Use of Foot Control on 120 Volt Motor

[Mike Turner]

I have a Foredom grinder ..like the ones used to carve with. It has a foot pedal to vary the speed.. It could be unplugged and hooked to other tools easily. .I was wondering could this be used to vary the speed on a lathe with a 120 volt motor on it ? Would it mess up the motor in any way? Thanks

[Dan Friedrichs]

Probably not - generally these inexpensive speed controls only work for "universal" motors. So it would likely work for your shop vac, router, corded drill, or generally anything with a "loud" motor, but not with an induction motor like what usually drives a lathe, bandsaw, tablesaw, etc

To vary the speed of an induction motor, you can get a VFD.