Pushmatic breakers? Probably from the 50's or 60's. FWIW, my electrician
friend who likes to go overboard on everything says they are a fire
waiting to happen. I'd go with a new, upgraded breaker panel with a
sub-panel in the shop. Then you can go out and buy some BIG tools!



Mike wrote:
I've been looking into getting a new table saw, and since I only have
110v in my shop, I've limited my choices to contractor and hybrid
saws. I started wondering about the possibility of pulling 220v into
the shop and did some poking around in my breaker box. My circuit box
has the old style 'pushmatic' breakers and is completely full, so
adding a new 220v breaker really isn't an option. So, now I'm
wondering about tying into an existing 220v circuit.

There are two 220v circuits: a 30 amp for the air conditioner, and a
50 amp for the dryer. I don't think that using the air conditioner
circuit would be a good idea, especially in the summer. But, the dryer
circuit looks like a good possibility - assuming that we don't run the
dryer at the same time as the table saw. I was really surprised to
find that the dryer circuit was 50 amps - how much power does a dryer
really pull?

So the question is, is it OK to branch off of the dryer circuit and
run it out to the shop? Would it be OK to run a table saw on a 50 amp
220v circuit?