Please tell us more.
It's taken me months to design and build this beast. I'm traveling to a conference this week and I'll be spending my spare time editing the photos and writing up the build journey. I plan to unveil that story with parts list, cost and sources as an open source tool idea. I've given myself a deadline of 5/5 but I just couldn't help myself and I had to share this teaser to celebrate finishing the build portion. However, I did post the Sketchup drawing to the 3D Warehouse last night, and here is the link. Router Table with Rack and Pinion Linear Motion DRO Fence
Very cool! Nice work.
How much travel per rotation of the hand wheel? Is there a lock on the fence?
Thanks for sharing!
I'll have to get an exact measurement but it's more than an inch for a full 360 degree rotation. However the control is pretty fine. The lock is the two tall Peachtree Woodworking No. 1537 3/8-16 Easy Grip Knobs you can see in the brief video clip of the motion.
I did a check on the distance moved in one 360 degree rotation and the value I got on the DRO was 3.138 inches which checked out against the marks i made on the table at the beginning and end of the movement. That's more travel than I thought but it would take a much smaller pinion gear to reduce that. In any case fine adjustment is fairly easy with small movements of the 4 inch handle.
Now all you need to do is get yourself a stepper motor, a leadscrew, some wire . . .
Wayne
Well I haven't had as much time to work on the Build document this week as I would like, (read that as none until today), so I'm going to have to post the build document in installments starting with what I have had time to complete today. I'll keep updating the PDF document as I make progress and posting updates here so the same URL should work on an ongoing basis. So here it is: Router Table with Rack and Pinion Linear Motion DRO Fence installment #1