[Steven Owen]

A lift will generally double your cost. The lifts have the advantage of doing very precise micro adjustments.

The Triton could easily be adjusted with set-up bars or profile guides.

It comes down to how much you want to obsess about .001 of an inch in your cuts.

If you want .001 precision, get the Incra lift.

The Triton will have the advantage in price and being able to use it for mutiple projects and both inside and outside of the table.

The lift motor combos are going to have a slight edge in ease of making micro adjustments over the Triton.

It comes down to the types of projects you want to do on your table. .001 of an inch isn't going to make huge difference most cabinet profiles, beds or coffee table. It will matter on a Jewelry box, chess piece storage case or any fine detailed and ornate projects.

The micro adjusters on lifts are also great for doing a lot of detailed freehand work.

 

[Steven Owen]

I had a Rockler lift, which slipped. I replaced it and my 1617s with a Triton TRA001 and am VERY HAPPY with the combination. Reaching under to lock and unlock is trivial. If you want a clear picture of how it is to use the Triton, look up Sommerfeld videos on YouTube. Great technique as well. This talk of a thousanths is pretty meaningless. This is wood, not metal working. I wish I hadn't spent the money on a lift. I really prefer working with the Triton.

No one ever obessed about .001 of an inch until Incra, Dowelmax and a couple other brands started hammering on consumers about out by .001 of an inch.

A piece of common laser paper is .0016 of an inch.

There's people who give bad reviews for the Dewalt 7491 bad reviews for the saw table being 1/32 out of being 100% true on the table surface.

Welcome to the age of the internet.

 

[Steven Owen]

Might as well through my two cents worth in. Tom is absolutely correct about no need for a lift being accurate to a thousandth of an inch, it took me, as most of the members know, quite awhile to come to this realization.

A case of needing and wanting is another matter.

After being very disappointed with with two inexpensive routers in my router table I went to a Porter Cable 893. Part of the decision to go with the Porter Cable was the above the table adjustment feature that turned out to be of no value when the router was mounted beneath the table. This was, as I have pointed out beforer, due to the debris getting between the motor and the case that the motor slides up and down in. The debri would bind things up and no satisfactory adjustment could be made. So, then I was confronted with an issue that had only one good remedy, which was a good lift. I purchased the Incra Mast R lift which was the best decision that I could have made at the time. At least that was thinking.

I could have gone with the Triton instead of the PC but in that I didn't, well it was to late after buying PC.

Even though the very fine adjustments are not really of great value in most cases, due to my quirk of still thinking in terms of more precision than is needed the Incra lift was a good choice for me and I have never been sorry for it. The less powerful PC motor has done everything that I have asked of it with no strain at all.

The combination of the Mast R lift, the Wonder Fence and the Incra 17" LS system makes an extremely good set up. Do have to admit that the cost of all of this stuff may well be more that many people want to spend. What one buys depends on what one wants wants to do with their router and what one is willing spend for it, just like anything else in life I guess.



Jerry

I'm looking at the Incra lift too. If I buy the Kreg table, I plan to use the Incra aluminum plate.

At $150 for the Incra Plate, It wouldn't be a huge leap to get the Incra Master Lift. If decide to buy the 3.25 Millwakee Router, the Jessem made Incra Lift is a given.

Kreg's plastic mounting plates are worthless for heavy routers.

 

[Steven Owen]

I have the Triton mounted in an enclosed table. It does indeed drop if you don't lock the height adjustment, but I reach under the table to turn on/off the power switch which is interlocked with the chuck lock, anyway.

I haven't experienced any heat build up, but my shop vac is connected to do both under and over-table dust collection, so I think the air flow it creates helps the cooling issue.

A lift is almost always better than the above table mechanism built into the Tritons, but the built in mechanism is always better than no top-of-table adjustments, so.....

Sometimes it a mater of, do you buy a Lift and a Millwakee router or do you buy a Triton and a Dewalt planer.

The Incra lift is pretty close to the price of a Dewalt Planer.

 

[Steven Owen]

Those are the #'s I've been coming up with too. I didn't know the Triton was that less when compared to a lift plus router motor. I could get the Incra lift, $340 shipped, and use my Bosch 1617 for now, however, when I need to do handheld work, I'll have to remove it from the lift which I read can be tedious. Not as easy as removing from the mounted fixed base that it's currently in.

I'll have to see if one of the Incra plates I have can accommodate the Triton. Two came with the used router table I bought. I drilled one for my Bosch 1617 and the other I'm not sure what model it's for.

Since I have the Incra LS system, Incra offset table, and Incra magnalock plate I figured might as well stay with Incra. The cost difference is about another router it seems.

I don't need a planer BUT could put the extra $$ to a rotary phase converter to finally power an old 16" Powermatic Planer I found.

As costly as the Incra lift might seem, it'll probably outlive the router and MDF table top it's mounted in.

 

[Steven Owen]

If you have an Incra LS positioner then you should get a router lift. Some of the joints, such as through dovetail joints, work only if you get the bit height precisely set. Some of the fancier joints require you to determine the proper bit height using a dovetail bit (which is also used to determine the proper thickness of your wood), the bit is replaced with a straight bit, used to cut some parts of the joints, then the dovetail bit put back in set to the same height as before to cut the rest of the joint. Screwing around with inaccurate under the table adjustments is a frustrating waste of time.

I have three router lifts, my favorite is a master lift II.


In woodworking there is always more then one way to accomplish something.

A Triton should be just as accurate with the use of some set-up bars. You shouldn't need a router lift to pull it off.