I have just got hold of a new triton router and for the benefit of anyone else considering purchasing a new router here are my first impressions.
I got the router from Bunning for $346. Their base price was $399 but true to their advertising they beat the best price I could find by 10% and I got a cheap router.
I have had three other routers with which to compare the triton. An Haitachi TR12, a variable speed Makita and a Bosch. And I purchased the triton solely to live under a triton router table so that its operation as a hand held router is irrelevant to me.
My first few hours of use of the thing has left me very impressed. It has plenty of power to run even large router bits. It is quieter than I had expected and is certainly quieter than my Haitachi. All the switches and adjustments work well.
But what I like most is the ease of use when fitted to the router table. It mounts easily under the table, but the actual angle at which it is positioned is important. If rotated into the wrong position the depth adjustment knobs can be hard to get at.
The spring which would normally be useful in hand held mode to control downward movement is a pain when the router is under a table as all height adjustments are resisted by the spring. But the triton allows easy removal of the spring.
There are two plunge modes. One is the normal mode which would be familiar to all router users where the height of the router is controlled by pushing down on the router and locking the height with a locking lever. On the triton there is a second mode where the height is changed by rotating one of the router handles. In a router table this is very useful. I made a panel for a door with two CMT router bits, one for the rails and one to cut the coped profile on the ends of the stile. Setting the exact height was as simple as winding up the router to the approximate height by rotating the router's handle then adjusting the fine position with a second fine control knob.
The best feature is the ease of changing router bits. With the router turned off and the window over the on/off switch closed the entire collet comes up through the top of the table and locks. A new bit can be changed in seconds with one spanner. No fiddling around under the table is required.
The only inconvenience I encountered was with the dust collection shroud. There is a clear molded shroud which is screwed to the base of the router and which is designed to channel dust into a dust extraction port on the side of the router. This is fine with smaller router bits but for bits around two and a half inches or more in diameter the shroud fouls the bits. I had to remove it.
If it continues to work as it has, over the long haul, it will prove to be a very good investment indeed. I am very impressed by it. But in consideration of my old Haitachi which has seen long and hard use reliably over many years the triton will have to be similarly reliable.
The triton seems to have been designed by someone who sat down and asked, "What would I like a router to do if it was going to be placed upside down in a router table?" And they seem to me to have got it right.