Will.. your existing circuit has two halves.
The feed from your existing breaker box to the outlet. Then the feed from your outlet through that extension cord to your router. I am highly suspicious of the extension cord or the plug wiring.
First thing to do is measure the voltage at the outlet with everything off. Lets call that V(off). It should read 120 volts within about 5.
Then set the spindle to warm-up and again measure the voltage at the outlet. Lets call that V(warm).
If VWarm is less than one volt lower than VOff, your house wiring is just fine. That would leave the extension cord.
If they are more than one volt different, check the voltage at an outlet on ANOTHER circuit on the same phase. (A house usually has two seperate supply feeds, or "phases".) Do the lights in the house dim when the spindle is started? If so, you need to look at the supply adequacy for the house.
When was your house/shop built? After 1960? If so, its very unlikely your shop wiring is inadequate. Presuming it was built up to the national electric codes of the time.
Last question- how long is your extension cord? 5ft, 100ft? That would make a big difference.
The tables show 12ga wire has a resistance of 0.001588 ohms per foot. Lets guess its a 20 foot cord. And the house has 30 feet of 12ga solid wire. The circuit requires 2 conductors, so the effective length of 12ga wire is:
(20 + 30) * 2 = 100 feet of wire.
The total resistance would be 0.1588 ohms. Running 18 amps would make a voltage drop of:
V = amps * ohms
V = 18 * .1588
V = 2.8v volts drop. That is already getting to be a fair amount.
Now if it was a 100 foot cord:
(100 + 30) * 2 = 260 feet of wire.
Ohms = 0.001588 * 260 = .4128 ohms
V = 18 * .4128
V = 7.43 volts drop.
That is about what it would take for a spindle to complain.
Presuming the extension is not that long, the plug wiring is the next suspect. Warmup the spindle until it shuts down. Are any of the plugs warm to the touch? If they are barely warm, that is ok, but if they are "warm" that is bad, and if they are "very warm".. you just found the problem.
See if that helps run down the trouble..
D
"The best thing about building something new is either you succeed or learn something. Its a win-win situation."
--Greg Westbrook