. I have a separate thread in this forum that discusses problems with electro static discharge, and this is the first recommended step to helping with that problem. Its a 30 minute job or less. The cord I bought from Amazon is 18 AWG with a 300V rating and has a higher temp rating than the factory one, plus its much longer. Removing the cover is pretty simple, just take out…

[SteamMaker (Michael I.)]

Ah. I didnt realize I just needed a 3 prong plug. Thought it was more involved then that. Thanks for the tip. I’ll add a new cord. Thats the cleanest solution.

Next I’ll be mounting the board off the machine and away from the router. I’m going to build a dedicated control box with E stop.

[mungbeans (Dan)]

If there is continuity between your router and Z-Plate, I would just ground your Z plate. I had good success with this and my dewalt. I think this is preferable if you have dust collection attached to the spindle as the static generated from the hosing is also grounded before making its way to your controller board via the gantry.

[Tomo (Tom)]

I did about the same as the makita post above - replaced cord and connected ground to router body. I also ran my cord up, so the cord itself does not cause interference. 16 guage flex extension cord. I’ll post a good photo this evening.