Using 220v Festool in the US

[Intex]

I finally was able to add a 220volt outlet in the garage to hookup the KS-60 Kapex miter saw

We ran to hot 110volt lines to the outlet, plus one ground. We hooked up one 120v hot to each horizontal female pin of a Nema 6-15 receptacle 15 amp. We hooked up the ground, to the ground connector on the Nema Receptacle, even though the saws plug won’t use it .

We cut off the UK 220v plug on the KS-60 and connected a NEMA 6-15 plug to it, one Brown wire to one horizontal pin, and the Blue wire to the other horizontal pin. No other connections.

The ks-60 works, although the motor sounds like it has a bad bearing, not a smooth sound, but since I have never heard a ks-60 before I have nothing to compare it to

Any comments on this????

And now I would like to thank Festool for making this purchase so easy for me, (sarcasm). I ended up spending much more than a KS-120 but I could not use the ks-120 because of its size and weight. Make things extremely hard for your customers and it probably will add to the goodwill formed up to that 5ime. (again more sarcasm) I am not a happy camper that they made this so difficult by forbidding their European dealers from selling 110v models for export

Hope this helps someone

 

[Svar]

The ks-60 works, although the motor sounds like it has a bad bearing, not a smooth sound, but since I have never heard a ks-60 before I have nothing to compare it to

Is it growling sound like ts 55 or 75 make? But than ks60 has belt drive. Perhaps you could compare it to some videos.

 

[Gregor]

Make sure that the label on the Kapex lists the power requirements as 50-60Hz, else the electronics could expect 50Hz but with the mains being at 60Hz in the US it might get confused (in case it would, as the simplest solution to control the RPM, just count the RPM of the blade in the time between two zero crossings of the mains).
This could end your Kapex quickly as the electronics would constantly aim to run the motor 20% faster than intended.

 

[peter halle]

Make sure that the label on the Kapex lists the power requirements as 50-60Hz, else the electronics could expect 50Hz but with the mains being at 60Hz in the US it might get confused (in case it would, as the simplest solution to control the RPM, just count the RPM of the blade in the time between two zero crossings of the mains).
This could end your Kapex quickly as the electronics would constantly aim to run the motor 20% faster than intended.

In his previous thread he clarified that the label did say 50-60 HZ.

Peter

 

[six-point socket II]

Then obviously I stand corrected, wow.

Kind regards,
Oliver

 

[Gregor]

In his previous thread he clarified that the label did say 50-60 HZ.

Havn't seem that one. Nevermind then.

 

[Coen]

And now I would like to thank Festool for making this purchase so easy for me, (sarcasm). I ended up spending much more than a KS-120 but I could not use the ks-120 because of its size and weight. Make things extremely hard for your customers and it probably will add to the goodwill formed up to that 5ime. (again more sarcasm) I am not a happy camper that they made this so difficult by forbidding their European dealers from selling 110v models for export

Hope this helps someone

Why would European dealers even sell 110V in the first place? Outside of the "UK building site" nobody uses 110V here.

It's all 230V here or locally some ancient 2x130V with 120 degrees shifted (=230)

Never seen split-phase here either. Either single phase 230V or 3x230V with 400V between the phases.

Wouldn't be surprised if the Kapex just rectifies everything, so frequency be damned. Especially when going to a higher frequency, as the caps in the rectifier get topped up more often (lower ripple).

 

[Svar]

Why would European dealers even sell 110V in the first place? Outside of the "UK building site" nobody uses 110V here.

I guess the OP's frustration is of general nature. 40% of the global economy runs on 110V, a huge underutilized market for Festool.

 

[Stephen B]

Why would European dealers even sell 110V in the first place? Outside of the "UK building site" nobody uses 110V here.

I guess the OP's frustration is of general nature. 40% of the global economy runs on 110V, a huge underutilized market for Festool.

[member=15585]Svar[/member]

Where do you get that figure from?

If you look at this site, few 110V and, apart from Canada and  US, most are present or former US territories.
https://www.school-for-champions.com/science/ac_world_volt_freq_list.htm#.W0LgTdF_Wf0

 

[Svar]

Why would European dealers even sell 110V in the first place? Outside of the "UK building site" nobody uses 110V here.

I guess the OP's frustration is of general nature. 40% of the global economy runs on 110V, a huge underutilized market for Festool.

