Digital ready Unilift with Wixey readout

[Gwhat]

I also have a UniLift .. I think I was one of PWS's first few customers on this (I've had mine for 3-4 years now, something like that). It worked great with my TRA001, except that the height adjustment was really stiff. I put up with it for ages, thinking that it was just not well designed for the weight of the router.

About six months ago, some oxygen got to my brain (my wife would suggest I must have stood up) and I realised the problem.

When I mounted the router, I left in the two big silver pan head screw things that Triton use to mount the router to their router table. They LOOKED like they stay below the alloy base even with the plastic base off. Well, they don't - they sit proud of the alloy face by about 1/2mm. That was slightly warping the ring plate that the router mounts to and making it bind on the vertical shafts.

I took them out, and bingo! the lift mechanism is smooth and easy. Oh well, only 2 or 3 years of arm-muscle building..... DOH!

Also, there are a couple of comments above about changing router bits which are confusing. My TRA001 lifts up to the perfect height with the top of the spindle about 7mm above the table, making it easy to remove the bit (though you have to manually wind the router up the last little bit to activate the spindle lock). Of course you have to remove the filler ring if it is one of the small ones is in the table, but that's nothing - you have to change them frequently so they are the right size for your bit.

Wonderful device, that Unilift .. except for the really silly levelling screws. I just wound them all out and installed my own 4 levellers under the table right at the corners. How can anyone sanely level a plate with TWO screws on each corner?

Phil

Phil

In spite of being a very heavy cast top it is posible to warp them if as you say screws are left protruding the precice tolerances around the bronze bearings are such that the plate must be flat. The 8 levelling screws aren't usually an issue, just a bit fiddly.

The above table bit change feature somewhat negates the benefits of the UniLIFT, if you've got to switch the router off and manually wind the collet above the table. The answer is the Xtreme Xtension, no more under the table stuff except for changing the speed which can be done standing up.

I hope that this helps.

Regards

Grahame

[SP_Flip]

I have no issues with the height thing - it's easy to wind it up. I love the lift (and I love my LS17 & Wonder Fence as well, I might add! I was trying to say that the process of changing bits above the table works fine, even with needing to manually turn the lift knob on the TRA001. It's no big deal (for me, on my table, at least).

The lift is magical, the levellers are my one and only pet hate. Apart from using too many of the little worms (one per corner is all that is needed) is that the worms are so small, they need a solid surface to bear on. Timber doesn't work, they just slowly bite into it. They need metal to sit on.

But that's no big deal either, I just put four adjustable bolts under my table, going up and under the plate, and once I set it level, it stays that way.

The main point I was trying to make was a little note to anyone putting a TRA001 on a UniLift .. remove the two little bolt-head things Triton uses to mount the router on their router table.

Phil