[phantomcow2]

Im going to be starting the contsruction of a 44x24 router soon. Ballscrews for each axis, hopefully servo driven. Though its not a concern yet, i need to start thinking about what my cutter will be. So my question to you all is, what did you use as a cutter?
Dremel?
Rotozip?

[Chris D]

Im going to be starting the contsruction of a 44x24 router soon. Ballscrews for each axis, hopefully servo driven. Though its not a concern yet, i need to start thinking about what my cutter will be. So my question to you all is, what did you use as a cutter?
Dremel?
Rotozip?

I think you mean spindle/motor, not cutter.

It depends on what YOU want to cut. A 24 X 44 size machine is pretty big. If you want to do engraving, then a small dremel is fine. If you want to do a bit more cutting, then a Rotozip is fine - but limited in collet size. Next up from there are the trim routers - most of which have a 1/4" collet - again, limits the size of the cutter.

1/4" shank router bits are not the toughest cutters and often the shanks will fail when "pushed", even with hand held routing.

My machine is roughly a 38" x 26" x 6" (X, Y, Z) machine and frankly, anything less than a 1/2" collet would be a waste of time for me. However, I cut hardwoods and use router bits up to 1" in diameter frequently. I did start out with a trim router on the machine and quickly determined that I needed more power. So, take some time now and figure out what you want to cut, how fast you want to cut it and make your decision based on that.

You should also take into account the spindle, motor, and such into the design of your machine. A machine that is designed to run with a dremel tool for a spindle, is probably not going to handle the beef of a 3 HP router very well.

[phantomcow2]

yea spindle/motor is what i ment. Im going to have to test out these servos to see how much torque they have. If its enough to give some good rapids, i will probably look into a trim router. I will primarily be doing engraving, but don't want to limit myself to this.

[spalm]

Mr. Cow,

My machine is 40x24. I started out with a PC trim router. It was OK, but loud. The bits were also very hard to change as they would stick in the collet, and limited to 1/4”. I upgraded to a bigger router and I like it much better. It is variable speed and allows 1/2” bits. I paid $100 for the trim router (a few years ago) and $120 for the big guy. Here are pictures of both to give you a feel of what they might look like on your size machine. (Ignore the chatter text) Anyway, my point is this size of machine can take a bigger router.

Steve

[phantomcow2]

Oh oh, i like that larger router. It looks like you can really hog material with that...
Definantly not going the dremel route like my original plan was . But then again, plan A was to have a 24x12 router....

[ger21]

Make sure you get a variable speed model. Something in the 1-3/4 to 2-1/4HP range is probably your best bet. I'd recommend Porter CAble, Bosch, Makita or Hitachi.

[Hawkeye]

I wanted versatility for my machine, so I built 2 different mounting frame. One for a Craftsman router and the other for mt Dremel. Both have the same mounting holes and switching out takes less than 5 minutes.

[JerryFlyGuy]

Make sure you get a variable speed model. Something in the 1-3/4 to 2-1/4HP range is probably your best bet. I'd recommend Porter CAble, Bosch, Makita or Hitachi.

Gerry is it possible to drive this variable speed from something like Mach 3 software? Do most variable speed models use a seperate rotary switch to set the speed or does it depend on how far you pull the trigger? [like a variable speed drill]

JerryFlyGuy