[member=15585]Svar[/member]
Where do you get that figure from?
If you look at this site, few 110V and, apart from Canada and  US, most are present or former US territories.

Most of S. Am. + N. America + Japan + Taiwan = 40% of global GDP.

 

[DeformedTree]

Why would European dealers even sell 110V in the first place? Outside of the "UK building site" nobody uses 110V here.

I guess the OP's frustration is of general nature. 40% of the global economy runs on 110V, a huge underutilized market for Festool.

[member=15585]Svar[/member]
Where do you get that figure from?
If you look at this site, few 110V and, apart from Canada and  US, most are present or former US territories.

Most of S. Am. + N. America + Japan = 40% of global GDP.

On top of that, just the US/Canada/Japan makes for just 3 countries to have to work with to get that amount of economy, not dozens a few percent at a time.  And a further bonus, Japan is very far away yet uses the same electrical plugs at North America.

Still, as another poster mentioned, tools are going brushless, so even when corded they all will be just rectifying to DC.  Festool should be making all their tools. 100-240VAC 50/60hz,  rectify, and run brushless motors, and have that be the same spec as the battery powered tools so they can be both battery and corded in the same tool (like some other brands have done with some tools).  Make one design, ship it globally with just the regionalization cord tossed in the box. Now it's the same as other electronics have been for decades. Heck sell the tools without the cord, which would make sense in plug-it world.  Now you have one package for the entire planet, don't even have to tweak a thing.

 

[AlexThePalex]

  Festool should be making all their tools. 100-240VAC 50/60hz,  rectify, and run brushless motors, and have that be the same spec as the battery powered tools so they can be both battery and corded in the same tool (like some other brands have done with some tools).  Make one design, ship it globally with just the regionalization cord tossed in the box.

Totally impractical and often totally impossible.

Appliances that say 110-240v have an internal transformer with two selectable windings that lower the voltage. This can not be done for a powertool because they want to utilise the full power of the grid and don't even have a transformer.

 

[Gregor]

And a further bonus, Japan is very far away yet uses the same electrical plugs at North America.

You realize that the world is a sphere, not a flat map that ends at the edges of a piece of paper?

 

[Svar]

Festool should be making all their tools. 100-240VAC 50/60hz,  rectify, and run brushless motors, and have that be the same spec as the battery powered tools so they can be both battery and corded in the same tool (like some other brands have done with some tools).

They'd still need a transformer, right? Can a 1800W one be miniaturized enough to fit on-board?

 

[Coen]

Here is a novel idea; we all switch to 350 Vdc (https://www.directcurrent.eu/en/) or the Americans just switch to 230Vac. If 40% of the world economy uses 230Vac (yeah, I was surprised too), it still means 60% uses 230Vac. Americans can run european tools on split-phase 110V (=220V), but Europeans can't run American tools without step-down transformer. So the Americans are leaving out massive export opportunities for themselves by sticking to a less efficient system that can't be exported easily.  [wink]

You might want to combine it with metrification  [tongue]

  Festool should be making all their tools. 100-240VAC 50/60hz,  rectify, and run brushless motors, and have that be the same spec as the battery powered tools so they can be both battery and corded in the same tool (like some other brands have done with some tools).  Make one design, ship it globally with just the regionalization cord tossed in the box.

Totally impractical and often totally impossible.

Appliances that say 110-240v have an internal transformer with two selectable windings that lower the voltage. This can not be done for a powertool because they want to utilise the full power of the grid and don't even have a transformer.

More likely they just change the switching duty cycle. But that's mostly the stuff with lower power.

And yes, I don't want any increased weight for my tools just to please someone on the other side of the globe.

We agreed globally on the same network connector (RJ-45), the same USB connectors, the same DVD size, the same wifi standard. If it were left to non-political engineers the other stuff would have already been harmonized.

 

[DeformedTree]

  Festool should be making all their tools. 100-240VAC 50/60hz,  rectify, and run brushless motors, and have that be the same spec as the battery powered tools so they can be both battery and corded in the same tool (like some other brands have done with some tools).  Make one design, ship it globally with just the regionalization cord tossed in the box.

Totally impractical and often totally impossible.

Appliances that say 110-240v have an internal transformer with two selectable windings that lower the voltage. This can not be done for a powertool because they want to utilise the full power of the grid and don't even have a transformer.

