With the death of my trusty old saw I’ve been upgrading a older craftmans for a daily beater job saw. So far I’ve added a delta fence and inserts for the router. What it truely needs now is more power. Any suggestions on aftermarket replacement motors for craftsman style table saws. At the moment it’s got a 1hp I’m thinking more like a 3hp.
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I believe Baldor is the make you want.
Phone one of the machinery pros at Woodworkers Supply, and discuss your needs with them.
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I put one of the $89 HF (chicago electric) 3450 RPM '5HP advertised' motors on my old CI craftsman 10" table saw and have been happy with it for a number of years. Can rip 3-1/2" thick white oak without stalling.
56 frame, 230 Vac, 16Amp, 3.1kW, so actually is prabaly a 3.5 HP actual shaft power motor. Sure a lot less $$ than a Baldor.
Have 3 of these, did burn one out trying to get it to do the work of a 184 frame true 5 HP 1725 RPM motor on a well drilling rig, but never had a problem with one an the TS. Rewound it with larger wire and more turns (always do-able as most motors have fairly empty slots for manufacturability) for 2 hrs effort and $2 worth of wire, that one is probably a true 5 HP now.
Where did you get a 10' Table saw that can rip 3 1/2" of depth?I thought my Ryobi was the only one that could do that.Let's not confuse the issue with facts!
Where did you get a 10' Table saw that can rip 3 1/2" of depth?
1960's Craftsman cast iron saw, fairly common. You do need to do some fine tuning and use a full 10" dia blade. Actual depth is about 3-9/16 with a new blade.
When you fine tune the saw, the first thing to do is take an angle grinder and grind off the hump and flashing on the cast iron carriage housing for the bearings, this alone gives you a little over 1/16" more height of the blade above the table and allows a 1-7/8 pulley to just contact the bottom of the table. Also relieve the bottom of the table where that boss goes up. Plus, use a steel 1-7/8" arbor pulley vs. the more common 2" one (I chucked a 2" pulley into the lathe and cut the rim for zero clearance over the belt to fit). I use a single 5L belt. I did not have to releive the radius slot in the height adjust mechanism.
With this setup, when adjusting for max depth, I turn the blade by hand to be sure the pulley is not contacting the bottom of the table, which can result in very rapid belt wear (dont ask how I know that <G>)
Just as important, replace the old single belt pulley with double or triple belt pulleys.
The new motor has a lot more power to the blade. You don't want to lose it on a single belt.
Interresting about adding more pullies. So far i've never had a issue with lost of power with belt slippage. I friend suggested that I down size the pully on the saw. So far I'm passing on that idea
My dad had an old Craftsman table saw. When we upgraded from a 1/2 or 3/4 hp motor, to a 2 hp motor, the belts would slip when we made any heavy cuts. So we put double pulleys on it. Problem solved.
Even putting extra weight on the motor, to put more tension on the belt, didn't work.
You can't do better than a Baldor, but going to 3HP will mean you are wiring it 220 instead of 110. For a contractor tablesaw, the only reason I can think of to nmeed three horses is that you are ripping a lot of thick oak with a three year old blade that's been cutting nails.
Two is plenty
You are possibly basing the thought that you want three because sears has some anemic junk that they call 1-1/2HP or 2HP that really is not.
I had a friend over helping me with some cutting on my 1-1/2HP Grizzly and he commented something like "Wow! My sears won't do half as good as this but iot has the same size motor."
I replied, "That's 'cause it's a Sears" and kept on feeding wood.
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What Gene and Piffin said. Last I looked, the dealer had a catalog that cross-referenced motors with the OEMs that they replaced. I've got a Baldor on my 1950's vintage Unisaw. Good motor.
Scott.
Always remember those first immortal words that Adam said to Eve, “You’d better stand back, I don’t know how big this thing’s going to get.â€