110 vs 220

[Brian Hood]

incorrect. breakers are there for the circuit protection only. IMHO, the wires within a motor will fry long before a 12 or 14 gauge wire will.

This comment is right on the money, but to add a couple details:
Yes breakers are just to prevent the wiring to the receptacle from overheating and for no other reason. The advice from Grizzly is just very general advice. Probably the wiring connected to a 15 amp breaker is #14 AWG and that is smaller than you might want for a 1.5 HP motor, but unless you check the wire itself you don't know. The reason you might want larger wire, 12 or 10, has to do with the length of the run and the value of the motor. The bottom line is that there is no advantage one way or the other 120 or 240 if there is enough copper for the electrons to move around in. For example, in my case I had a Rockwell saw for about 30 years and it had to move to a jobsite now and again. Not wanting to rewire the thing every time I moved it I installed a #10 copper wire circuit on a 120 volt 20 amp breaker, not the 30 that is allowed. I'm sure I got every bit of power that motor had in it. My new saw has 3 very expensive Danish motors and I really don't want to take a chance on them, so I ran a #10 240 volt line but on a 20 amp breaker. A few more bucks for wire perhaps, but certainly can't hurt, and my advice to anyone wiring a shop would be to consider running # 10 wire to a couple outlets the bigger machines might be near.

[Art Mann]

Messed up.

[Art Mann]

Look at the trip curve of an ordinary household breaker. The breaker will hold at 2 times rated current for maybe 30 seconds and 4 or 5 times rated current for a few seconds. Clearly, typical breakers are not designed to protect the equipment to which they are connected. OTOH, an insulated copper wire will carry 2X rated current for a minute or so before getting hot enough to melt the insulation.

[Martin Jodoin]

Gordon

Why not give it a shot as delivered, wired for 110v and see how it goes. If you trip the breaker too often then you can rewire the motor.
Personally, i think you will be fine on 110v. Keep in mind 15 Amp is the maximum load and i don't think you will joint 6 inch wide boards all day long.
Congrats on your purchase btw, very nice jointer.

[Rick Christopherson]

Gordon

Why not give it a shot as delivered, wired for 110v and see how it goes. If you trip the breaker too often then you can rewire the motor.
Personally, i think you will be fine on 110v. Keep in mind 15 Amp is the maximum load and i don't think you will joint 6 inch wide boards all day long.
Congrats on your purchase btw, very nice jointer.

Finally! Common sense prevails. The tool hasn't even been delivered, yet there is discussion of altering it long before determining whether a problem exists or not.

[Mike Cutler]

Gordon

Why not give it a shot as delivered, wired for 110v and see how it goes. If you trip the breaker too often then you can rewire the motor.
Personally, i think you will be fine on 110v. Keep in mind 15 Amp is the maximum load and i don't think you will joint 6 inch wide boards all day long.
Congrats on your purchase btw, very nice jointer.

Martin/Rick

I believe Gordon's dilemma is that Grizzly specified a circuit requirement he wasn't going to meet with his current, available, 120 duplex receptacle. So he does already have a problem to resolve prior to use.
Does the Jointer ship with a molded plug attached already? and what is the configuration? Some tools don't ship with the plug attached, and having never seen a Griz' tool, I don't know. If it ship with a 120/15 amp molded plug attached, it better be able to run all day long on a 15 amp protected circuit. If not, it's up to the end user.
None the less, it's Gordon's home and shop, and he has to perform what he believes is the safest, most correct, and prudent action, which would be to meet the manufacturers specification for installation. He can't be wrong doing that.


I have a question.
Have you ever seen a machine/device shipped with a 120/20 amp plug configuration? I don't believe I have ever seen a 20 amp plug on a 120 device shipped from a manufacturer. They always come with the 15 amp plug attached. I was just thinking about that because my Jet DC, and General Hybrid saw both have motors that are 1 1/2 and 2hp,( supposedly) motors attached respectively that came pre configured for 120/15 amp.

[Curt Harms]

Another question is what else is on that 120 volt circuit? A 15 amp circuit might power a jointer rated to draw 15 amps okay. That 15 amp circuit with the jointer, a couple lights and maybe a fan on it might not be so happy. 240 volt circuits seem less likely to have additional loads.

