I've had two homes over the past 25 years and in both cases all my power tools have been run on 110 volts. An upcoming move has afforded me the "opportunity" to buy a new table saw (a SawStop cabinet model) and start from scratch with my shop setup. Unfortunately, as before, my shop will be shared with two cars in a three car garage. In the past I've had all my equipment except for my lathe mounted on heavy duty casters and after backing out one or both cars I positioned my equipment for good work flow. Since I never ran any of the power tools at the same time except for the dust collector, I simply had each one plugged into a heavy duty extension cord, normally 25 feet or less.
When I set things up at the new place I'd like to use 220 volts where possible. I plan on ordering the SawStop as a 220 volt unit, and re-wire my Jet 14" band saw to run on 220. My Delta dust collector also has the ability to be re-wired for 220 volts. If we have a house built I want to have the builder include several 220 volt outlets in the garage. However, they'd be wall-mounted and not anywhere near the middle of the garage floor, where the table saw and band saw would be moved to for operation. Is there any problem using a 220 volt extension cord to run these units? The 110 volt extension cables I used previously were 12/3 and never longer than 25 feet. Running the equipment on 220 volts would draw half the current that it would on 110. I see extension cables on Amazon that use 8/3 wire which seems like that is way overkill for my equipment - they appear to be aimed at welders.
Any suggestions? Are any of you running your 220 volt tools with extension cords?
Thanks, Jim