110v vs 220v

[Thomas Wilson80]

Hi - I am somewhat new to turning but find myself getting quickly sucked into the vortex!! I am currently using a Jet mini lathe and have turned numerous small items over the last couple years and just started turning some bowls (about a dozen 8-9" bowls) and find that I would like to do larger bowls/platters. I'm interested in upgrading to a bigger lathe (have been looking at the Laguna 1836 and the Grizzly G0766). I feel that most people say it is worth it to go with a 220v lathe up front as many end up regretting it later on. I would definitely prefer 220v, I think that my garage is only wired for 110v.

Does anyone have any idea how much it might cost to have an electrician run 220v to my garage (home is 3 years old, main breaker is in basement under and adjacent to garage) - even just a ballpark number ($100s vs $1000s)?
Also, I may be moving in 2-3 years to a more permanent home so I don't want to spend too much money to upgrade my current home but don't want to wait that long to get a bigger lathe.


Additionally, I was reading a blog about different lathes and the author wrote the following about the Laguna 1836:
"The 110 and 220 version of this lathe are almost identical. The 110 volt version is 1.5 HP. The 220 version is 2HP. Note: It is only a guess on my part, but I think there really is no difference in the motor or VFD other than a 110 verses 220 switch on the side of the VFD that is preset to either 110 or 220. They are just running the VFD in voltage doubling mode. Voltage doubling allows you to run a 220 volt 3 phase motor on a 110 volts single phase input via the VFD. Most of the modern low HP VFDs support this. Voltage doubling is sort of ok, if you are willing to live with a 30% reduction in motor efficiency (aka HP). The 110 version is 1.5 HP and the 220 version is 2 HP. This is consistent with 30% loss due to voltage doubling."

I don't have an electrical background, so maybe this is nonsense, but does this mean that the Laguna could be toggled to run off 110v or 220v depending on a switch on the VFD? If so, that would be great as I could use it in 110v mode for now but if I moved could switch to 220v. Or is this not how it works?

Any info/recommendations would be appreciated.
Tom

[Matt Schrum]

I have a few shop tools (table saw, jointer, etc.) that can be wired for either 110v or 220v-- and I've wired them all for 220v. General consensus is that the overall performance is pretty close (same motor wired for 110 or 220), but that the 220 will bog down less when you really push it, starts up a bit quicker, and runs a bit cooler-- and since it draws less current, you may not dim the rest of the house lights every time you go to start things up :)

With regards to the wiring, clothes dryers often run off of 220v (if you have hookups for an electric one). On an off chance, your laundry room doesn't share a wall with the garage, does it? Then it'd be easy to poke in. Price wise, I'm not sure. I had 220 near the garage and did the additional wiring/subpanel myself-- so that's not a whole lot of help for this discussion.

[Chris Padilla]

Let me stress that the MOTOR doesn't give two whitts about how it is wired. When you adjust the wires in the motor housing, nothing changes within the motor as to how voltage are applied and current is flowing. Therefore, the only 'benefits' are in the wires feeding the motor as Matt correctly pointed out: half the current flows at twice the voltage. The wires feeding the motor will heat up a bit less.

I also used the clothes dryer outlet to feed 240 V (really, it is 120/240 V these days....) to my table saw before I rewired my whole garage/shop. It might be the cheapest route picking up some #10 (or #12) extension cord and wiring in a plug that fits the dryer outlet. Otherwise, costs to install a 240 V receptacle near your lathe are difficult to figure out since I can't see your shop from here. :)

[Michael Schneider]

If you have an electric dryer. Remember how nice a gas dryer is. Drop hints at how nice a gas dryer is. If the boss says ok to gas dryer, you get a 220v outlet :-) The gas dryer will use the same 110v the washing machine is plugged into.

Gas stoves are nice,..... Score a 50amp line with that one.....

[Steve Peterson]

We sold our house 3 years ago and the inspector found the outlet behind the dryer wired with 12ga wire when it should have been 10ga wire for 30 amps. It cost us $500 for an electrician to run new 10ga wire and fish it through the walls at both ends. The total length was around 50'. I could have done it myself for around $100 in parts and 2-3 hours but we needed to use an electrician in this case.

