Practicalities. The most arduous duty when using a tablesaw is ripping thick stock. When ripping, you adjust the feed, [which sets the power consumed], by the weight of push applied on the stick and by listening to the motor revs and the 'singing' of the blade accordingly. My Lurem was fitted with a 4.5hp x 3ph motor when I bought it from a bankrupted carpenter's shop in 2002. The maker is only 40 miles north of here, & I was able to buy a new special custom framed single-phase 230v x 2.5hp motor that allows 45deg. blade tilt inside the machine frame. This cost me almost as much as the saw! This was before I got a 3 phase supply to my shop BTW. With a regular 305mm [12"] carbide tipped rip blade, 4" oak stock can be ripped without hassle, no doubt slower than if the 4.5hp motor was fitted, but not a problem, not very often and not exactly slow either. In a pro shop, I'd expect the CORRECT blades for the work in hand to be kept sharp and regularly inspected for damage - because it's blunt sawblades with chipped or missing teeth that soak up the watts. No operator worth his corn will push a machine to its limits anyway, and for most of it's work a saw will be running light, cutting thinner stock, crosscutting, tenoning, dadoing, etc. using the right change-out blades. As to volts, the motor will run at the correct rpm, even at 208v - [the effective 'star' volts used to start big motors]. Only if and when a saw is pushed to its limits or hits a bit of wild grain/stress area will the motor slip exceed the rated phase shift. The result is usually that it comes to a sudden stop, due to the lack of inertia in the machine's rotating parts, swiftly followed by a wild lunge for the red button! Personally, I doubt the user would even miss the slight power loss from a 30volt drop for most of the jobs ever put through the saw. The transfomer needs cooling air round it, of course. Just make sure you put down in writing what's proposed and why in your quote. These favors you do for folks to get them out of the tarpits they dug themselves can blow up in your face, if no records exist, when the biological fertiliser hits the rotating ventilation device and the blame dodge-fest commences!
