brown_hawk
05-04-2008, 07:09 PM
As you may remember from my “Kitchen Project” posting, I ended up with a problem with the Harbor Freight Router I had in the New Yankee Workshop Router Table. That meant a new router. With all that I am going to need for the kitchen cabinets - rails, styles, raised panels, etc. - I was also looking at bit changing, height adjustment and repeatability. So I looked at router lifts and routers that could be adjusted from above the table.
What I finally settled on was the SmartLift Digital from JoinTech. The reviews were great, and the ability to zero out the scale, thus repeat cutting profiles (if I remember to write down the numbers) was an attraction. So was the possibility of above the table bit changes. I have set up some lift handles to lift out the plate and router, but after the struggles with the previous Shall Not Be Named Company’s router. It was an attraction. The final selling point to me was the fact that my Makita 1101 routers would fit (with an adapter) in the lift. Additionally, the price had come down to be competitive with other router lifts.
On the down side of course, was the prospect of tying up my D-handle router in the router table and not having it ready for instant use. My other Makita is permanently installed in the old SS Over Arm Router. Also, it would need a new table top. Rockler makes good products, but their plates are not what the standard size has become. So I would have to build a new top. But making lemonade out of lemons, I could design the new tabletop to take advantage of my old SS Incra jig, and set up so that, without removing the fence totally, I could move it back far enough so that I could use the router top as a table to sort and match wood. (Pictures attached)
Standard and optional parts.
The lift comes with three inserts, 1/2”, 1-3/8”, and 2-1/2”. The actual hole in the plate is 3-5/8”. It also comes with a nice little wrench that locks and unlocks and lifts out the inserts. It works well, making the changes fairly easy. In addition to the inserts, it comes with a pin (screw with plastic sleeve), so that it can be used in free hand routing. It also comes with two allan wrenches, one to tighten the router in the lift, and another (ShopSmith size!) for the corner levels. (Picture attached.)
An optional five piece ring set is available for $25, but I haven’t got them yet. The optional set has a blank plate so that you can drill it for a special bit, 3/4”, 1”, 1-1/2”, and 2”. As you can see, the optional set is something I want to get soon, probably by missing a few meals over the next month.
Other options include reducing adapters for different routers, as the lift was designed around the Porter-Cable 7518/7519. Since I am using the Makita 1101, I needed the adapter for it. The adapters are $30. Jointech also sells a routing template for the 9-1/4 x11-3/4 plate. That sells for $16. That finishes what comes as standard and also the options available.
Initial Impressions
So, having the SmartLift back ordered at Rockler online, I went to the Cincinnati store and picked up one there ($300). Got it home and opened it up.
First impression taking it out of the box: heavy.
This thing is well built. It is not going to fall apart. The pieces fit together, finished well, and make you feel that the people who built this cared about the product and the people using it. The digital readout shows decimals, but also shows fractions. So a 1/32 change will show as both .03125 and 1/32. This is a change from when the reviews were put out, and one that I like. It can also be used in metric. The crank handle to raise and lower is large enough so that raising the router to the table top to change bits is not a major pain.
The raising machinery is well protected from dust, and also from accidental change. To change the height, you need to first push down on the crank handle. This prevents any accidental change of height by catching the wheel that is on the surface of the plate. That wheel is a little recessed, as is the digital readout. And the digital readout takes out any “slop” from changing direction. After raising, I started lowering. There was a quarter turn on the crank handle before there was any change registered on the digital readout. So the mechanical “slop” is still there, but the digital readout is not affected by it. The digital setup is by Wixey, for those of you that know the name. Another good point is that the digital display turns off automatically after 15 minutes. It will also turn on automatically if you start to change the height. So there is no “I gotta remember to turn this thing on/off for it to work/not let the battery die.”
The threading on the lift is 1 in 16, so that it takes sixteen turns to raise the router one inch, and a 4-1/2 inch range. That is a lot of cranking, but I figure that most bit changes won’t come anyplace near to using the whole range. The plate has snuggers, so that the router plate hole can be slightly larger than the plate, so that swelling won’t make the plate impossible to get out. The corners also have leveling pads, so that the top of the plate can be level with the top of the table. The downside of the snuggers and levelers is that they have to be accessed from beneath the table. For most normal tables, this isn’t a problem. In and enclosed system like the NYW, it can be a little tight. Being lazy, I draped did this on the sawhorses that I built the top on. But, to be honest, using the longer SS allan wrench, it wouldn’t have been much harder inside the router station.
So enough of the sales talk, and on to the test.
The owners manual said to make sure that the router was in the lift when the leveling and snugging was done, as the weight of the router could affect the results. With my expanded table, (1.5” x 37” w x 34”d (see picture attached) this makes of a heavy setup, unlikely to be moved or shifted easily. Removing the lift, I put the top on the router station, then put in the lift. Being anal, I again checked the plate to top level again, then proceeded to set up for an actual test.