Steve

[Brice Rogers]

Tom, it is hard to estimate how much it would cost, but I'd suspect that it might be 200-400. It depends on some of these things:
1. Length of run
2. Whether or not there are spare slots left open in the breaker box
3. Whether the electrician is able to easily drill into the stud cavity from above or below to run the wires versus having to chop open a wall, or two or three.
4. How hungry, fair, or greedy the electrician is. (My wife worked for an electrical service company and they often would take advantage of uninformed customers. I'm not saying this is the norm, just mentioning that there are some companies out there who are not particularly "fair".)
5. Local permit requirements and fees (assuming that you take out a permit).

[William C Rogers]

All the above post address the possibility of adding 220. Regarding the 1.5 vs 2 hp it's a tough choice. Many turn using a 1.5 hp lathe. I had a Powermatic 90 that only had. 1 hp motor. It was raised to a 18" swing. On large turnings if I took too heavy a cut I could bog it down. I could still turn a 16" bowl but needed lighter cuts. In reality it only come into play about 15% of the time. I always wished for more power, but wasn't going to spend a lot to upgrade. I now have a 2 hp Laguna, but haven't tried a large bowl yet on this lathe.

[Wade Lippman]

I seriously doubt the thing about them being the same. It would be tough to charge more for the 240v if you could make one by changing a switch.

It would take me between 2 hours and 2 days to run the line depending on what it had to go through. I can't quite see it from here. I don't know what electricians charge.

[Michael Schneider]

Tom,

You might consider having a sub panel installed in your garage. A good deal of your cost will be labor.

1) Running a subpanel will only require one line be ran from your breaker box to the subpanel in the garage
2) they could easily/cheaply run a couple of outlets from the subpanel
Maybe 2 220's (lathe + dust collector + bandsaw)
a couple of 110's

If you sell, the subpanel would be valuable to anyone that wants to put a shop in the garage.

Might be worth pricing both ways.

[Thomas Canfield]

You should look at the different loads that you might run at one time in the shop. With a lathe, you cold also run the dust collector, sander, lights, and even an air conditioner or something else. I forgot an air compressor and vacuum pump. I just bought a new air compressor and made sure I could run it on 220V because a 110V unit amperage draw would cause problems unless on a dedicated circuit which usually are not in a garage. My 1 HP bandsaw and 2 HP air compressor both run on 220V and do not come close to the 20A breaker, where I would need 2 circuits at 110V and that would be a full 20A load for the air compressor. I have converted all my 110/220V motors to 220V just to unload the 110V circuits for the smaller tools, work lights, and shop vac, etc.

[Sid Matheny]

Let me stress that the MOTOR doesn't give two whitts about how it is wired. When you adjust the wires in the motor housing, nothing changes within the motor as to how voltage are applied and current is flowing. Therefore, the only 'benefits' are in the wires feeding the motor as Matt correctly pointed out: half the current flows at twice the voltage. The wires feeding the motor will heat up a bit less.

I also used the clothes dryer outlet to feed 240 V (really, it is 120/240 V these days....) to my table saw before I rewired my whole garage/shop. It might be the cheapest route picking up some #10 (or #12) extension cord and wiring in a plug that fits the dryer outlet. Otherwise, costs to install a 240 V receptacle near your lathe are difficult to figure out since I can't see your shop from here. :)

Not always true. The Nova DVR-XP runs 1 1/2 HP running on 110 and 1 3/4 HP on 220.

[Steve Mathews]

I usually do this sort of thing myself and find a lot of satisfaction in the process. There is plenty of information available to help with the effort. Of course if you don't feel comfortable doing electrical work then it's probably best to seek qualified help. Even if you do hire an electrician you could do most of the work yourself by running the wire(s) from the shop to the electrical panel and let the electrician do the final connections. At that point it shouldn't take him more than an hour, actually more like 15 minutes.

