Old cabinet saws have multiple belts. Modern belt designs can put this same power through a single belt. Polygroove belts are also thinner and more flexible, leading to less power loss and less vibration.
It's getting so that it's actually difficult to buy a triple pulley!
That's sounds alright and workin, but how does one find_out the exact horse power of a motor?
horse power of a motor?
Alright, volts (#) times amps (#) divided by 746 equals actual horsepower?
No to both. Power consumption is one way of rating. So many watts. Doesn't tell how well they are converted to energy.
Power output another. Some go with "developed" HP, which is pretty optimistic.
What's on the nameplate is generally pretty good.
This a good thing to read.
power of a motor?
you don't.
there are so many ways to calculate horsepower that the term is almost meaningless. a much more useful number for small power tools is watts.
power of a motor?
You set up a pony brake to measure foot lbs of absorbed power per unit of time as well as the necessary electrical instrumentation to measure input volts, amps and power factor.
You now crunch the data with your handy dandy slide rule, then plot electrical data vs mechanical data.
I won't tell you how long ago we did this as a mechanical enginering lab project, but the slide rule comment should give you a clue.
Lew
Well, since they are selling on e-bay as "Old, Rare, Vintage, Antique Slide Rule - L@@K!", you must be an Antique. Wait a minute, I started with a slide rule. Guess that makes me an Antique too!
Unfortunately there are a zillion of them out there. Slide Rules, that is.
I still have a couple of the less common circular types. Also an old celestial computer, though the epoch is a few back. Wonder if there's a market on e-b for them?
They still sell circular slide rules every day!
Barry
Ayup, my old Jeppeson CR-3 lived in the lower left leg pocket of my flight suit for years. It's only incidentally a slide rule, however. I liked it because it had both polar and rectangular drift methods on the wind face.
I have a vintage Unisaw with a 1HP Repulsion-Induction motor (the bullet). My blade is a Forrest WWII and I recently had to do some cuts on a bunch of 4 X 4 PT pieces which included ripping them to an exact 3" width. Nary a hiccup, although they are not oak. Still, there's horsepower, and then there's horse-power.
If you're buying a (new) cabinet saw, 3HP should be the minimum. If it's a contractor saw with a single (normal) belt, I think 1½ HP would work out OK for most homeowner stuff, but if you're thinking hybrid (like a Craftsman zip code saw)... I'd imagine the wider, serpentine belt would help on anything really tough.
For the money you'd spend on a "better" contractor-style saw, you can often find a quality used cabinet saw. But you have to have some patience to wait out the best buys. Even if a minor rebuild is necessary, you'll wind up with a saw that looks and cuts like a $2000 new saw and it'd be hard to spend $900 on a decent used cabinet saw.
Last time I looked there were something like 500 for sale. Take a look at the closed auctions. A very select few bring in fairly good money.
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