Topic: Electrical help needed! Woodworking equipment issues.

[FrankenFrankenstuff]

OK. So I have a nice old Rockwell Delta Unisaw tablesaw. The wire from the panel is 10 guage and roughly 100 feet. The tablesaw motor is not labeled. I assume it's a 3hp.

The saw worked fine at my last shop. I moved to a new spot an now here it will run for 20 seconds then trip the dual 30amp breaker......so I bumped it up to a dual 50amp breaker. Starts and runs fine.....but now the chords are getting hot. Not the wire from the panel. Just from plug down. The junction box on the saw even smoked. I am thinking of just bumping up the wires in junction box on the saw. Bad idea? It cut great. Pics tonight.

[FrankenFrankenstuff]

[FrankenFrankenstuff]

[scottly]

Joe, kind of hard to see how the junction box is wired. It appears there are three cables going into the box? I assume the one on the upper left is the input, and the one on the lower right is the output to the motor? I have a 3HP motor on my air compressor, and it draws 19 amps @ 230V, according to the nameplate, and it runs fine off a 20 amp breaker. Are you feeding 230-240 volts to a 115-120 volt motor?

[RAFster122s]

You definitely have a problem if the wires are getting hot and smoking the panel box.
I would want to be sure nothing was shorted in the move. If that's ok,  then the wiring is suspect.
I cannot see the wiring very clearly.

Next you're going to be putting a 30-06 shell in there to replace the fuse...

[danyo]

It could be you have voltage drop on that 100 ft feeder wires. Check the voltage at junction box when motor is running. If way below 240V you'll have to replace wires for higher gauge. Running it from 50 amp circuit breaker is not the solution.

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[333]

I'd discount the "short" idea, as a short wouldn't just make wires get hot, it would trip the breaker at the very first millisecond.  It almost sounds like it is wired wrong, and may have worked fine in the previous location because the box it was connected to may have been wired wrong.  The other thing may be attributed to the 100 ft cable.  Are you using all that length, or is it coiled up?  A coil of wire is a resistor, and could account for the heat.

[FrankenFrankenstuff]

It's a 100 ft. straight shot. The thing I noticed it there are 2 different wire thicknesses. I am going to rewire using all the same gauge then try again..., but first I am waiting on a new on/off switch. The box that smoked is called a contactor. I just thought it was a junction box between the switch and the motor.

[FrankenFrankenstuff]

and here is the union of the two different guage wires. Larger one is from the motor smaller is from the box.

[333]

It may be that the contactor was just due.  I don't think the two sizes of wire is the issue, but it isn't a good idea to do that.

That looks like a magnetic switch.