If you’ve been looking to add or upgrade your workbench, this fully automated model by “Dirk the Engineer” could give you some inspiration. Made out of Baltic birch, maple, and walnut, it appears quite well-made on first inspection. Look a little further, and you’ll find a general-purpose vise built in, as well as an end vise. The table is finished with linseed oil, which makes for easy cleaning and repair.
As nice as it is, if you watch the video below, you’ll find even more excellent features. The most unusual of these is that the table can move up and down on its own by a system of motors and chains. Control is accomplished with a remote control that interfaces with the Arduino controlling the system. Dirk outfitted it with an Arduino Mega (with a “mega” number of IO points) so that the table could be upgraded later to include more features. A display that tells the user how far the workbench surface is from the ground is envisioned, but who knows what else will be implemented?
If you’re looking to move workspaces any time soon, at 800 pounds, it might not be the best choice. On the other hand, having a “robotic woodworking workbench” would give you some serious bragging rights!
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Suppose the caster wheels were mounted to bottom of the section of the bench that raises and lowers so the wheels project through holes in the base, and the base had stationary leveling feet. When the bench is lowered all the way down, the caster wheels would touch the ground, and lift the base and it’s stationary leveling feet. This way, you could use less expensive caster wheels & leveling feet, it would take far less time to make it mobile, and it would ensure that it was always all the way down to make it less top heavy before moving it on the wheels.