Power to the Powermatic

Dan's post about the AC adaptor for the laser on his hollowing rig reminded me about these pics I took a year and a half ago but never posted.

I have a couple long power strips that I got at Fry's a few years ago. I was wanting to use one by my lathe for running all sorts of things, but didn't want it on the floor. It turns out that the strip is an exact fit between the legs of my lathe, and the webbing near the tops of the legs worked great for supporting it. I added some industrial-strength stickyback Velcro to help hold it in place, although I still need to use one hand to hold the strip when I unplug something. The strip makes it easy to kill the power on all the little things at the end of a shop day.



It has proven to be one of the handiest additions I've done to my lathe. It powers my right-angle drill, the power supply for my woodburning pens, a couple light fixtures, my 3" ROS, and probably other tools I'm forgetting. No digging around through the curlies for the end of an extension cord...just reach under the lathe to plug stuff in.

In the second pic, you can also see the dual 220v outlets attached to the left-hand leg of the lathe. One outlet powers the lathe and the other is for the bandsaw or vacuum pump. My lathe is not against any walls, so I had to drop the power from another 220v outlet on the ceiling. Having the outlets mounted where they are keeps them out of the curlies and sawdust, and makes it very convenient to unplug the lathe when I'm not using it.

Now im thinking about the strip idea because it would be handy to leave the transformer plugged in, have more outlets for power sanding, lighting etc.....For my 220 comming from the ceiling i used a retractable cord in a spring loaded recoiler type setup. It has a long extension so I can move the lathe out into the driveway and create more room to work out of the garage.
Ill post a pic later when i can to show you............good setup idea ... Thanks

Vaughn

It looks like a couple of cast in brackets there in the corners of the legs couldn't you rabbit the corners of a board so the bottom edge was even with the bottom of the casting & mount the plug strip to the bottom of the board the rabbit allowing for the length of the plug strip to go by the corner casting & with a 2x2 on the bottom of the board to screw the plug strip to & as a stiffener for the board you'd also have a shelf to put things on.

Safety Alert

Dan you mention leaving the transformer plugged in. Thats what made me respond.

I think you have a great setup there Vaughn but there is one important thing i see and that is the switch at the end of the power bar.

Dan i have had two of these so called adapters/power transformers burn out on me over the years.

Just thinking of curlies being around and them burning out is a risk of fire. Provided you are present i would not worry you can always react with an extinguisher. But knowing the USA and Canada receptacles are not switched I would ensure that i have a master switch on something like a power bar and make it habit to kill the switch if i leave the lathe so that a permanently plugged in transformer cannot burst into flames and cause a fire with the curlies.

Better safe than sorry.

Back where i came from and in the UK we had switches on every receptacle. Yeah it was standard 220v but to me that dont make a difference. You switched off the receptacle before removing something that was plugged in. Here i feel you are easily prone to getting shocked if your manner in which you remove a device is not careful.

Rob

I like the fact that your cautious.

Unplugging a electrical item from a plug in be it 110 or 220 I have never been shocked in 57 years. Of course I try to keep things in good condition.

Agree on the power strip with a master switch - If i install that kind of a setup. Reason is that right now I pull my lathe out into the driveway and hook up my 220 power. Then i have another extension cord for the 110 power for sanding etc -. I really do not need to have multiple things plugged into the 110 and can easily get by with my extension cord and using my tools one at a time. At the end of the day everything is unplugged and put away back into the garage. I never leave anything plugged in..... I only have a 2 car garage and room is something i wish i had more of but I don't so everything is on wheels and put away after each use......

As for my 220 problem I put in a retractable coiler (see pic1 below) with a long extension cord so I can put the lathe out in the driveway (actually any of my 220 equipment). Then on the wall i put in 3 other 220 outlets - 2 for plug ins and 1 is wired to the coiler (see pic 2)