A good quality and very versatile piece of equipment. Instructions are well laid out and easy to understand. It massively enhances the ease of use for router bases that have no micro-adjustment and the mega bundle also replaces the need to purchase a number of manufacturer optional accessories. The additional stability is also a vast improvement for smaller router bases such as the Makita cordless trim router plunge base. You obviously get to use the one unit for multiple router brands – typically not the case for manufacturer-specific accessories. This makes it far more future-proof. The only minor issue I have is that the design of the micro-adjustment mechanism assumes that the router base will clamp the 2 guide rods independently, allowing the adjuster guide rod to be clamped while the fixed guide rod is unclamped. Mostly, this is the case, but not always. For example, Festool decided to have a single knob on the OF1400 router to clamp both guide rods at the same time as a convenience, not thinking of micro-adjustment bases. Neither the CRB7 nor the OF1400 are wrong, they’re just different approaches. As there is no CRB7 bridge with an option for both rods to have micro-adjusters (probably not viable commercially), in order to retain the valuable micro-adjustment capability of the CRB7, I adopted the following simple procedure. 1. Set the router bit a little close to the bridge end of the CRB7 base and then lock both rods with the single Festool clamping knob. 2. Slacken off the outer fixed guide rod locking nut of the Mpower base to get around 1/4″ of play. 3. Adjust the micro-adjuster to get the exact positioning of the router bit then unlock the Festool knob 4. Slide the fixed guide rod back against the bridge and lock everything back up. Recheck and I’m typically fine, but you can repeat if necessary. I might look into getting a longer bolt, as used on the adjuster rod side, to use on the fixed guide rod side for greater adjustment in one go. It takes longer to describe the procedure than to perform it, so it doesn’t detract from the usefulness of the base now I’m used to it. One improvement I would make is to supply not only 7mm and 10mm extension bars, but an 8mm set as well, as I’ve found router bases seem to standardise on 8mm rods and although the CRB7 has the ability to run up against a clamp guide, I prefer to use track rail guides where possible. Using 8mm extension rods with a Festool 492601 FS-OF1400 Guide rail adapter would let me lock the CRB7 base to a Festool guide rail. I wouldn’t even need a Festool router – just the rail and rail adapter.
