I received my SpinRite router 6 or 7 days after ordering it from Woodpeckers. It was simply packaged with some styrofoam within a SpinRite box and then within a Woodpeckers box, nothing special but more than adequate. I took it out and did a quick power check and ran the speed up and down, all was good. It came with two offset style wrenches, 1/2" and 1/4" ER20 collets, and one ER20 hex nut; no base is included as it is intended to be used in router lifts.
Today I finally got one of those round tuits and got it mounted in my Incra Mast R Lift II lift. While swapping the routers, I did some sound level checks against the Hitachi M12VC I've had for quite some time. At the time I bought the Hitachi, they were one of the quieter routers compared to other brands/models in the same class, e.g., Bosch 1617, Porter Cable, etc.
I used a phone app for measuring decibel levels. My measuring system wasn't real precise, but I tried to measure from the same heights and distances. I had my garage door open, there was a good bit of wind outside, giving an ambient background noise level of 42 dB just prior to my first measurement. I measured each router sitting on the cast iron table saw top, with no collet/nut, around 12" away and 12" above the table top. I also measured in the lift with a 3/4" roundover bit, the largest I have, installed and raised to full work height with fence 8" or 10" away, about 14" away from the center of the bit, 12" above the table, with an insert with 2-5/8" hole installed. The router sits in a metal Sawstop router box and is mounted in a cast iron table.
The specs on the Hitachi are 8,000-24,000 RPM. The SpinRite specs from 10,000-22,000 RPM.
Below are the levels I recorded. The Hitachi's no-load noise level spec is listed at 79.5 dB, but no indication of the speed and distance at which that was measured, so obviously my measurements are lower than expected.
----------------------- Hitachi ------- SpinRite
Max speed, in lift____73 dB______71 dB
Min speed, in lift____57-58 dB___61-62 dB
Max speed on table__68 dB______71 dB
Min speed on table __60 dB______62-63 dB
I was pleasantly surprised that the two had nearly identical noise levels with the minor differences in the table, likely attributable to the different min/max speeds between the two models. I noticed that there was significant wind noise at the high speeds from the roundover bit itself.
I was pleased with it in use as well. I used the aforementioned roundover bit on some 1-1/2" walnut to turn into large dowels to test my threader for eventually making an all-wood Moxon vise. I ran this at the lowest speed; the soft spinup was smooth, taking a few seconds to get up to full speed. I lowered the bit from full height for the first set of passes on the first piece, then lifted to full height for the second passes. I didn't notice any significant RPM drop, so I ran it at full height on the second piece and, again, didn't notice any significant drop. I eventually made an amazing discovery, that dust extraction works a whole lot better if the dust hose is actually connected to the dust collector
.
I'll likely get an 1/8" collet and two more nuts so I don't have to swap between the one nut to change bit sizes. I have several 1/8"-shaft end mills for my CNCs, some with reduced diameter cutting ends, and assuming minimal runout I should be able to use some fairly fine sizes although I can't see going much smaller than maybe 1/16" although I'm not sure what circumstances I'd use something that small.
When/if I can figure out how to precisely measure runout, I'll post further updates. I'll also see if I can measure RPM with my digital tach.