Thread: Makita 3612C advice

I can help with

Inversion kit, whatever that actually involves

on dad's Makita it's a steel plate that covers the air vents at the bottom of the motor (which are on top when you turn the unit upside down) to stop crap falling into the motor


ian

The Triton TRA001 was made for inverted use in a table. It has a number of features that the Makita doesn't, including above-the-table bit-changing and a fine adjuster that works instantly, throughout the plunge range. Removal of the plunge spring takes <10 seconds on the Triton. It's got all the power you'll ever need.

So what "after sales service" do you think you'll need? With routers, they're pretty robust provided you treat them properly. Stalling a router, by too fast a feed rate, will knacker the field windings. Failure to keep it reasonably clean may cause other problems, including overheating and lead to electrical failure. In both cases, it would likely need a new motor, but that's not a viable cost-effective repair unless it's under warranty. That (at this time and possibly for ever) might be a problem, but even so, you'd have such a great router that I'd risk it.

I know that I've looked after my TRA001 for all the years I've had it, which is why it's still good for loads more work. I wrote a cleaning and dismantling page a while back for another forum member (here) so you can see how easy it is to maintain. I wrote a review of it (here) if that helps.

Second-hand routers are always a risk. Compared with that, I'd say that a new TRA001 is far less a risk, even without warranty. Plus, the experience will be vastly superior!

Ray

hi webby66,

i think $200 for a makita 3612c is a great bargain.

i bought that model last week for $529 from a tool shop in brisbane.

it is not in the same league as my festool routers, but it does exactly what it says on the box.

try the $200 bargain out first, theres not much to check. turn it on, make sure there is no strange vibration. it has a soft start feature which is great, it tends to jerk a little when you turn it off, but that is easily managed.

it comes with extra collett sleeves, 6mm and 8mm i think. you should have no problem getting spare parts for a makita 3612c router, it is their flagship router at the minute.

there was very little accessories with the router i bought, make sure you get the spanners to change bits, thats it mate, get the wallet out and snap up a bargain!

regards, justin.

Hi Justin,

I don't think there was a spanner. I wasn't too concerned, thinking that one of my other spanners would do the job. Is there something special about the 3612C spanner ?

Gday Ray,

My leaning has been towards the TRA001, I have some other triton gear in the garage. I was just reading the manual for the router, and they say to use genuine Triton brushes. Is this just marketing or can I use brushes for another tool,assuming they are the same/similar dimensions.

Originally Posted by Webby66

I was just reading the manual for the router, and they say to use genuine Triton brushes. Is this just marketing or can I use brushes for another tool,assuming they are the same/similar dimensions.

The brushes (TRA055) are no doubt made to en exact size and specification for the machine, but as long as the replacements are not a sloppy fit, then they should be OK. You're years of hobby use away from needing to replace them, but it never hurts to have a spare pair handy.

Ray.

hi webby, there is nothing special about the spanners for the makita 3612c.

i just thought i would mention it.

i am sure any shop selling makita gear can order them for you for under $20.

good luck, justin.

Hi Webby,

i've read the posts above, and i keep hearing the Trition brand name in this forum. These Triton routers seem to have the support of an ardent fan club in Oz, whereas here in Europe i never saw the brand. At first glance their shape is odd, but at closer inspection there are nifty details and thought-through practical solutions incorporated in them. Of the many routers and router brands i own, there is not yet any Triton amongst them, so i couldn't honestly comment based on own experiences or studies. But it is just like Ray said, the Triton looks to be much more at home when slung under a router table. You can already see some advantages from mere pictures. The Makita 3612C (which i do own) is more a conventional spindle-down plunge router, to be used on top of a workpiece. It lacks the nifty way in which bits can be changed without fumbling underneath the table and it has lots of cooling air exhaust vent slits arranged directly around the spindle bearing, so it soils itself sooner by dust and shavings falling down the table top hole around the bit. Ray is quite right about that, in practice this is exactly what happens. The TR001 has vent slits arranged at the motor housing's circular edge, which is a better solution for an underslung machine. Furthermore, in very hard wood you may have to spread the working load in several laps, meaning that you have to rout the same distance over and over again in increasing depth or width steps, for it is unlikely that the motor power will be sufficient to cut away all the material in one go. For such applications, the Makita offers only the standard plunge router setting techniques, which are cumbersome to adjust upside down, whereas the Triton looks more versatile on this account.

On the Makita 3612C i can comment, though. It is robust and its design has been around since the 90's, so there are lots of them about. The spare part availability is already better than average in Makita's case, but the popularity of a machine like the 3612-range will motivate Makita even more to keep spare parts in store for a longer period than they would for a less successfull machine. Should availability become a problem, than the many machines that exist will guarantee a part stripping source for the next 15 years or so.

