Wiring Old poitras TS-121 12-14" table saw

[samuel shoemaker]

Just bought this Jos Poitras & sons TS - 121 12-14" table saw. I am feeling like I'm a little over my head with wiring this machine. I dont have any electrical experience with machines other than rewiring my motors from 120V to 220V and making 220 extension cords. I have attached pictures of all the connections. The gentleman I bought it off had it hard wired at his shop with 4 wires, but the machine tag and motor tag both have it as 1PH, 220V, 15amp. There are 4 wires coming from the motor but i saw on other forums that some other older 1PH motors have this. My shop can only take 1 phase. I have already bought the 220V wire and male outlet. I also have a General Switch for 220V, 1PH, 3HP, 11-14Amp

how its set up now:
- 4 load wires from the motor
- 1 of the 4 wires from the motor appears to have been cut and taped to one of the other 4 (labelled #3)
- those 3 wires are labelled 3,4,8
- #3 leads to switch
- #4 leads to capacitor and switch
- #8 leads to capacitor
- 4 line wires (red,white,black and ground)
- Red and white lead to switch
- Black wire is just capped


My questions are:

Is this mistagged and is actually a 3 PH motor?
is it 1PH and the capacitor is working as a converter to 3PH?
Or is it 1PH and theyre just using 2 of the 3 llive line wires?
If 1PH, how would I wire the 4 load wires to the switch I have?
Lastly, if the motor is 15amps, can I use the switch I have rated for 11-14amps? will that cause problems just mean it will peak at 14amps?

Thanks in advance for any help.
Need to get this beauty fired up so I can get back to work.

[Bill Dufour]

If it has a capacitor it is not three phase. Unless it is using some kind of phase perfect to generate three phase. With only one cap very very unlikely.
Search for help on how to wire a motor made by AEG
Bill D.

[samuel shoemaker]

If it has a capacitor it is not three phase. Unless it is using some kind of phase perfect to generate three phase. With only one cap very very unlikely.
Search for help on how to wire a motor made by AEG
Bill D.

okay, thanks for the quick reply!

[Bill Dufour]

Only one capacitor? How many Micro farad is it?
Bill D

[samuel shoemaker]

Only one capacitor? How many Micro farad is it?
Bill D


I believe i see 30mf just under the ziptie. And only the one capacitor.
i have no experience with capacitors.

[Bill Dufour]

I can not read the data plate very well. I see no horsepower rating or KW either.
3hp would be 20 MFD. 5hp would be around 40 MFd. these are for running capacitors.
A starting capacitor would be over 100 MFD.
So I think you have a capacitor run motor.
BilL D

[richard poitras]

My old Uncle Jos Poitras .... 😁

[Eric Myket]

In my experience, a 4-wire motor is reversible direction depending on which wires you jumper together, like your #3 and whichever one it's taped to. The motor should have a wiring diagram on it somewhere to indicate which wires go where for each direction. You might look up the motor model number online also to find out.

The black input wire being capped just means it's an extra, somebody in the past put 4-wire cable on this but only needed 2 hot and a ground, probably, which is standard for 1P 240V.

I can't tell from the pictures, but if the prior owner had this hardwired, red/black or black/white are the two hot legs standard colors, plus ground. Just hook it up that way to your plug and it'll probably be fine, I'd say; obviously the capped black wire shouldn't be connected at the plug end either.

[Gregory King]

My advice, Get an electrician to drop by and wire it correctly. Got to have the proper rotation as well. No need to burn up a perfectly good motor.

[Tom Yaegle]

I would try the way it was wired. Hot White-220v-red. Not sure why they did not use the black instead of the white. Those are the power in wires right? The 3 wires going into the motor 2 hot and cap not sure why low uf rating but it shows on name tag as 32uf/400v. I would think still a cap start.......BUT I COULD BE WRONG.

Did you hear it run?

Did it slow down like a cap start motor? A change in sound half way on slow down.

I would think it may sound that way on a cap run motor as start winding switch closes also.