Alright, so in the midst of this soon to be move I will be conducting, being that the in-laws are on the same property, I get an opportunity to inherit some rare treasures. One of them, a commercial grade meat bandsaw! Its a hobart 5212. I have done a little bit of research on the saw and have found that in refurbished condition can sell at around $2000! They gave it to me for FREE! Its been in the backyard covered in plastic for quit some time. It has handled the elements alot better than I thought it would. I pulled it out yesterday, looking at it and all the parts to it. Was fortunate enough to get it all properly assembled. I found an manual to it, but it is definitely not the best in description: http://hobart.co.kr/install_pdf/003.pdf Now, I'm a bit confused on the electrical portion of this. I can supply pictures if need be. On the saw, it appears to me that the ON/OFF switch just actuates a breaker inside the saw. The breaker actuates and supplies power or does not to the motor. Like a BIG relay... On the motor itself, it shows it being dual voltage: 115/230. On the power cord attached, there are only 2 wires. In my little experience that I have, this would seem to tell me that it is wired in a 110v fashion. Both wires are insulated in a black sheathing though. I looked on the end of the cord, and I cannot think how there is anyway a third wire is somehow cut back in the cord. So I have one hot, one neutral it appears. What about a third wire for ground even? I do not see that even... If this indeed is correct and it is wired for a 110 setup, how do I determine which wire is hot and the other neutral? Should I be concerned about the lack of a ground wire? It does not appear the motor has a voltage switch to go between 110 and 220, does it just "auto-sense"? Yep, if I can get this beast working, it will prove to be VERY useful in cutting anything up that comes my way! Its just me and the wife. It would make for some VERY LONG days cutting and wrapping up elk or cow if I did not have this!

Alright, so in the midst of this soon to be move I will be conducting, being that the in-laws are on the same property, I get an opportunity to inherit some rare treasures. One of them, a commercial grade meat bandsaw! Its a hobart 5212. I have done a little bit of research on the saw and have found that in refurbished condition can sell at around $2000! They gave it to me for FREE! Its been in the backyard covered in plastic for quit some time. It has handled the elements alot better than I thought it would. I pulled it out yesterday, looking at it and all the parts to it. Was fortunate enough to get it all properly assembled. I found an manual to it, but it is definitely not the best in description: http://hobart.co.kr/install_pdf/003.pdf Now, I'm a bit confused on the electrical portion of this. I can supply pictures if need be. On the saw, it appears to me that the ON/OFF switch just actuates a breaker inside the saw. The breaker actuates and supplies power or does not to the motor. Like a BIG relay... On the motor itself, it shows it being dual voltage: 115/230. On the power cord attached, there are only 2 wires. In my little experience that I have, this would seem to tell me that it is wired in a 110v fashion. Both wires are insulated in a black sheathing though. I looked on the end of the cord, and I cannot think how there is anyway a third wire is somehow cut back in the cord. So I have one hot, one neutral it appears. What about a third wire for ground even? I do not see that even... If this indeed is correct and it is wired for a 110 setup, how do I determine which wire is hot and the other neutral? Should I be concerned about the lack of a ground wire? It does not appear the motor has a voltage switch to go between 110 and 220, does it just "auto-sense"? Yep, if I can get this beast working, it will prove to be VERY useful in cutting anything up that comes my way! Its just me and the wife. It would make for some VERY LONG days cutting and wrapping up elk or cow if I did not have this!

110 and 230 can both be 2 wire. Your house does this. The water heater elements are 2 wire 230 and household stuff is 2 wire 110. The ground is for safety and a lot of old things neglect it (but shouldn't obviously). 4 wire things such as an oven have 2 wires for the elements in the oven, a ground for safety, and a neutral for 110 things such as the clock in the oven. The house has 2-110 circuits or 1-230 circuit, the neutral is needed to seemingly "split" the 230 circuit into 2-110 circuits. It is actually 120 and 240 but things say 110 or 115 or 120, basically the same thing. Anyhow, that relay is called a motor starter relay. Switches don't like high current running through them so they are wired to simply start the relay by energizing the coil within it, which is many times less current so the switches are happy. The coil does have a power rating though and it might be a 110 or 230 coil and there is probably a little transformer in there to either raise or lower the voltage from the incoming source voltage to give the coil the proper voltage. Too much and it will fry too little and it won't engage. The motor is dual voltage but has wires that have to be connected a certain way for 230 or 110 volts. Looking at how it's wired would be a good indicator of what it has been ran on, though double checking everything else is probably a good thing too. A ground is a good thing to have and you can easily replace the cord (I assume that one doesn't even have an end on it or you would know what kind of outlet it plugs into) with one with a ground, then just run the other end to the frame of the saw. I could get into more detail but I don't know if this sounds like something too daunting to challenge or not, let me know and I'll give full details.

