Bosch router

[MikeDe1025]

I've got the Shark which comes with the little Bosch router. Anyone here have an idea of about how many hours of runtime we might get on the brushes?
Also, for whoever has changed their brushes so far,,,,,are they something that should come from Bosch or are they a common sort of thing I should be able to pick up at a local tool repair kind of place?


Thanks,
Mike

[milo30]

It varies greatly between routers. I have been running mine for 2 years with no issues yet. You will want to order some collects though. No one carries them locally that I have found and if you mess one up there will be downtime waiting for them to be shipped.

[tonydude]

Don't run your router at full rpms because that will wear out your brushes faster, slow it down to mid way.

Tony

[WoodEraser]

I ran mine for about 350 hours before I had to change brushes.
I also don't run at full rpm.

[Consultingwoodworker]

I run mine at full all the time. Have not changed brushes in four years. The speed control is actually the weak link. It is in all variable speed tools.

The best way to keep it running is to keep it clean. Be sure and vacuum/blow it out between runs.

Ralph

[MikeDe1025]

I appreciate the input guys. Running half speed makes all the sense in the world effectively doubling the life of brushes. It's also kind of strange to see how diverse the running hours is between those of you who operate in the same manner. If I drop back in memory and attempt to calculate the hours I've run mine I think I'd come up with the neighborhood of about 200-250 hours. I thought that was rather quick for a set of brushes but I suppose not. And then there's one of you here who say you've run your's for four years and no problems yet. In the owner's manual it doesn't actually say how many hours one might get. However, it does say to install new bearings at each "second" brush changing or every 300-400 hours. I didn't notice that little paragraph before I asked my question but I suppose it's quite indicative of getting 150-200 hours on your set of brushes as a norm based on what they're saying about new bearing intervals.
OK, well thanks again. You guys are always so helpful.

Mike

[sk8nmike]

One more thing to add to the conversation here. If you haven't already done so order a new set of brushes and bearings they don't cost much and it sucks to stare at a half finished project and a dead router for a week waiting on parts..

[MikeDe1025]

What's even worse than that is to be running a 7 hour long project only to go out to the shop and see that your router died a couple hours ago and the machine has been running the program the whole while dragging the bit all around your project. Luckily I was doing a 3-D photo and the bit was running very shallow or it would surely have broken. Anyway, I'm sure you can visualize my photo project running with a non-rotating router bit. It's unique, I'll give it that.

Mike