Ridgid R2400 Router

I have made Christmas presents for this year, so now it’s time for some upgrades to my CNC machine. The first upgrade is to replace my poor Dremel with a small router.

Small palm routers or laminate routers are typically around 3lb in weight, which is small enough to fit on my hobby CNC machine. I liked the DeWalt laminate trimmer, but it doesn’t have variable speed built in. Next choice was the Bosch Colt, but I have heard some stories of how several hours of use can melt the plastic around the bearings, ruining them. My final selection was the Ridgid R2400 laminate router. Nothing but praise and easy to mount.

Note that the R2401 is quite different (and heavier) than the R2400. It seems that places like Home Depot and Lowes now stock the R2401 instead of the R2400.

A big reason for replacing the Dremel with a router is better performance under load and larger shank size. Larger bit = faster and deeper cutting. My Dremel has run for probably over 130 hours on my CNC machine and it’s showing the signs. It can still cut accurately but there is now a problem with the power, and it is starting to become a bit unreliable.

The first problem is how to mount the R2400 to my CNC machine. The solution I came up with is to press my Dremel into service one last time to cut some 1/4″ MDF. I will sandwich the parts together to create a holder that is 1″ thick with a back plate of 1/2″

The design was done in Google Sketchup:

gsr2400

I then rendered it in Kerkythea for fun:

V3Render

Now to start cutting…

Mapping Summerhaven

Previously I wrote on preparations to map Summerhaven for OpenStreetMap (OSM). This weekend we were able to get up there, drive around and take pictures. Here is the map as of yesterday:

Summerhaven Before Mapping

And here is the map today:

Improved Summerhaven Map

As you can see there are less roads. We found that many of the roads just don’t exist. Also after talking to some cabin owners we met, some roads have apparently been cut in two to build more cabins.

Comparing with the Google map we can see that we have missed a section of roads in the North East of Summerhaven, so we will need to go back for those sometime soon. Looking more closely at the Google map I can see many mistakes. Roads connecting when they don’t and the wrong names used.

Interestingly it seems Garmin have also used the incorrect TIGER data for their City Navigator NT. It contained a huge error which I corrected as soon as I saw it several weeks ago on the OSM map.

We marked on the map the locations of restrooms and parking areas, something which doesn’t appear on other maps.

Here is a screenshot showing our GPS trails overlaid on the TIGER data. As you can see the TIGER data is total nonsense.

Summerhaven JOSM

We have now compiled a list of about half a dozen specific items to look at when we next visit, however I can say that the OSM map must be the most accurate map of Summerhaven that is publically available, even if it isn’t completed yet.

OSM and Tucson

I noticed that various cities and counties/states have pages in the OpenStreetMap (OSM) wiki, but Tucson didn’t. I’ve now fixed that with a page for Tucson that provides a list of projects with percentage of completion. I hope that will encourage people to contribute by giving them ideas of where to start.