They can have internal transformers, and stuff that goes for cheap often does that.  But if your doing it in the modern world, you bring power in, rectify to DC, now you have DC power and can have a large range based on what came in. You then use a solid state DC-DC to PWM to what ever voltage you want the tool to run at, logical plan would to be set this at the same voltage as your battery system if you want the flexibility to use battery power.  Also if you make the tool flexible in this way, the recitfier and DC-DC is in a module that unplugs from the battery slot, so when on battery power, it's not there.  Then the motor has the same simple IGBT run the motor.  Nothing about this is big or complicated and really anymore not even expensive, thus why you see tools going this route.  You also see this on power supplies/bricks for laptops.  Some have huge heavy bricks, others have small little things.  The difference is ones that use transformers, and ones that run thru solid state.  The later cost a bit more, but makes for a supply that is way smaller and lighter.    Any tool with a brushless motor is this today, just a question of if they spec'd it all out to handle the full 100-240VAC range, or went with 2 setups for regionalization.

You are getting the same power from the wall no matter how you do it.

 

[Gregor]

But DC power holds promise.

It also has downsides, like worse arcing behaviour (AC arcs extinguish quicker as of the frequent zero-crossing).

 

[Coen]

[...]

In the Netherlands we swapped from 127V to 220V in the 1970's. First it was using two phases of 127V for a total of 220, later net voltage upped to 220 and residential boards rewired to use the neutral again. The first change could be done house by house, the 2nd change had to be done by whole neighborhoods at the same time. That same thing could be done in the US  [tongue]

Because of that history, electrical codes here (NL) still require switching the neutral. In most other countries they only require the hot to be switched, like Germany.

 

[DeformedTree]

I really don't know when we added 240 in the US and thus became split phase, but we started out 100-120V fairly early on like everyone else, we just never went full switch over.

There really is no push for it, and in general very few people care. It's not like the inch/metric situation where it has a major impact on folks every day, commerce issues, general headaches in doing things.  The power grid situation is really a small impact all around as things that should be on 220 all ready are (HVAC, dryers, welders, ovens, cooktops, water heaters, EV car charging).  It's the general purpose appliances that aren't, and there just isn't a compelling reason to change.  It's not like those items are pulling massive amounts of amps where going 220 would make a big difference.

The NEC (US electric code), would need to put an exception in to allow 15/20Amp branch circuits to be put into construction.  After that you'd still have the issue that no builder would put such circuits in without code requiring them too, and they would fit it to the end of the earth like everything else and they would have a good case since there would be no appliances to use them at the beginning.  So in this aspect you get a situation like the metric conversion.  Which happens first?  You would need to government to make a push for 240 only to happen, but then you still have a hard time for making the push.  Like metric which is all around us people don't notice, so is 220 around us people just don't notice. But unlike inch/metric it doesn't cause day to day problems for very many folks. 

I think you might find more people wishing they could get 3Phase into their house/garage long before they expressed desire to get rid of 110V.

 

[Coen]

I really don't know when we added 240 in the US and thus became split phase, but we started out 100-120V fairly early on like everyone else, we just never went full switch over.

There really is no push for it, and in general very few people care. It's not like the inch/metric situation where it has a major impact on folks every day, commerce issues, general headaches in doing things.  The power grid situation is really a small impact all around as things that should be on 220 all ready are (HVAC, dryers, welders, ovens, cooktops, water heaters, EV car charging).  It's the general purpose appliances that aren't, and there just isn't a compelling reason to change.  It's not like those items are pulling massive amounts of amps where going 220 would make a big difference.

The NEC (US electric code), would need to put an exception in to allow 15/20Amp branch circuits to be put into construction.  After that you'd still have the issue that no builder would put such circuits in without code requiring them too, and they would fit it to the end of the earth like everything else and they would have a good case since there would be no appliances to use them at the beginning.  So in this aspect you get a situation like the metric conversion.  Which happens first?  You would need to government to make a push for 240 only to happen, but then you still have a hard time for making the push.  Like metric which is all around us people don't notice, so is 220 around us people just don't notice. But unlike inch/metric it doesn't cause day to day problems for very many folks. 

I think you might find more people wishing they could get 3Phase into their house/garage long before they expressed desire to get rid of 110V.

EV charging on 220V... how thick are you going to run that wire or how long are you willing to wait?