Curious if anyone else is experiencing router burn out on brand new carbide routers? I had my first one work through maybe 3 projects before smoking. Carbide 3D replaced it under the 30 day warranty (machine is brand new). New router came in over the weekend so I installed it and decided to surface the wasteboard. Ran about 40 mins and the RPMs dropped to almost nothing. Turned the machine off and then plugged the router into its own power (I have the bitrunner) and turned it on. It struggled to spin and then started smoking so I killed the power. Have already emailed customer service but I’m wondering what the hell is going on.
I had the bearings go out within a couple of weeks on a new carbide router. I should have asked for a refund, but instead saved my time and replaced it with a Makita trim router.
The replacement was a standard 12 month warranty replacement — if your Carbide Compact Router fails on the last day of your first year of ownership, we’ll send a replacement.
There is a small number of routers which go bad, so they get replaced under warranty (for the full period of the full warranty) — so far, a second router usually fixes it, a third almost always fixes it, and I think there might have been one customer who didn’t get a good unit until the fourth — anyone w/ a decent statistical math background should be able to work out what percentage of units are bad from that (it’s pretty small).
For folks who can’t wait on shipping there are a number of other compact trim routers which are 65mm in diameter and are drop-in replacements such as the Makita RT0701 (interestingly, judging from tickets on support and other reports on other internet forums, Makita seems to have had a similar drop in quality since I bought mine for my Makita RT0701 and many other folks on the old Shapeoko forums had excellent results with them) — the Makita uses the same collets, so aside from the shorter power cord and different control layout and a dial which lacks detents and may vibrate off a given speed setting shouldn’t present any issues (if one doesn’t mind teal).
I’m not suggesting that you replace it with the Makita (yes I am), but I am on year eight (8!) and my Makita Router is still going strong.
I gotta be honest, I’m really surprised that a company that produces such a high quality CNC product would supply such a POS Chinese produce Makita knockoff.
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Back when we sold DeWalts and Makitas it was a constant struggle getting them on a consistent schedule in the quantities which we needed — the Chinese vendor was at least willing to make shipments in suitable quantities at a reasonable price, and we guarantee that the purchase of one from us will get one one full year of usage, no matter how many we have to send out.
It’s a rather narrow market economically — I’m sure the powers that be would be glad to be informed of some perfect spindle, with lots of power and torque, and a convenient collet system ,which is excellent quality, and which can be delivered in quantities at a price which suits us and our customers and which has a form-factor which is convenient for dust collection.
Please note that an eight-year old unit does not speak to current quality — we saw that w/ the Bosch Colt PR20, which was the darling of the inexpensive CNC world when it first launched, but then quickly fell out of favour. Hopefully @TDA won’t mind my linking:
There are lots of options, and lots of price points, and most folks are fine with the lower cost units, and we will do our best to work with folks on that point — certainly you were quite critical of what I was willing to pay for my spindle choice.
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Thanks for the info. Will potentially look into Makita and replacing the cord to get the 12’ necessary length
Note that our recommendation for the Makita is not to modify it, but to run the cord up to the ceiling and secure it there so that the plug is not stressed.
Quite simple to replace it, They’re pretty much identical inside.
You could also try this: https://www.ereplacementparts.com/search_result.php?q=515841-6
I bought a new C3D router but also that kit to replace the guts of my old one. The replacement was very easy and could be done without removing your C3D power cord from the drag chain.
I have powered up the old router with the replacement parts in it and it sounds good but I have not put it back on the machine so I can’t say how it performs or lasts. But. For $48 and 15
Minutes worth of work…
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