The latest 3612 types with nylon housing must not be confused with the earlier generation 3612BR with polycarbonate housing, which was rated at 2300 Watts. Most parts of that machine just don't fit in the modern type. Apart from motor, electronics, top lid (hole for speed control wheel) and type plate, virtually all other components are interchangeable between the 3612 and 3612C. The input power of the single speed 3612 is rated at 1650 Watts whereas the electronic 3612C takes 1850 Watts. The difference of 200 Watts is not absorbed in the rpm-stabilising electronics, but is caused by a different number of copper windings in the C-motor. The C-field can cope with slightly more Amps because the C-armature has a few more windings, and the souped up armature coils will make the C-motor run much faster at no-load rpm. So the 3612C field and armature have other spare part numbers (636014-9 and 516509-7) than those of the single speed 3612 (636059-7 and 516589-3).

The dangerously fast running souped up motor is kept in control by the electronics, which feed only part of the full AC wave to the motor at no-load speed. When load is applied, the electronics sense rpm-drop by a built-in tacho generator and compensate for the drop by feeding a larger part of the sine waves to the motor to counter out the speed loss. This is the way in which the rpm is stabilised during varying load situations.
With blown electronics, usually either nothing or all is fed through to the motor, and Festool even warns in its OfE2000 manual that the motor is to be switched off immediately when the electronics start to act funny. This is probably because without control and at full AC power the motor may spin so fast that bits of the armature may come loose due to too high centrifugal forces. So don't interchange motor parts between the 3612-types! Other than that, there will be spare parts galore for many years to come, for both types.

The Makita 3612C's capacity and durability is in the league of the Elu MOF177E/ DeWalt DW625, the Hitachi M12V and the Felisatti-built large routers from Metabo, Fein and Trend. The motor is built generously enough for a decent heat reserve and the bearings are large. The 3612C also has soft-start, which is nice. 200 Aus dollars sound nice, since the 3612C's price hasn't dropped much over the years. They are still expensive machines and discounts are still nothing special on average. To see what a used machine has gone through, you can both check from the outside and inside. A soiled machine with lots of chafings and deep scratches and dents was handled and transported and stored rough, so has a fair chance of having been operated rough during jobs. As long as it worked properly, the owner probably saw no reason to maintain it with fault prevention and service life preservation in mind. Those are "use and forget when you're done" people. Avoid their machines.

Also check how all settings work, if knobs and levers and handles and nuts and spindles to be loosened and tightened, work smoothly. When users aren't even able to put a spanner on a nut or collet in the right way without leaving traces of damage, they are no real tool afficionados and they may treat their tools more coarsely in other ways too. Their tools are no pleasure to work with, either. And then there are those who only trust tightly fastened threaded parts when 10 horses couldn't unscrew them again. Those guys lack the judgment of the subtler dosage of torque or force and tend to overstress or wreck things. Avoid machines lacking smoothly operating settings as well, unless this was caused by long storage, a bit of rust or dried up lubricant. You can easily judge visually if rust or soiling or other storage deterioration is either progressed too far or is still easily treatable.

It is also no good idea to store a router with a bit left tightened in its collet. When the collet was tightened very fast, the metal surfaces will eventually interact and friction will increase with time. You must then either use excessieve force or heat or some sprayed chemical to loosen the collet and free the bit. Experienced users know this and store their tools and accessories lightly oiled, to be wiped dry prior to use and to be oiled again prior to storage. Experienced owners know what their stuff has cost and know how to make them last. Experienced and sensible users have both tool knowledge and materials knowledge, they can distinguish proper use and application from rape. And when they're honest as well, then those are the guys you can buy used tools from.

You already talked about carbon brushes and these are by coincidence very handy parts to check up on the motor's health. Those from the Makita are behind screwable caps. Be sure that you put them back again in exactly the same way as you took them out. Not only must the up-part stay up, but the brush must also be put back in the same hole and not the hole in the motor's opposite site. A motor through which clean cooling air was drawn and through which no coil overload current has flown, has brushes that show overall smooth concave worn surfaces. Determine the sense of rotation of the motor and check in which direction the coppr commutator strips pass underneath the bursh carbon. When the concave contact surface is damaged along the rim where the strips first meet the carbon, the carbon has had a collosion with debris between the strip slots. This tends to happen in routers and planers (hard wood shavings) and angle grinders and pneumatic drills (stone dust). In that case there will be also wear stripes in the carbon, where the debris has scratched into the carbon contact surface while it was dragged along in the commutator slits. However, if the traling edge of the brush carbon shows damage (often matt black and crumbly and clearly eaten away in some way), then there was excessive sparking between commutator and commutator strips, especiallly at the moment when the strips electrically "disconnected" from the brush when passing from underneath it. This sparking means an excessive low of current, either the motor was often run in overload and in excess of nominal input current, or its windings are already partly damaged or shorted. If the commutator shows strips with burned or partly eaten-away edges, that is further proof of motor proceeding damage. When judging the quality of used power tools from people i will probably never see again or are hard to reach in case of complaints, i always ask if i can see the motor's commutator. If i can, than i watch for the signs as described above. When in doubt, i leave the machine and do not take any risks.

