My question is I’ve been cutting a lot of MDF lately, and now it seems that my bearing on my router is going. I just used an air gun and cleaned it out and lubricated the bearing as best as I could. It is better now I don’t know for how long has anyone else had this issue?
I did pull out the brushes and they look good. When I turn the router by hand, I can feel the bearing is tight and the router probably only has about 40 hours on it.
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To help extend the life of my router I installed a sock, one of those shorty sized ones on mine. I don’t think it is impleading the flow of air that much. Throw it into the wash with my other rags or an air blast.
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Dust accumulation in the top cap of my DeWalt router periodically makes it act like it died (won’t turn on). Pull the top cap, blow all the dust out, and bam - works like new again. Wierd, but never happens on my Makita.
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If you cut wood (or MDF) yer going to get some dust getting pulled into the cooling grills, even with a healthy dust control boot. I have pretty good homemade dust control and I still get dust and bits up onto my Makita and my belts, pulley’s and gantries. I periodically air blast all my sanders and routers. Amazing what comes out of my belt sanders and my routers.
The sock on the Makita, brilliant!!!
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I am always amazed
At how the chips get up in the spindle shaft. I guess they come in through the little hole that you can see the button through. Do we really need that hole?
I tried plugging that hole and it didn’t really help.
Also, I get some dust up in the collets/reducing bushings on my Mafell FM 1000 WS and it doesn’t have such a hole, so it seems to be just the accumulation of air movement and tiny particles.
I’ve often wondered if directing the air flow from the cooling vents on a router down there would help with that, but given how scant that is in comparison to the air movement of a vacuum it doesn’t seem likely to matter.
I see two things wrong here
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blowing out the router bearings can cause the dust shield on the bearings to come out and allow trash to get into the bearings I use a shop vac on the top fan side of the router. The router fan blows down toward the shaft. reversing the flow with the shop vac should help.
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if you are lubing the bearing you are allowing more thrash to accumulate on the bearing. Sealed bearings do not need any re-lubing.
MDF makes a lot of dust and can cause a reduced air flow in your dust collector system. If you are not using a cyclone separator of some kind your dust collector can get clogged and the residual particles will be floating around looking for things to land on.
The sock is a great idea just keep it clean if it gets restricted it will cause the router to overheat.
Anthony
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Did you get your Mayfell Milling motor from a US source? I saw a pic of one that had a toolless lever but my internet search led to Germany.
Yes, Timberwolf Tools, but they no longer carry the one I bought:
instead only having:
which is more affordable, and 110V, but I despair of how one would secure it on a machine or rig up dust collection — the FM 1000 WS I had was able to use a flat adapter plate which was simple enough, but I’m still trying to work out how to do dust collection. The flat adapter plate I’m using is limited for the tool lengths and cuts which it will work for, and I recently had a cut where I had to remove it and hold the vacuum hose manually.
I cut a lot of solid surface (Corian is a brand name). I wouldn’t say that I am doing production rate work, and I have a good dust collector. However, a standard CC router seems to last about 3-4 months. The lower bearing appears to be getting a lot of dust in it and will get to the point of freezing up. I have been assuming the dust is coming from under the router. I thought about moving to the CC VFD spindle system but it to is air cooled and i assume would eventually do the same thing. Thoughts?
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