Bill wrote:
Thank you for the lessons in electricity! I take it I should be
installing
"4-wire" outlets if I'm planning to purchase new 220v tools from
Delta or Grizzly, correct?

Not for "ordinary" 240V outlets, no. The four-wire connection is for
things like appliances that have both 240V and 120V loads that _used_ to
share the grounding conductor for the 120V neutral. A power saw, etc.,
that is just a 240V motor load doesn't have any use for the 120V and so
doesn't need anything other than the usual 3-wire 240V.

Used to be stuff like drill presses, etc., had a 120V accessory light
that was powered by one side of the 240V in a similar fashion but it
seems based on some other postings here that they've quit doing that in
one of two ways -- either no more courtesy light or it requires a 240V bulb.

OBTW, this is for US 120V/240V obviously, the UK and others run 240V as
does the US 120V w/ a single hot/neutral and don't have 120V routinely
(which is why ordinary US appliances are of essentially no value over
there, of course... ).

....

I probably should examine a book (on setting up/modifying new existing
lines). Any suggestions regarding a book? I recall seeing a few books on
wiring at the BORGs.
....

I better let somebody else recommend recent books rather than guess --
I'm so much an old fogey the most recent thing I have dates to the 80s
maybe at the latest and may well be 20 yrs older than that, even, I'm
not sure...

I know most of the biggest new restrictions in the NEC simply by word of
mouth; I also tend to ignore most of them here on the farm and in the
shop figuring if it's been good enough for 50 years or so it couldn't
have been _too_ bad... That, of course, isn't to be taken as a
recommendation against following Code in new work...

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