Dongcheng DMR12: What a superb machine

The Dongcheng router or Dong, as I lovingly call it, is quickly becoming my favourite tool to work with wood. (There I put so many innuendos in that first statement, that you should get all the giggling out of your system)
Over the years, I've been very resistant to buying and using power tools. I'm more of the "listen to the sound of the plane, and the snick of a chisel" kind of guy. But there are time when speed is imperative. Getting to the point, I finally relented and bought a power plunge router. I had done all the homework and with a budget of 4K I went off to lohar chawl.
The guy showed me, Bosch and Black and Decker at some earth shattering prices. and then he showed me some dman cheap chinese stuff worth piddle. And then finally after 30 minutes, he goes "upstairs" and gets this big box with Dongcheng on it... saying, "Saab, apko quality, low price mein chaiye, to yahi hai".. "Sir, if you want quality at a low price then this is THE item".
Loved it, bought it, end of story.

Came home unboxed it and Jishnu and I started it up just to listen to the motor. I have to say, the motor may be large and heavy, but it is comparatively silent. 1600W of power to Black and Decker's 1500W and still lovely and silent.

My first impressions
1. Heavy, cannot be controlled with one hand.
2. Starts with a jerk, like an angle grinder.
3. Round base compared to Black and Decker's capsule shaped.
4. Steady and rugged
5. Crappy plastic handles that are to be attached and are loose.

The machine comes with a fairly good documentation... Atleast not worse than Bosch and Black and Decker. But still not good enough to explain what a template guide is, or a flush feature.

This was 2 months back, last week, I had to do a bit of baby sitting, so I decided to complete a planter that a good friend wanted and with the router only. After using it for 2 days I am convinced that it is an amazing piece of design. Lets begin...

1. An On Off switch. No painful continuous pressing of a trigger or fiddling with a trigger lock, Simple On Off which can be very simply flicked with the thumb. Plus one for simplicity and ease of use.

2. A round base, A round base will follow a straight guide as easily as a straight one, but all of us know that sometime in that one nano second of distraction (that's the other name for my son), the straight edge of the router goes ever so slightly slanting... damn. No problem here. the router rotates and stays in contact with the straight edge, and being a circle the bit stays on the straight line.

3. Double depth stops: Or if you prefer a depth stop and a "jump" stop. One of the things I hate most about the Black and Decker that I've been using is, when you undo the knob holding the router at a particular height, the body jumps up and you loose the zero set. Then you have to fight with the darned thing to get it back down and generally wrestle yourself to the next depth position. With the double depth, I simply set the zero (while wrestling) and then bring the "jump stop" to that position. I can then release the knob of the plunge and actually use the plunge action in the range of depth of cut that I'm making. I love this feature. I've seen it on the dremel pluge router attachment too.

4. Micro adjustment of the straight edge guide. If you've used a straight edge, you'll know how frustrating it is to adjust the straight edge guide. Normally the 2 arms of the guide, slip into holes in the side of the base. These are then locked down with screws. Now the fun begins when you are an mm short (or long), you have to open the screws, generally 3. adjust the guide an mm(which never happens) and then tighten the screws. Repeat about a million times till you get it right. On the Dong however, its a breeze, they've got this little extra screw with a groove, into which a part of the guide fits. By tightening or loosening this screw, the guide can be adjust that last mm with no difficulty. In addition to adjusting to get on the right line, I use this feature to make the adjustment to route slots that are larger.

All is not hunky dory though,
1. Plastic handles: these are really wobbly things, they don't get in the way while working, but its still a very poor feature.
2. I would have liked the nut to be hexagonal, instead of square. Loosening and tightening operations would have been a lot easier. Its not a deal breaker, but it is painful.
3. The weight of the machine, this works both in its favour and against it. I use the weight to my advantage and allow Jishnu (7 years old) to actually drive the router, while i just keep a hand close by.

All in all, if you are looking for a plunge router, The dongcheng is a good, moderately priced alternative to the Bosch or Black and Decker.

