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.