[Chris Rosenberger]

Martin/Rick


I have a question.
Have you ever seen a machine/device shipped with a 120/20 amp plug configuration? I don't believe I have ever seen a 20 amp plug on a 120 device shipped from a manufacturer. They always come with the 15 amp plug attached. I was just thinking about that because my Jet DC, and General Hybrid saw both have motors that are 1 1/2 and 2hp,( supposedly) motors attached respectively that came pre configured for 120/15 amp.

I have several older Festool vacuums that have 20 amp plugs, although the newer Festool vacs do not.
Since most places have 15 amp outlets on 20 amp circuits, it would be a waste & inconvenience to most buyers to install 20 amp plugs.

[Martin Jodoin]

I believe Gordon's dilemma is that Grizzly specified a circuit requirement he wasn't going to meet with his current, available, 120 duplex receptacle. So he does already have a problem to resolve prior to use.
Does the Jointer ship with a molded plug attached already? and what is the configuration? Some tools don't ship with the plug attached, and having never seen a Griz' tool, I don't know. If it ship with a 120/15 amp molded plug attached, it better be able to run all day long on a 15 amp protected circuit. If not, it's up to the end user.

According to the manual is comes with a regular 110v plug. OP said they reccommend a 20 AMP breaker but, a 15 AMP breaker won't hurt anything for sure if it runs fine.
I plane 12 inch boards on my DW735 and never tripped the breaker, I can't imagine a 6" jointer needing more than 15 AMP.
I heard that a spiral cutterhead draws more power than straights knifes so if that is true, OP may need a 20A breaker.

[Rich Engelhardt]

I have a question.
Have you ever seen a machine/device shipped with a 120/20 amp plug configuration?

Not in recent years - but - I can't say I've been looking.
I recall seeing window A/C units - 35/40 years ago that had one..

[Gordon Eyre]

The discussion has been good and has helped me to make the decision to try the 15 amp 110 volt circuit and see how it goes. There is nothing else on that circuit so if the breaker holds I will stay with it. That way I don't have to rewire anything or get a 220 plug. The 220 circuit is there if I ever need it.

[Prashun Patel]

I started with my jointer at 110 and noticed that the voltage sagged on start up. That caused the lights to dim, but more imprtantly, the jointer motor to start slow before spinning up to speed. I may be wron, but that doesnt seem good for the motor. I believe this was exacerbated by the long run of the line to the breaker. This impedes the ability to hold the voltage steady when there is a quick change in current demand like when the motor starts up.

But if you decide you dont like the feel of it as i did not, you can always switch later. Fwiw i did not change the switch, and it has not failed. I have the rigid jointer.

[Gordon Eyre]

I started with my jointer at 110 and noticed that the voltage sagged on start up. That caused the lights to dim, but more imprtantly, the jointer motor to start slow before spinning up to speed. I may be wron, but that doesnt seem good for the motor. I believe this was exacerbated by the long run of the line to the breaker. This impedes the ability to hold the voltage steady when there is a quick change in current demand like when the motor starts up.

But if you decide you dont like the feel of it as i did not, you can always switch later. Fwiw i did not change the switch, and it has not failed. I have the rigid jointer.

Thanks Prashun, if I have any of that at all I will just switch to 220. It is right there where the jointer is to be located so it will not be a big deal at all.

[Jim Neeley]

Gordon,

I too have the Jet 1100B with a 1.5HP motor with a nameplate rating of 15A. It's been running on several different 20A circuits w/o blowing for several years. Technically you aren't supposed to run a 15A load on a 15A breaker; you are supposed to use an 80% multiplier on the breaker sizing. Thus a 20A breaker shouldn't use anything over 16A. I'll admit the NEC is very conservative.

FWIW, if I had breaker trip problems I'd open up the box to check the wire size. If it's 14ga you're stuck but if it's 12ga you could upsize the breaker to 20A 120V and still use the same wiring.

Nothing wrong with going 240 if that pleases you either. It would depend on what you'd want to leave free. <g>

Jim in Alaska

[Rick Fisher]

I tend to believe in watts.

I would run it 110V when you get it .. see how it goes .. We over complicate this stuff, wondering if we notice a difference. End of the day, a 1.5hp motor capable of running 110V or 220V simply wants 1650 watts available..

I'm also willing to bet the motor has a thermal overload .. I hope it does..