Getting Power to your Equipment

[VillageNut]

For the saws and other equipment that must be away from the wall, how do you get power to them. Do you have floor outlets, extension cords, what??

Any advice or do's and don'ts....

[LarryG]

This is one of several excellent reasons I urge anyone building a new shop to use a wood floor on a crawl space, rather than a concrete slab. Wiring and dust collection ducts can be run under the floor, directly to the tools, and easily rearranged if need be. A wood floor doesn't wick water and contribute to rust forming, is less likely to damage a dropped tool, and is MUCH softer and warmer to stand on.

But if you already have a slab, and are loathe to take a jackhammer to it, you really have only three choices:

1. Locate tools close enough to walls that their cords will reach an outlet (what I do, in my current shop with a slab).

2. Use the shortest possible extension cord you can, of sufficiently heavy wire gauge to minimum voltage drop, and route it across the floor in as unobtrusive a place as you can (meaning, where you'll be the least likely to trip over it).

3. Bring the power in overhead, with ceiling-mounted outlets. Ideally these will be close enough to use the tool's cord only; if not, the same extension cord as in #2.

[tfischer]

My "shop" is really my garage, which gets shared with the cars if I'm not in the middle of something big. I have plenty of power on the walls which I've added, and use a few 12-gauge heavy extension cords to bring power into the middle of the room where necessary. In my opinion, you don't want to starve your tools with the cheap 14 or 16-gauge extension cords sold most commonly...

-Tim

[JR]

I ran a dedicated circuit to the center of the ceiling, above my BT3K. I put a retractable 25' cord reel on that. It was the smartest thing I've ever done.

I can quickly deploy power to any of my shop tools by simply lifting my hand and taking a tug on the cord. I can pull it out to the drive and hook up my shop vac for car cleaning. I can clean up any distant corner of the garage in an instant.

I never trip on it. It never gets lost in a pile of lumber. It never comes unplugged.

I love my retractable power reel!

JR

[Eric]

I've got an extension cord that I run on the floor and then have a rubber mat over the cord. I never even think about the cord anymore.

[just4funsies]

Always a good idea to keep your cords as short as will do the job, and use as big a wire as is justified. I make my own... no coiled-up cords on the floor. Ceiling retractables are good, but make sure you get one that's got beefy enough wire. The one that HF sells for $44 ($33 on sale) is fine, but don't use the smaller one for anything bigger than a drill.

[lkazista]

Ceiling mount

Just run the wire to a box in your ceiling above your Table saw and whatever else happens to float out there. If you can not reach your ceiling, just have the romex feed a box in the ceiling and then splice another piece of romex (like 1 foot or whatever the distance needs to be so that you will not hit your head on it, but you will be able to reach it) dropping to a single outlet, like one that would be on the end of a high grade extension cord. This way you have effectively removed the need for any extension cords.

One of the magazines had this tip in it recently. I did it, and it works great.

Lee

[TomBar]

My shop is in the basement. I have outlets mounted on the ceiling joists and use a short 12 guage extension cord.

[Copper]

Boy, you could really take the title of this thread the wrong way. I was half expecting to see an ad for Cialis or something.

Anyway, you can fairly easily mount new outlet boxes in areas that have already been finished. Just be sure to enclose the boxes and wires on the outside of the wall in some solid conduit. It's not as pretty as boxes in the wall, but is functional. This is one of my next planned upgrades to the garage since I'm finding I don't have the number of outlets or amperage needed to run more than one large tool at a time.

[VillageNut]

Copper,
That's hilarious!!!

I guess I should write a book "100 ways to lay pipe in the workshop"!!!!

[DaveW]

Just a random thought - is it really safe to have outlets in the floor of a wood shop? i.e., would the sawdust cause any sort of a hazard?

[LarryG]

Just a random thought - is it really safe to have outlets in the floor of a wood shop? i.e., would the sawdust cause any sort of a hazard?

Yes, this does need to be addressed. Spills (cup of coffee, can of polyurethane) are a potential problem, too.

The two most common approaches are a surface-mounted box in which the outlet face is in a vertical plane, as in a wall, but laid over on its side (i.e., the way outlet often are when they're let into wood baseboards); and a recessed box with a cover with grommetted openings for cords to pass thru. The former presents a tripping hazard but is easy; the latter is more elegant but costs more. There are other methods, too, but most are variations of one of these.

[Jon The Buddha]

Copper,
That's hilarious!!!

I guess I should write a book "100 ways to lay pipe in the workshop"!!!!

Yeah... but who is going to explain the last 97 of them to you??

J/K!!!