My MAKITA TRIM ROUTER just burned out on me. Had it for almost a year. I’ve replaced the brushes a few times. I can’t really say that I’ve used my CNC enough for the router to burn out so quickly. I haven’t really used it to cut a whole lot of hardwood either. My Endmills are fairly new so they’re pretty sharp. I’ve been carving mostly pine and cedar. I guess my question is, is there speeds and feeds that can burn out your router quickly? I’ve been using the default speeds and feeds for the types of wood I’ve been working with. I’ll be replacing the router but I’d like to prevent this from happening so quickly. Luckily, I was working on a project for me and not a client. Any info will be much appreciated.
I’m not too familiar with replacing bearings but I started smelling a burning smell and the router turned off. I even just replaced the brushes. Bought the router from homedepot. Should I just take it back with out a receipt?
I heard someone mention that these routers are good for about 100-150 hours. If you’re using it as a trim router in a shop, it takes years to get to that. But if you’re running it constantly as a cnc, the hour counter climbs fast. You may want to move on to a spindle if you’re doing a lot of work with your machine, which has other benefits as well.
I’ve got 2 or 3…never seen one burn out yet. Though I guess I did get a new one to tear apart to hookup with a SuperPID controller.
Still, I’d say if it burns out on you before it’s even a year old, it was a lemon to begin with. Probably just had a bad batch of bearings.
If you are smelling burning it is likely the windings of the motor. This happens from time to time and it is likely time to replace it. You can take it apart and see what is burnt. Sometimes the accusation of carbon from the brushes shorts out the windings. The windings are supposed to be insulated but the old rule of “The more critical the need, the more likely for it to fail”. I have an SO3 with a Dewalt 611. I have hundreds of hours and have only changed the brushes once. I do have a spare Dewalt 611 with a plunge base I use for a trim router. Luckily the Makita routers are fairly inexpensive. The Dewalt 611 is a better router in most ways. The problem is it is a 69MM router where the Makita/C3D routers are 66MM so the router mounts are not interchangeable. For the SO3 they sent a color with the 69MM router mount so you could insert that in and use a Makita/C3D router.
At this point you can get another Makita/C3D router or upgrade to a 120V Air Cooled Spindle. The spindles have a couple of advantages. They run at lower speeds than routers and also have higher speeds. Another advantage is they have ER11 Collets which are more precise than the precision trim router collets. They also make the water cooled spindles but you would have to shop for a 66MM one and a lot of the water cooled ones are 80MM. So if you go with something other than a 66MM spindle/router you will have to replace the mount. The VFD spindles do add another layer of complication but they are not that hard to setup and configure. Here on the forum there are the setup data for most of the air cooled and water cooled spindles.
At what speed were you using it?
I saw in some video, recommendation to never exeed 50% of the available speed on any Trim Router. This will make them burn fast.