As for original or unbranded brushes made to size, the difference needn't be all that great. The brushes are consumable parts, they are meant to wear quicker than the commumator's copper strips, since wear on the commutator may mean total armature replacement or a machine disassembly to give the commutator back its perfectly smooth round shape without brush grooves. For this the armature must be taken from the machine and treated on a lathe. For machines with clean cooling air, little vibration or shock exposure and with a large commutator, the carbon density is often chosen a bit higher. The carbon is more compressed and is harder, the wear is slower. For machines in dust laden air (grinders, saws, routers, planers) and subjected to vibration or shock (drills, tool in general that must travel much), the brushes are a bit softer. The softer brushes take more of the brunt of any scratching and colliding with sharp or hard debris, sparing the commutator copper. The softer carbon will also absorb shocks slightly better and bounce less on the copper. And then there is the rpm to take into account (friction heat) and spring pressure (the higher, the better is the electrical transfer). Spring pressure is chosen a bit stronger in shock applications (pneumatic hammers) to ensure more reliable electric commutation, but it will generate more heat and increase brush wear. In extreme heat cases the copper alloy may even be slightly different. Brush design seems to be a bit of a compromise to allow for many factors.

So it is true that carbon brushes are custom designed for many machines. For me, i find the few coins spared on unbranded brushes not worth the risk of not exactly knowing what will happen and when, with unpredictable parts. Often the unbranded brushes are exactly made to size with exactly the same springs and brass flanges or clamps, but it is not known how big the choice of carbon density grades was and if the chosen grade comes close enough to the original. The engineers form a universal brush factory may well lack the accumulated knowledge of the original tool engineers, who have often tested their designs for thousands of hours, often in extreme circumstances. Therefore i find odd brands less of a problem in universal things like power cords and router bits and third party routing accessoires than in crucial consumable spare parts like brushes. Or ball bearings, another example of components that can be more customised or adapted to specific machines or tasks than one would expect! The difference may be negligable, but i just don't posses the knowledge or guarantees to be certain.

That was not the main point of this thread, though. In short: the Triton seems to be a better option for you, as far as i can judge from its exterior build features.

Lots of success & greetings from Holland!

gerhard

hi webby, following on from the info that gerhard has given you,

i would buy the triton because you state you will be using it as a table mounted router.

i use the makita 3612c as a dedicated hand held router, the makita would not be suitable for a router table based on the reasons shared by gerhard.

but, if it was me...... i could not pass up a bargain at $200.
i think if i was happy with the condition of the makita router i would still buy it!
$200 for the makita 3612c is a gift!

I have both Triton routers ,the TRA001 and the MOF001 ,the Tra001 is permanently mounted in my highly modified Triton table and is a top performer .I have used it extensively and find it more than adequate for my purposes .This is the reason I bought the smaller one as the big one has been so good .
I also have an old 3600 Makita ,I bought second hand ,its also a very good machine ,just wished it had the shaft lock like the Tritons.It also came with no accessories ,but the Triton 1/4" reducing collet fits the Makita and for spanners I use a couple of Metric open enders from my mechanics tools box 21mm and 22 mm (I think).
I did get the fence with it and have added an extended MDF fence to it.I have also made a couple of bases for other applications

I use the Makita and the smaller Triton for hand held work.

Only down side of the Triton is ,I dropped the big one from the table and broke the black cover on top of the motor , I have been unable to get spares from GMC/Triton to replace it .Also tried to get a couple of sets of spare brushes ,but no luck so far.
Hope fully things will change ,but it taking a long time to get the company sorted out.

Kev.

Webby

I have a 3600 mounted in a table which would be close to twenty five years old and still goes like a rocket. I also have a 3600b which is about 14 years old and you cannot realy kill it. Both of these Makita routers were around before the orange stuff was even thought of. I can personally vouch for the longevity and capability of the Makita range of router. As has been stated before the 3612c is cheap at $200. This of course depends whether it has been maintained IE: keep the wood dust out of them and you will never wear it out. Good luck which ever way you go.

Regards Mike

To all who have responded,

Thankyou for the input. I've decided to go for the Triton. I tracked a new one down one on ebay at a good price.

Its sounds like I wouldn't be dissapointed with a Makita but it seems like the Triton will be more suited to my needs. Also, the given 3612C I was considering possibly had a dubious history (it was at a pawnbrokers).

Ray, I'll definately bookmark your instructions on dismantling the TRiton for when I may need to give it a good clean. Also,I'll keep my eyes and eyes open for replacement brushes so I can have a spare set when/if needed.

Regards