Prostheta Posted June 1, 2016 Report Share Posted June 1, 2016 I couldn't help but share this one. @KnightroExpress and myself are doing twos-up on a review of the Makita RT0700C/0701C compact router, and I made this to show a bit of modifiability. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Prostheta Posted June 1, 2016 Author Report Share Posted June 1, 2016 I'd call this one "v1". The base is made from thick 12mm acrylic, and the eagle-eyed amongst you can see that I made the mental slip-up of cleaning it with alcohol-based cleaner during the build. Long story short, it makes acrylic crack. Long story long, the acrylic swells with the alcohol and when the solvent evaporates the acrylic doesn't shrink back, causing it to crack. Bummer. I also got a bit enthusiastic with the flame polishing and bubbled the acrylic in a couple of places. Bummer. The illumination would be best from the side rather than where it is; the light is coming from the wrong direction. The acrylic still edge-lights as expected and illuminates the central routing hole however it is brighter at the edge which will lay over the workpiece. 75% of the objective improved, so room for being "more better". Same with the wiring. I didn't think it was too important, so I just hotsnotted the hell out of it. Hell, the proof of the pudding is in the workpiece right? The LEDs are powered by a couple of CR2032s in the knob, which also houses the switch. Pretty compact. The knob was turned out of a piece of burl Birch I had on hand. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Prostheta Posted June 1, 2016 Author Report Share Posted June 1, 2016 The upshot of all this acrylic chicanery is that I can now rout in the dark. Nowait, that wasn't it AT ALL. Hmm. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Prostheta Posted June 1, 2016 Author Report Share Posted June 1, 2016 The LEDs came out of a magnetic LED pen light. You can find these anywhere at the moment. If you pay more than a couple of bucks/euros/shekels then you're financing somebody's weekend golf waste of space and time. Check Amazon or eBay for "magnet LED pen light" and rip it apart. The PCB is flexible enough to fit in a curved channel and has the current limiting resistor right onboard. I suspect that the internal resistance of CR2032s is enough to limit the current anyway. So yeah, these are designed to run at 4.5v so I gave it 6v. Why not. If it blows then de-hot snot it and bang another in. Solved. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ScottR Posted June 1, 2016 Report Share Posted June 1, 2016 Cool project Carl. And nice fabrication even if you see room for improvement. SR Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KnightroExpress Posted June 1, 2016 Report Share Posted June 1, 2016 That turned out nicely! I'm bummed that I haven't been able to do jack with mine yet. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Prostheta Posted June 2, 2016 Author Report Share Posted June 2, 2016 If anything, I rattled out the problems for you. If I do v2, I'll use two LED strips either side. I still need to make a cutout at the end for the edge trimming binding attachment. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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