The first test is getting a bit in, lowering it to zero the bit, then raising it to cutting height. Cranking it up to change the bit was slow, but this is a new toy, so what the heck, right? You could also pull the lift out and do it that way, but be aware that the Wixey “measuring stick” that is used to tell the distance moved can extend below the bottom of the lift. If you set the lift down on that “stick”, you could bend or distort it. I have two handles that I use to lift out the plate and router. Simple hex bolts through 3/4” x 1/2” x 5” pieces of oak, with a recess for the head. (Picture attached.) But his is more of a pain than the cranking.
To zero the bit with the plate, I stole an idea posted on the JoinTech Forum. Using two 1.5 volt batteries, a flashlight bulb (he used a buzzer, but I had the bulb setup from another project), and some alligator clips, I set up the following: Alligator clip wire attached to the bit through the plate opening. Other end attached to the battery, which is attached to the light. A second alligator clip wire is attached to the other pole of the light (or buzzer). The other end of the second wire is attached to a piece of metal (I used the handle of a combination square) which is laid across the opening (insulated by a sheet of paper from the metal plate.) With the square directly above the highest cutting point of the router bit, raise the lift until the light goes on. Unclip one of the wires, zero the scale, and remove the whole contraption. All done above the table, quickly, and repeatable every time.
One caveat: make sure that the bit you are zeroing has any paint, grime, etc. removed for the area where you want to make contact. A good hint that there is a problem is the combination square lifting with no light going off!!! As an aside, this can be used with a metal router height scale for non-digital router setups, saw height, whatever. Feel free to steal and adapt this idea. (I did.) I will post a separate thread on how I built this zeroing setup, so that anyone interested can build one.
The bit I used was a glue bit, to be used in joining boards for cabinet sides. Since the middle of the glue bit is supposed to hit the middle of the board (feel free to correct me if I’m wrong), I went anal AND lazy AND cheap. Using a fine point pen that fit snugly inside a doweling jig I have lying around (pictured), I tightened the jig to the just snug position on the board. Then with the pen in the jig held with a thumb, I slid the jig a couple of inches. This left a line in the center of the board’s edge. I then raised the glue bit so that the center of the bit was on the line. Using test boards, I checked that the setup was correct. So I had that as a starting point, saving me time and frustration, to say nothing of wood. (The next purchase will be a digital caliper so I can find the center of the bit and reduce frustration even more.)
(Continued next post)
What I finally settled on was the SmartLift Digital from JoinTech. The reviews were great, and the ability to zero out the scale, thus repeat cutting profiles (if I remember to write down the numbers) was an attraction. So was the possibility of above the table bit changes. I have set up some lift handles to lift out the plate and router, but after the struggles with the previous Shall Not Be Named Company’s router. It was an attraction. The final selling point to me was the fact that my Makita 1101 routers would fit (with an adapter) in the lift. Additionally, the price had come down to be competitive with other router lifts.
On the down side of course, was the prospect of tying up my D-handle router in the router table and not having it ready for instant use. My other Makita is permanently installed in the old SS Over Arm Router. Also, it would need a new table top. Rockler makes good products, but their plates are not what the standard size has become. So I would have to build a new top. But making lemonade out of lemons, I could design the new tabletop to take advantage of my old SS Incra jig, and set up so that, without removing the fence totally, I could move it back far enough so that I could use the router top as a table to sort and match wood. (Pictures attached)
Standard and optional parts.
The lift comes with three inserts, 1/2”, 1-3/8”, and 2-1/2”. The actual hole in the plate is 3-5/8”. It also comes with a nice little wrench that locks and unlocks and lifts out the inserts. It works well, making the changes fairly easy. In addition to the inserts, it comes with a pin (screw with plastic sleeve), so that it can be used in free hand routing. It also comes with two allan wrenches, one to tighten the router in the lift, and another (ShopSmith size!) for the corner levels. (Picture attached.)
An optional five piece ring set is available for $25, but I haven’t got them yet. The optional set has a blank plate so that you can drill it for a special bit, 3/4”, 1”, 1-1/2”, and 2”. As you can see, the optional set is something I want to get soon, probably by missing a few meals over the next month.
Other options include reducing adapters for different routers, as the lift was designed around the Porter-Cable 7518/7519. Since I am using the Makita 1101, I needed the adapter for it. The adapters are $30. Jointech also sells a routing template for the 9-1/4 x11-3/4 plate. That sells for $16. That finishes what comes as standard and also the options available.
Initial Impressions
So, having the SmartLift back ordered at Rockler online, I went to the Cincinnati store and picked up one there ($300). Got it home and opened it up.