Desktop mobile camera stand: From Draft to final product

"People make prototypes at the asylum." This is a statement I have made a huge number of times. So far I have not been one of those people. So far I've always built to a plan or from scrap found around the place, but never have I built with a specific need and set of functions. Here's how I learnt exactly how important a space like the Makers Asylum is.

Last month I started a build, a very good friend wanted a camera stand. A desk mounted mobile camera stand for taking videos of stuff being done on the desk. Those were the requirements and the specs. Oh and of course the camera should be able to take a video of an area of 3 feet by 2 feet.
I started working on this immediately. It seemed easy enough, right from the beginning there were decisions to be made. Various designs regarding the stand came up.
Should I have 4 legs coming in from the corners.
Should I have 2 legs coming in from the sides
or maybe on leg which would hover over the area.
Should the design allow for the camera to be lowered and raised. or cover a variable area.
Should the legs arc over the space, or be at an angle.
After about a week of discussing with "the customer" and then with various friends I decided on have one leg, with one vertical element and one horizontal elements like a crane with a boom. The boom would hold the camera obviously.
The angle of the boom would be adjustable and also the angle of the vertical. This would allow the high of the camera to be adjusted and also the distance from the camera to the base of the stand which would determine how large an area could be left unobstructed.
Taking all this into account I decided on a simple design and an all wood construction(Ofcourse).
Here is the final outcome.

All of this wood was available in the scrap piles at the asylum. This is another cool thing about the makers asylum. I only wish we could make the space dedicated to "scrap"" bigger.
Anywho, cutting this wood to size on the makeshift table saw was a snap. The 3 pieces required were ready in 10 minutes. A bit of easy planing and I fell in love with recycled pine all over again. Pine has such a lovely, open look about it, the contrast between the dark and light is awesome.

Glue up and testing the fit of the pieces done. I went over to the drill press. Easy peasy, lemon squeezy, that was quick. I put the whole thing together, pushed in and tightened the nut-bolts and was overjoyed. I was done. 4 hours of pysudo work and I was done.
LOL, I wish, The reach of the stand was impressive, but the entire stand would simply tip over with its own weight. Here I got 2 suggestions from innocent bystanders.
1. Use a counter weight on the base. (I found after a few trials that a 2Kg counterweight would be required in a very small space)
2. Use a clamp. I would never have thought of this. It was the only viable solution

3. Much much later I was also given the idea of using a suction cup.

The next problem I faced was how to mount the phone to the stand
1. Make a tray from acrylic
2. make a structure from wood
3. buy a selfie stick and scavenge the holder. This was the most realistic and worked on many levels. 100 bucks and I was in business.

After attaching the holder, ( I did some nifty finger joint stuff into endgrain, looks really good), I found to my dismay tat however much I tighten the nut bolts (there are 2 joints) the friction between the 2 sections of wood was just not enough and the stand would simply fold up. Again the community at the asylum came to the rescue.
1. Use sand paper between the joints to in crease friction. (This did not help, in hind side, perhaps the grit was too low, I used 120 grit)
2. Attach semi circles with holes to one of the members and then simply push a pin through. This took some work. I asked one of the space managers to etch out the semi circles and quarter circles on the piece of wood I had decided on and then using the newly acquired Bosch jigsaw I cut out the pieces.
A tiny bit of work on the belt sander, someone brought in and the pieces were smooth. These were 2 small for the plane.
I marked out the semi circle and drilled the holes on the drill press.

Glue up and a single coat of varnish and I was done.
This time I was done.

As far as I could figure, It took me 4 iterations to get to this point.
This is the finished stand.

Now after the "customer" used the stand I got some really interesting feedback.
1. The height of the phone above the desk is such that he has to climb on a chair to put on the camera.
2. Any slight bump on the table sets off vibrations in the stand which obviously ruin the video.

Clearly product design is not easy. It requires a number of cycles to get right. This is where a place like the Makers Asylum excels. For a montly membership, I was able to get a host of design ideas when I was in trouble and also to run 4 cycles of design iterations to come to a final product that could be field tested.