I never knew it was wired that way. I figured 110 and 220 so to speak meant that your hot and neutral was like the positive and negative. So in a 220 format, had 2 positives and a negative.

So what it sounds like your saying is that even on a 110 circuit, there is 2 hots? Electrical has never been my strongpoint. Although, I still would say I've got a basic understanding.

I'll take some pictures so you guys can get a better idea..

- - - Updated - - -

Well no, obviously you can put your hand on the neutral wire on a 110 circuit since it is bonded with ground. Not so with the 230 circuit. So you could say the 230 is 2 hots and the 110 is 1 hot, but in reality it's just a matter of which is hot in relation to you touching it...they actually both work the same way it's just whether or not it's hot to us if we touch it. The second pic is what you need to check out. From what I can tell, there are 3 wires taped together which means there should be 1 wire coming from the motor and straight out then another 2 wires taped together to form 1 wire which comes straight out as well. Both of these straight out wires form your power connection. The wires at the motor have numbers on them. If you look at pic 3 at the bottom you see low voltage and high voltage 153284, the lines between the numbers show how it should be wired. low voltage is 110, high voltage is 230. So for 110, 153 go together and form one wire, and 284 go together to form the other wire. Right above those numbers you see L1 and L2. On 230 it doesnt matter but on 110 the L1 gets the hot wire and L2 gets the neutral. In your house, hot is black and neutral is white. If you notice, 230 configuration has 532 connected together going to neither L1 or L2, 1 goes to L1 and 8 and 4 connect and go to L2. In the pic you took it showed 3 wires connected going to nothing, telling me it must be 230 since 110 doesnt have 3 wires going to nothing. The schematic says the transformer is not used for 230 volt but only to step up voltage when using a 110 volt setup, meaning the coil of the motor starter relay must be 230 volt. Confirm that the motor has all those wire numbers hooked up for 230v operation and then if it were me I would just run a 230v circuit to it. In your house this is what those 2 breaker wide breakers are for. So all the breakers you have that are wide are 230v, such as your oven, dryer, etc. Though going to 110 might be more feasible since you probably dont have 230v outlets just laying around everywhere.

Well no, obviously you can put your hand on the neutral wire on a 110 circuit since it is bonded with ground. Not so with the 230 circuit. So you could say the 230 is 2 hots and the 110 is 1 hot, but in reality it's just a matter of which is hot in relation to you touching it...they actually both work the same way it's just whether or not it's hot to us if we touch it. The second pic is what you need to check out. From what I can tell, there are 3 wires taped together which means there should be 1 wire coming from the motor and straight out then another 2 wires taped together to form 1 wire which comes straight out as well. Both of these straight out wires form your power connection. The wires at the motor have numbers on them. If you look at pic 3 at the bottom you see low voltage and high voltage 153284, the lines between the numbers show how it should be wired. low voltage is 110, high voltage is 230. So for 110, 153 go together and form one wire, and 284 go together to form the other wire. Right above those numbers you see L1 and L2. On 230 it doesnt matter but on 110 the L1 gets the hot wire and L2 gets the neutral. In your house, hot is black and neutral is white. If you notice, 230 configuration has 532 connected together going to neither L1 or L2, 1 goes to L1 and 8 and 4 connect and go to L2. In the pic you took it showed 3 wires connected going to nothing, telling me it must be 230 since 110 doesnt have 3 wires going to nothing. The schematic says the transformer is not used for 230 volt but only to step up voltage when using a 110 volt setup, meaning the coil of the motor starter relay must be 230 volt. Confirm that the motor has all those wire numbers hooked up for 230v operation and then if it were me I would just run a 230v circuit to it. In your house this is what those 2 breaker wide breakers are for. So all the breakers you have that are wide are 230v, such as your oven, dryer, etc. Though going to 110 might be more feasible since you probably dont have 230v outlets just laying around everywhere.

Dang! Talk about being schooled! I'm gonna have to read this a couple times to digest all of what you said. Where I plan on moving, its gonna go in the shop. Hopefully shop has 220 outlets. I will know tomorrow, as I'm going to see the place. If not, I will have to see what I can do, or just go 110. It should just run the same on either voltage, right? It just draws more amperage on the 110? Once I can get an idea of how its wired, I'll take more pics and post up the findings.

Dang! Talk about being schooled! I'm gonna have to read this a couple times to digest all of what you said. Where I plan on moving, its gonna go in the shop. Hopefully shop has 220 outlets. I will know tomorrow, as I'm going to see the place. If not, I will have to see what I can do, or just go 110. It should just run the same on either voltage, right? It just draws more amperage on the 110? Once I can get an idea of how its wired, I'll take more pics and post up the findings.

