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It is essentially useless for precision work. That is why I chose this when I was looking for a lighter plunger router. I have several Porter Cable routers, and they have been reliable and well built tools. I had originally purchased it for exactly that; as a plunge router for use with guides on templates. The router is fine when in the fixed base, but the plunge base is a different story. There is quite a bit of slop in the plunge bushings which allow the router to angle from side to side as it is plunged, and it invariably binds in the process of plunging which forces you to rock it back and forth to complete the plunge. The plunge base is now just a useless relic, and it is suitable for use with the fixed base only. If you're looking for a medium sized plunge router, look elsewhere.
Additionally, the dust port on the plunge base is too small for any vacuum hose/fitting I can findand I finally rigged a dodge 318 bypass hose to facilitate connection to my shopvac. However, the grip-vac and plunge bases leave a lot to be desired. The 890 router is a fine, quiet machine. Since dust and chip management were my primary for selection of the 890, I am very unhappy with this purchase. I have only found one type of router operation in which the dust removal functions adequately-template routing of dishes. All other operations, free hand or on a table less than 10% of chips and dust are removed. Yard sale bound. Maybe I should have waited for the arrival of the new MLCS
The motor unit cannot be brought down far enough to engage it.3. On some of the plunge bases, the depth indicator is made of translucent plastic instead of transparent. Overall, it's a fine system, and I'm glad I bought it.However there are some astonishing design blunders:1. With the dust shield in place, it's impossible to make above-the-table bit changes. This makes it impossible to read the depth indicator.2. The spindle lock actuator on the plunge base is completely disfunctional. Worse yet, with large bits, the entire unit must be removed from the table to change bits. Without the dust shield, above-the-table bit changes are quite easy; but you get a lot of dust sprayed around.
Sure wish P-C was less stingy about warranty. The fixed base/motor work REALLY well in the RT150. Wanted the GripVac base for occasional "out of the box" use where the vac feature would be nice. Not a big thing, but it does make P-C look bad to ship such a thing. No fine plunge adjust, either. Unfortunately, the audio periodically fails.
The motor is very quiet, the soft-start "way cool", and power more than adequate. The only things you have to reach for are the speed control (easy), on/off (easy), and the collet lock (less easy, but tolerable). The clear plastic sub-bases ae less impressive. Seem like polystyrene, but I hope they are something more durable that that. I bought this set mostly for use in a Bench Dog RT150 router table with the fixed base. An annoying thing about the plunge base is that it has a 1" dust port, but the location makes it very inconvenient/impossable to use with P-C's 1" dust hose. Somebody stopped thinking too soon in the design stage.
I give the GripVac base 5 stars and the plunge base three, so an average of four. Overall, a very good product and worth the money. It's OK, but compared to my P-C 7529 plunge router, it's pretty crude in features, but then it only added $30 to the cost of the fixed-base router and $6 of that is for the plastic base that can take guide bushings. The motor release and height adjust controls are very accessable through the cabinet door and the accessory top-side height adjust knob, though a free mail-in item, is not really needed. Milwaukee does "lifetime", why does P-C only do 1 year.
I am less impressed with the plunge base. Too cheap to pass up. By the way, the CD they give you with the kit includes a video of instructions on building a simple router table. I think they need a little Demming influence there.
It is, by far, one of the quietest routers I have yet to use (other than the original Elu I used in Europe). I recently bought this router to supplement my Milwaukee 3.5HP table router. I have, thus far, been nothing but impressed by this new offering from P-C. The dust collection system is functional, the multi-point accessible power switch is a great innovation, and the general feeling of solid quality is P-C at its best. If I had any complaint, it would not be against P-C - it would be that you really should peruse the manual first - I didn't notice the additional switch access until later (who uses manuals anyway, until they have a problem with a product).
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