As this router is soft start and variable speed, I cannot help. Other may have a suggestion.
Thats ok James, thank you for responding. Hope ya'll are having a blessed day. I hear things have been extremely tuff there the past couple of years. Here as well, but not as bad.As this router is soft start and variable speed, I cannot help. Other may have a suggestion.
I use a foot switch quite often with a couple of my hand held routers and it has worked just fine without any problems. However the foot switch is only a on-off switch and not variable control also. I've been fortunate during my 60 years of woodworking to have never had a power tool go bad during the warranty period...they usually wait until after the expiration.You could try it and see what happens, but it could cause damage in the process.
...and void your warranty......
I have an older Porter Cable 3 1/4 hp router that had a soft start module that burned out. No replacement.part available. Upon others' suggestions, I cut out the module, capped off the blue wire, and tied the two black wires together. Works perfectly, just no soft start. A bit more start up kick, but with a separate speed control, would be no issue.A foot switch for off and on is easy. Looked for a switch that would vary the voltage, like the old sewing machine foot swith which boost speed depending on how far you press it. But I think those don't work for soft start. So you might need to set speed on the router, then on off with a switch. On some older routers, you varied speed by lowering voltage. I wonder if there's a way to bypass the soft start and control speed with a rheosat?
You could try it and see what happens, but it could cause damage in the process.
I invested in a digital laser tachometer. If you have several machines that need accurate spindle speed reading, such as a lathe, milling machine or drill press, they're worth it, and setting router speed is a nice fringe. For those 3-1/2" panel raising bits, I usually turn it down all the way and don't worry.In reality how often do you adjust speed? I typically use bits that are about the same size and since I can't tell for sure what RPM the router is running at its difficult to say what the right setting is. I listen to the bit and if it sounds wrong, I adjust it. There might be some routers out there that accurately measure speed, I'm not sure, but I don't have one and never felt I needed one.