Bill's motorized router lift

Bill has a Jessem router lift. This lift is adjusted by putting a wrench in the top plate to crank it up and down. Bill found that cumbersome, so he put a motor on his router lift.

The router lift is actuated by a small car window motor. The white plastic block to the left mounts the relay (on the opposite side) as well as the switch. The switch is a hacksaw blade that is pushed up or down to contact some bolts in the plastic block.

The contacts on the back of the motor are protected by a blowdryer end pushed over the motor.

What's neat is that if the blade is bent just a bit, it contacts one of the bolts, which sends current to the motor through a resistor (a light bulb, actually). If pushed further, the second bolt is contacted, which makes the motor turn full speed.

There's also a mode where the router will move until the red wire contacts the router. This red wire can be attached to a height gauge. To set the router for a specific height repeatably, he clips the red wire onto the height gauge, and lets it jog up until it touches the height gauge, at which point the lift stops automatically.

All this is controlled by a set of relays (not visible in any of the photos).

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