The mounting bracket is extremely high up on the shaft, see pictures.
From what I was reading from some random guy on youtube, having it mounted that way creates more deflection, similar to having a very long endmill. If you mount it closer to the endmill apparently it will have better performance. Thoughts on this?
It should be fine — you can shift it up if you use longer endmills though, since the DeWalt has a longer body than a Makita or Carbide Compact Router.
The way I like to set this is to lower the Z-axis down as far as it will go, then load the shortest tool I plan to use, then install the router so that the tip of the tool is a bit short of the aluminum T-tracks or the hardware in the MDF slats — the assumption is I’ll use larger/longer hardware for surfacing, but that will allow me to use the machine w/ any tool w/o adjusting until it’s time to replace the slats ('cause they’ve been surfaced down as much as is possible).
My SO3 XXL with HDZ is mounted exactly like yours. If your router is running out of round check your bearings. The Dewalt is a very reliable router. You can power off your Shapeoko and install a bit. Grab the collet and wiggle it around. You should not feel any movement. If it wiggles the bearings at the bottom can be bad. I have never heard anyone complain about the Dewalt router having bad bearings. Anything is possible.
You can certainly move the router up as @WillAdams suggested but just make sure your shortest bit will reach the spoilboard if you do that. There is no set position for the router and most people insert it all t he way down to get the deepest cuts.
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