Yes it will run the same but slightly more efficient on 230 and yes it will draw more amps on 110. Volts x Amps = Watts so if watts remains the same which in this case it would since the motor doesn't change HP rating between voltages, it means that if one goes up the other goes down. As in if amps goes up the volts go down given the same wattage. 1v x 100a is the same as 100v x 1a. The difference is that amps are your flow, your source of heat from friction.. So wire size is determined solely by amps. This is why your dryer/oven/etc. use 240v, because the wires would have to be 2 gauge which is very expensive being big copper wires and just not worth it. This is why 230 is also more efficient (though maybe not so noticeable on your electric bill) since it doesn't waste as much heat with amp flow.

Alright gang, I decided to dig this up instead of reposting a new thread. I figure we would leave off where we once were. So, I had the neighbor look at the saw as he is an electrician. But hes an old boy so hes in bed early. I don't like bothering him much either. But I did manage to get him to look at it for me. Came to the conclusion like ISX. It was wired 230.The cable had the 2 hots and the braided steel was the ground. We concluded that going 110 would be better idea for me. So I picked up an extension cord to handle he rated amps for the saw.I hooked the cord up according to the motor plate. The ground was connected to a mounting bolt for the motor.I tried to get it going and upon pushing the switch to start it, I get nothing. Not even a slight hum or any draw whatsoever from it.I'm out of ideas as to what it could be. I'm wondering if the transformer needs to be re-configured at all per the schematics? I'll try and get my neighbor over tomorrow too if I can...

Yes the coil of the relay needs the voltage stepped up to work or it will do nothing. It says the transformer isn't used on 230 but is used for 120 to get the voltage back up. Right now you are trying to basically start a truck with a 6 volt battery.. But it is more of a "it works or it doesn't" scenario with those coils. Hook up the transformer like it shows in the schematic and it will work.

If I read it right, the schematics state (to me, anyway) that it is 110VAC input, and the transformer steps everything up inside.On the NOTES section of the schematic, read the first note. "If 220V is used, the transformer is not." or something along those lines.

...an thats my problem. I could'nt read a schematic to save my life!

Alright, looking at the diagram, I'm not comprehending it. It says to do this and that if I use 220, but what the heck is it supposed to be set up like if its 110?

Can you get a closer pic of what I show in the pic? What you need to do is very simple it's just a matter of connecting the transformer up in a different configuration.

NOTE:

- transformer is not

normally used for

208 VOLT thru 230 VOLT

systems, but is used

when 115 volt pilot

circuit requested.

NOTE

- when overload protection

is not used, connect t6

from motor to t1 on xonnector

and

(1) if transformer is used

connect x3 to c3

(2) if transformer is not used

connect L2 to C3

##NOTE

When transformer is not used

(1)connect L1 to ...

(2)If overload protection is

used, connect L2 to 6..

(3)if overload protection is not

used connect L2 to C3

[TABLE=class: outer_border, width: 400]

[TR]

[TD=align: center]TRANSFORMER PRIMARY TERMINAL CONNECTIONS

[/TD]

[/TR]

[/TABLE]

[TABLE=class: grid, width: 400]

[TR]

[TD]PRIMARY

VOLTAGE

[/TD]

[TD]CONNECT

[/TD]

[TD]LINE LEAD

(H) TO

[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]208-230V

60 or 60 HZ

[/TD]

[TD]H1 TO H3

H2 TO H4

[/TD]

[TD]H1 and H4

[/TD]

[/TR]

[/TABLE]

Well there is no x3....now you see why I wanted it closer. I also don't see where C3 is. I think it's on the right below the contactor coil.Anyhow H1 and H3 go together and make one wire, and H2 and H4 go together and make the other wire. It goes right past it on 220 so you will also have to hook the X1 and X2 sides up. If the wire is wired for 110 as well, it should all work.

I think that's "K", rather than "x"...

No I stared at it long enough and got it figured out. They are hitting off the starter relay power and going straight over to the other side to the coil. With the transformer they are running the power from the starter relay to the transformer then out of the transformer to the coil. The transformers always use H and X for the primary and secondary, though primary and secondary can be exchanged. Whichever side has the power is the primary.

Alright boys, I got my meat saw running! Last weekend I brought it up to the in-laws for processing the beef. Got it all cleaned and lubed up to use. Decided we would turn the 25ft extension cord into a 220 cord. Although we had to hardwire the motor to the cord cause the switch would not work. So I gotta figure out what is going on with that.Boyo! That saw did wonders helping cut up the cow! Now, we get to sit and enjoy some great grass fed beef! Cooked up a t-bone steak on the bbq for our first meal. WOW!