[Reed Gray]

When I first started up my shop, 1993, I read every book I could find on tools, shops, and motors. Every single one said that any motor 1 hp and more ran better on 220 volt. I have turned on a couple of Jet 1 1/2 hp lathes that were wired for 110. Very weak compared to my PM, which was 220, and 2 hp. Very weak compared to my Robust Liberty, 220 volt, 1 1/2 hp. I have an old Performax drum sander with a 1 1/2 hp motor that was wired for 110. It was always tripping the breaker. I rewired the motor for 220 (making sure the belt feed stayed on 110), and it never trips any more. Only thing I really know about electricity is what happens when you do it wrong. Locally, you can run your own wiring, but you need a certified electrician to hook it up to the breaker panel.

robo hippy

robo hippy

[Kyle Iwamoto]

I don't think all 110/220v machines are the same. The motors may be, but the inverters are most likely not. If it can be wired either way the manual will say so. If you can, run 220 for a lathe.
As far as cost, I just ran a 220 sub panel, and just the cost of the sub panel, 2 breakers, wiring and the outlet boxes was a couple hundred bucks. And I didn't run conduit, since I stole the existing wires from the electric stove, since I have gas. As always, check your local codes if you need an inspection.

[Wade Lippman]

Let me stress that the MOTOR doesn't give two whitts about how it is wired. When you adjust the wires in the motor housing, nothing changes within the motor as to how voltage are applied and current is flowing. Therefore, the only 'benefits' are in the wires feeding the motor as Matt correctly pointed out: half the current flows at twice the voltage. The wires feeding the motor will heat up a bit less.

That is true for single phase. I have no idea if it true for 3 phase with a converter or not. I doubt you do either.
An authoritative opinion would be nice.

[Chris Padilla]

That is true for single phase. I have no idea if it true for 3 phase with a converter or not. I doubt you do either.
An authoritative opinion would be nice.I bow out of any 3-phase conversations! :)

[Bert Delisle]

VFD's use a DC Buss that gets charged up with input ac line voltage and then through the wonders of modern electronics it provide a Variable Frequency( read speed) output to a 3 ph motor.
Electricity and motors whether single phase or 3 phase are simply volts x amps machines. resistance to current (amps) flow in wires creates heat. Wires all wires in the circuit see the heat generation, supply wires in walls and the winding wires inside the motor. Resistance can be reduced by using bigger wire cross section size. Typically motor winding are very thin compared to supply cable cross section. That one reason I tend to use 220 volt wiring methods when I can because it uses less heat generating amps. At risk of over simplifying consider;
1 horsepower (750watts) will draw 750watts divided by 110 volts results in 6.8 amps
1 horsepower (750watts) will draw 750watts divided by 220 volts results in 3.4 amps
now consider that if you use a long supply wire and an extension cord will smaller gauge wire than the building wire, then line loss voltage occurs. The motor does care it just puts out horsepower and if voltage line loss occurs then amperage will be higher. Amps time volts equals watts or horsepower. Many folks fail to recognize that the nice flexible 16awg extension cord 50 feet long can cause line loss which will contribute to breakers tripping. Electricity is very consistent and Ohms Law prevails, I tend to use 220 volt supply when possible for this reason.

[Thomas Wilson80]

Thanks for all the replies. I think I will see about getting a quote to upgrade capacity to 220v. I checked with Laguna's cs and they said the 110v and 220v models are not interchangeable.

Thanks again.

[roger oldre]

1 horsepower (750watts) will draw 750watts divided by 110 volts results in 6.8 amps
1 horsepower (750watts) will draw 750watts divided by 220 volts results in 3.4 amps
now consider that if you use a long supply wire and an extension cord will smaller gauge wire than the building wire, then line loss voltage occurs. The motor does care it just puts out horsepower and if voltage line loss occurs then amperage will be higher. Amps time volts equals watts or horsepower.

The windings see the same load wired for 110 or 220. the windings are designed for watts the unit of power. In a 110 scenario the windings see 750 watts as they are wired in parallel. In a 220 scenario they are wired in series each sees 750 watts. Nameplate amperage is PER leg of power. 110 One hot and one not (plus ground). 220 two hots no nots( plus ground) amperage is split between two legs. Hertz determines speed in an AC motor, the motor will run the same speed regardless of voltage but wired for 110 and run on 220 it will have twice the power! till the windings designed for 110 /750 watts give up because they are experiencing 1500 watts of flow and the magic escapes the confines of the motor to permeate the atmosphere of the shop!

