Customer Reviews
Cuttin' up 
2008-03-29
Exactly what I wanted. Easy to use and understand its usage. I am a beginner and have already prefected confidence and some skill. Perfect for the around the house jobs that I bought it for. Only bad thing is that I am filling the house with cool looking shelves and furniture. But I guess that's a good thing.
690 Review 
2008-03-28
The 690 was my first router that I bought years ago. I now own and use several, the one from amazon is the latest. I like have multiple routers each configured for a special task and the 690 is perfect for that. Has enough power for most woodworking jobs yet it is light and easy to use. I have one mounted in a Bench Dog portable router tableBench Dog 40-001 ProTop Contractor Benchtop Router Table and the others live in D-handle bases Porter-Cable 6911 D-Handle Base which are much better that the fixed base. Theses routers have worked and done everything I asked of them. Though they lack some of the finer features they are just a good solid reliable router workhorse.
perfect router 2008-03-23
I'm not an expert woodworker but I found this router perfect for several projects I had going on. Powerful, smooth operation made it a joy to use. Great price, too.
porter cable router 2008-03-11
Porter-Cable 690LR 11 Amp 1-3/4 Fixed Base Horsepower Router
I take an evening cabinetmaking course at a local vo-tech and the instructor uses nothing but Porter Cable Routers and sanders
Rockwell Router 2008-03-08
The only feture that I do not like is that the off-on switch is on the router base. It would be better located on the hand grip, so you don't have to take your hand off the running router to turn it off.
Great no-frills router 2008-06-09
I needed a couple of routers to go with my Leigh dovetail jig and these were the most inexpensive good name routers I could find. I bought 2 of them and set one up for tails and one for pins and just leave them set up for that one task. They perform flawlessly and now I can just grab them and know they will give me a perfect joint every time.
GREAT ROUTER - LOOK NO FURTHER 2008-06-09
Being a do-it-yourself homeowner, over the years I've owned many tools. However, until purchasing this Porter Cable 690LR router, I had never owned a router before. I had always wanted one but could never justify making a purchase. Heck, my idea of fine woodworking usually entailed 2x4's, wood screws, and glue. But there came a day recently when I decided to take on the project of making cabinets for my kitchen. For this project a router was an absolutely essential piece of equipment for making dovetail and dato joints in hardwood and hardwood plywood. It was also necessary for decorative finishing like chamfering and rounding edges, etc.
After doing some research, (after all I knew nothing about routers), I decided to take a chance on this Porter Cable product. From the reviews, it seemed like a solid product, so why not? After receiving it from Amazon, I was very impressed with the quality of the tool. It was very simple and well made. It came with both a 1/4" and a 1/2" bit collar to hold either 1/4" or 1/2" shaft size bits. It also came with two stamped steel wrenches used to tighten the nut on the collar to the nut located on the bottom of the motor part of the assembly. When tightened, these two nuts securely hold the bit in the router. It has a fixed aluminum base which has two handles, a built-in clamping mechanism, and a plastic screw-on bottom plate that allows the base to smoothly glide over wood. It also has a top assembly which includes the motor, on/off switch, and on the bottom the part that the base slides and rotates over. If you don't know about routers like I didn't, fixed base routers cut at fixed depth as opposed to plunge routers which can plunge into the work for applications like making letters in wood signs, etc. However, cut depth on fixed base routers like this PC 690LR is completely adjustable with an infinite amount of settings within its range of depth. It adjusts by releasing the easy to use clamping mechanism on the base by and rotating the base relative to the top.
For routers, as long as your router has enough power for your application, and this one absolutely did for mine, accuracy and ease of cutting depth adjustment is THE most important aspect of fine router woodworking in projects like making cabinets, etc. With this PC 690LR router's accurate turning and clamping mechanism, I would have to say that depth adjustments of less that 1/64th of an inch and perhaps less than 1/128th of an inch are absolutely possible. I was very impressed with the extreme accuracy of depth adjustment obtainable with very little effort in this tool. Needless to say, the dovetail joints fit perfectly together and dato joints were cut excellently-very tight with no variations.
The base on this router has a black band on its top that you can see in the pictures. It is a rotatable dial graduated in 1/64th of an inch increments designed as a reference guide to allow for changes in depth adjustment.
This router does not have a variable rotation speed setting-rotation speed is fixed at 27,000 RPM. You can easily attach this router to a factory made router table or, as I did, to a make-shift router table made of plywood and set on top of my table saw base stand. This is accomplished by removing the three screws that hold the plastic base plate onto the aluminum base, removing the plastic base plate, and by using the same 3 screws or 3 longer screws to fasten the aluminum base of the router to the bottom side of the router table top. (To more easily accomplish this and other things like tightening the nuts, the aluminum base of the router easily detaches from the top motor assembly after the clamping mechanism is quickly loosened.)
To cut 1/2" dovetail joints you will need to purchase a 7/16th" router template guide bushing adapter that fits into the bottom of the plastic base. This will slide into the 7/16th" template guide that you will use in a dovetail machine or by itself (I used only the template guide screwed to a 2x6 as I didn't want to spend the big bucks for an official machine) to cut 1/2" dovetails.
To sum it all up, this is a terrific router because of its quality, accuracy, and easy to use features. It is well worth the money Amazon is asking for it. You may find cheaper and for that matter, more expensive routers on the market that I know will not work better and many probably not nearly as well. But if fixed base router applications are in your future, this is the router to get.
ROUTER 
2008-05-08
GOOD ROUTER FOR SMALL JOBS.ONLY ONE THIS WRONG.AFTER RUNNING SPEED CONTROL SWITCH SLOWS DOWN FROM VIB.HAVE TO TURN BACK UP ALL THE TIME.
Porter-Cable 690LR Router 2008-04-21
I am a furniture maker who owns four other routers used for various purposes. This one was purchased exclusively to cut dovetails using an Omnijig, which eliminates setup time. The Amazon price and features of the machine made it attractive for this purpose. I do agree with other woodworkers who observe that the top mounted on/off switch forces you to hold the router with one hand while starting and stopping it, but this is easily accomplished if you hold the machine handle firmly. Typically excellent Porter-Cable product for woodworkers.
Classic router 2008-04-02
Great little router for hand holding. Underpowered for table use, but can work with smaller bits. Note: this one does not come with a case.