First impression taking it out of the box: heavy.
This thing is well built. It is not going to fall apart. The pieces fit together, finished well, and make you feel that the people who built this cared about the product and the people using it. The digital readout shows decimals, but also shows fractions. So a 1/32 change will show as both .03125 and 1/32. This is a change from when the reviews were put out, and one that I like. It can also be used in metric. The crank handle to raise and lower is large enough so that raising the router to the table top to change bits is not a major pain.
The raising machinery is well protected from dust, and also from accidental change. To change the height, you need to first push down on the crank handle. This prevents any accidental change of height by catching the wheel that is on the surface of the plate. That wheel is a little recessed, as is the digital readout. And the digital readout takes out any “slop” from changing direction. After raising, I started lowering. There was a quarter turn on the crank handle before there was any change registered on the digital readout. So the mechanical “slop” is still there, but the digital readout is not affected by it. The digital setup is by Wixey, for those of you that know the name. Another good point is that the digital display turns off automatically after 15 minutes. It will also turn on automatically if you start to change the height. So there is no “I gotta remember to turn this thing on/off for it to work/not let the battery die.”
The threading on the lift is 1 in 16, so that it takes sixteen turns to raise the router one inch, and a 4-1/2 inch range. That is a lot of cranking, but I figure that most bit changes won’t come anyplace near to using the whole range. The plate has snuggers, so that the router plate hole can be slightly larger than the plate, so that swelling won’t make the plate impossible to get out. The corners also have leveling pads, so that the top of the plate can be level with the top of the table. The downside of the snuggers and levelers is that they have to be accessed from beneath the table. For most normal tables, this isn’t a problem. In and enclosed system like the NYW, it can be a little tight. Being lazy, I draped did this on the sawhorses that I built the top on. But, to be honest, using the longer SS allan wrench, it wouldn’t have been much harder inside the router station.
So enough of the sales talk, and on to the test.
The owners manual said to make sure that the router was in the lift when the leveling and snugging was done, as the weight of the router could affect the results. With my expanded table, (1.5” x 37” w x 34”d (see picture attached) this makes of a heavy setup, unlikely to be moved or shifted easily. Removing the lift, I put the top on the router station, then put in the lift. Being anal, I again checked the plate to top level again, then proceeded to set up for an actual test.
The first test is getting a bit in, lowering it to zero the bit, then raising it to cutting height. Cranking it up to change the bit was slow, but this is a new toy, so what the heck, right? You could also pull the lift out and do it that way, but be aware that the Wixey “measuring stick” that is used to tell the distance moved can extend below the bottom of the lift. If you set the lift down on that “stick”, you could bend or distort it. I have two handles that I use to lift out the plate and router. Simple hex bolts through 3/4” x 1/2” x 5” pieces of oak, with a recess for the head. (Picture attached.) But his is more of a pain than the cranking.
To zero the bit with the plate, I stole an idea posted on the JoinTech Forum. Using two 1.5 volt batteries, a flashlight bulb (he used a buzzer, but I had the bulb setup from another project), and some alligator clips, I set up the following: Alligator clip wire attached to the bit through the plate opening. Other end attached to the battery, which is attached to the light. A second alligator clip wire is attached to the other pole of the light (or buzzer). The other end of the second wire is attached to a piece of metal (I used the handle of a combination square) which is laid across the opening (insulated by a sheet of paper from the metal plate.) With the square directly above the highest cutting point of the router bit, raise the lift until the light goes on. Unclip one of the wires, zero the scale, and remove the whole contraption. All done above the table, quickly, and repeatable every time.
One caveat: make sure that the bit you are zeroing has any paint, grime, etc. removed for the area where you want to make contact. A good hint that there is a problem is the combination square lifting with no light going off!!! As an aside, this can be used with a metal router height scale for non-digital router setups, saw height, whatever. Feel free to steal and adapt this idea. (I did.) I will post a separate thread on how I built this zeroing setup, so that anyone interested can build one.
The bit I used was a glue bit, to be used in joining boards for cabinet sides. Since the middle of the glue bit is supposed to hit the middle of the board (feel free to correct me if I’m wrong), I went anal AND lazy AND cheap. Using a fine point pen that fit snugly inside a doweling jig I have lying around (pictured), I tightened the jig to the just snug position on the board. Then with the pen in the jig held with a thumb, I slid the jig a couple of inches. This left a line in the center of the board’s edge. I then raised the glue bit so that the center of the bit was on the line. Using test boards, I checked that the setup was correct. So I had that as a starting point, saving me time and frustration, to say nothing of wood. (The next purchase will be a digital caliper so I can find the center of the bit and reduce frustration even more.)
(Continued next post)