It is useful and interesting to understand the use of the PIER chart.

[Russ Halsema]

Tom,
To get back to the original question I recently had a 220v outlet installed in my shop for a lathe. I had an electrician come out and do the work. My breaker panel is in my garage and I needed the outlet installed in my shop in the basement. We measured the distance at 80ft. So the electrician bought 100ft of wire, the outlet and a double circuit breaker. There was no room in my panel so he made room by installing the double and giving the 220 outlet its own circuit. The work was done in about six hours. He ran the wire from the panel into the garage attic and down through the walls into the basement. Total charge $400.00

[Michael Greco]

Not always true. The Nova DVR-XP runs 1 1/2 HP running on 110 and 1 3/4 HP on 220.

Specs are actually 1.75 HP @115v and 2 HP @ 220v.

As for running 220 if the panel is below the garage get a breaker and correct gauge wire and outlet and run it yourself.

[ELY WALTON]

When I first started up my shop, 1993, I read every book I could find on tools, shops, and motors. Every single one said that any motor 1 hp and more ran better on 220 volt. [...]
robo hippy

robo hippy

Yes, that is true in theory and in my experience also. One thing to consider is the formula for power: current squared times the resistance. Look at it like this -- the resistance of supply wiring and motor windings is fixed -- a function of the cross sectional area, length and material of the conductors -- fixed resistance. If you change a machine from 110V to 220V, the current is essentially cut in half. And halving the current will reduce the lost power/heat to only 25% of what it was at 110V -- more power available to the motor and cooler operation to boot....

That said, if you are using a VFD, such as the Delta Electronics S1 box that is on the back of most modern lathes, along with a three-phase motor, there is a bunch of other factors... Regardless, it is still good practice to use 220V wherever practical.

BTW, love your videos and hope to perhaps get to meet you one day, Robo!

Ely

[James Maccubbin]

Just had a professional electric company come out and put in six new 220V outlets and run them to the breaker - each at 20A. Total cost was $1500 and took three guys ~4 hours.

[Ted Graham]

If given the option chose running tools at 220v instead of 110v if the motors are capable. Doubling the voltage to a motor will cut the amperage requirement for the same motor power in half. Less amperage = less heat, smaller wire conduit requirement and less chance of surge tripping breakers at startup. V x A = W (voltage x amperage = watts).

Plan ahead for expansion. If you are gong to run a new circuit then run at least a 50 Amp 220v circuit from your main electrical panel to a sub-panel (a.k.a. pony-panel) in your garage. 50 Amps is more than enough to simultaneously run a large wood working machine hooked up to a large cyclone DC. Once the required power is put into the garage auxiliary circuits can readily be run around the shop in both 220v and 110v circuits. The 110v circuits can even be 20 Amp circuits for "power hungry" 110v machines. With 50 Amps now in your garage you (or a future owner) could even run a larger arc welder or let an overnight RV guest get access to 30 amps for their rig. The material cost is minimal compared to labor cost. Running a single 220v circuit would take basically the same labor as running a pony panel if hiring out the job. To really save some money do all the grunt work like hole making and wire running yourself. Let the electrician do the certified hook up to the main breaker. One other savings tip is let the electrician source the supplies for you...they will pay less.

As an added safety bonus the power to the garage can readily be cut off at the main breaker panel to prevent curious hands from getting hurt.

[Edward Weingarden]

"Even if you do hire an electrician you could do most of the work yourself by running the wire(s) from the shop to the electrical panel and let the electrician do the final connections. At that point it shouldn't take him more than an hour, actually more like 15 minutes."

If you hire an electrician, make sure he/she will use the wire you installed. Some electricians will not touch anything when they have not done the complete install. I would imagine its a liability issue.

[Thomas Wilson80]

Thanks for the replies - I am not trained at all in electrical so I hired this out completely a couple of years ago and for around $500 they ran the wire through the walls to my garage and put in several 220v and 110v outlets. It worked out great. I just moved and my new home has space for a shop in the basement, which I'm thrilled about, but no 220v so I will be going through this process again!
Happy New Year!
Tom