Light to rout safely by

[Knot Competent]

I love my Triton router, but need more light directed into the whirly area when I’m using it, as the level of light in my workshop is adequate rather than generous. I’ve tried an Anglepoise lamp but tend to bang it with my head, and the lamp gets hot. To prevent me branding myself, I’d like any ideas you may have to fix a small light source directly to the router, maybe even inside the Perspex shield if it’s small enough. Does anyone have experience of fibre-optic light sources?

Regards, John

 

[JFC]

Ebay America seem to have the best source for this but .....Id light up the in feed out feed bit rather than the cutter !

 

[Knot Competent]

I should have mentioned that I mostly use it on a Trend mortice & tenon jig, and need light to see where I'm plunging, so light by the cutter is what I'm looking for.

 

[LyNx]

i would say the safest way is to invest in a table mounted spot light, or a head torch or strap on a mini maglight.

Andy

 

[jasonB]

My Makita laminate trimmer has two LEDs in the body either side of the collet, gives a bit more light but be careful with rigging them to your router, ant tampering will no doubt invalidate any gaurantee.


Jason

 

[Guest]

Axminster do a head mounted magnifier with two built in spotlights. The lens part will flip up out of the way

 

[SketchUp Guru]

I have one of the laser guides from Craftsman Gallery (the US WoodRat people) and I've found it to be a pretty good light for seeing what I'm doing. You can also set the crosshairs to show you where the bit is going to contact the wood.

 

[Knot Competent]

Thanks for the ideas so far guys, but I thought one of you would know your way around the Maplins catalogue much better than me. I've looked, but can't see what I want (maybe 'cause I don't really know what I'm looking for).

I would much prefer a 220 volt small bulb and holder, or a fibre-optic something, which I can fix to my router. The power supply could be clipped to the router's power supply. Any ideas would be appreciated, as I'm way out of my experience field, but need to do SOMETHING to make routing safer. The headlight idea is best so far, but is dependent on me moving my head as the router plunges. A fixed light would solve all problems.

 

[jasonB]

Could you not fix a head torch around the router body?

Jason

 

[DaveL]

Sorry I am a bit slow to respond to this one, I have a desk lamp that I use when extra light is required. I use this when using my Trend dovetail jig etc.

This has a small florescent lamp in it so the light does not cast hard shadows like using a normal lamp.

Now I now it was no more than a tenner but for the life of me I cannot remember where it came from. :roll:

 

[Bean]

I would be tempted to use a couple of bright white led's and a small power supply. You can fit the led's where you need them. Its not rocket science, even if its outside of your field.

Bean

 

[frank]

dave what about car boot will that shed any light on it :lol: :lol: :lol: :roll:

frank

 

[pooka]

If you don't want to have to deal with the electrical side of things, there are some good, low weight, and compact, battery operated bicycle lights out there that use white LED technology. Cateye make some good ones, which are listed here.

I use the Cateye HL-EL400 on my bike. It is very small but quite bright. It takes 3x AAA batteries (claimed runtime of 80 hours on constant mode - I get a lot less than this though, partially because I use rechargeable batteries). According to the website it gives out 90 candle power, and at full battery charge it is too bright to look directly at for more than a second, even from a distances of a few metres. They have brighter ones that go up to 800 candle power (HL-EL510) and even 1,000 candle power (HL-EL500BS) - these are bigger though, taking 4x AA batteries each.

Here is a quote from the Cateye website:

May 1, 2004
The very latest in white LED lighting technology
EL500 is more than twice as bright as the nearest competitor with the same bulb technology, mostly due to CatEye's proprietary Opticube lens and reflector technology. Our lights are simply the brightest.

The EL500 produces more than 1000 candlepower from a single white LED bulb, and has passed both the rigorous British and German lighting standards. The light is waterproof to 3 BAR, ensuring that it won't be compromised even in the worst of conditions.

While waterproof lights would hopefully have limited use in a workshop , it should mean that they are largely impervious to dust.

 

[Woody Alan]

http://www.ultraleds.co.uk/

I have bought headlamps for camping from this site prices are reasonable and you have quite a selection to choose from

Cheers Alan

 

[Scrit]

In this festive season hows about nicking a couple of those miniature festoon lamps and fitting them to the router :lol:

Scrit

 

[Anonymous]

Hi,
I'm a newby here who has lurked in the background reading the forum for a while - but this is my first post.

I was just concerned on the safety side - some lights (i believe fluorescent light) flicker and can make a moving cutter appear to be stationary.

I suspect led lights would be the safest - but I'm no expert and may just be approaching this without any real knowledge to cloud my opinion.

Great forums by the way - lots of experience and knowledge being shared in a friendly and informative way.

Regards,
Joe

 

[Newbie_Neil]

Hi Joe

Welcome to the forum.

I would tend to agree about led possibly being safer.

Cheers
Neil

 

[DaveL]

Hi Joe,

Welcome to the forum.

I was just concerned on the safety side - some lights (i believe fluorescent light) flicker and can make a moving cutter appear to be stationary.

Yes this can be a problem, induction motors run synchronised to the 50Hz of the mains, but a router is a universal motor the speed of these is not related to the frequency of the mains, overcoming the strobe effect. This could be a problem in my shop as all of my lighting is fluorescent of one sort or another, but I have looked for this on all of my induction motor machines and cannot see the effect on any of them. 8)

 

[Ian Dalziel]

Hi Knot,
I was faced with a similar thing a while back when i made the jigsaw table......I now have a ceiling mounted dentists spot light which is fantastic for spotting on the router tool.

well worth trying ebay for something

Ian

 

[Knot Competent]

Welcome, Joefus. Yes, this is a very friendly forum - plenty of good advice with no condescension from anyone.

Several people have mentioned LED's. I have absolutely no experience of them. Are they all low voltage, or can you use them with 220v? And do you just connect them to live and neutral as you would a conventional light bulb, or do you need some other gubbins as well? And how bright are they? Would a couple of them provide an area of light over a couple of square inches? Advice eagerly sought!