A small step-down transformer (Xfr) would be one method that is sure to work. And if you use a 110V LED fixture the wattage rating for the Xfr is low so its small and cheap.

 

When I read your post I thought maybe the saw would have a 110v provision for the accessory light, but looking at this info for the light: LED Chameleon 90CRI Machine Lamp
Seems it can run on either 110v or 220v. Does Laguna have another light without an arm? This one with an arm is $175.

Bulb shopping is confusing these days, how about a LED bulb that can handle 220v?

 

When I read your post I thought maybe the saw would have a 110v provision for the accessory light, but looking at this info for the light: LED Chameleon 90CRI Machine Lamp
Seems it can run on either 110v or 220v. Does Laguna have another light without an arm? This one with an arm is $175.

Bulb shopping is confusing these days, how about a LED bulb that can handle 220v?

Bob, the female outlet on the bandsaw is 220v. I also agree with you about it being able to run on both 220v and 110v, but I would not try 110v because I would be afraid the whole thing would blow up.

 

I know this is not what you are asking, but I will throw it in anyway.......... If you bandsaw is near a wall, you can wall mount a 4' Led. When on sale at Harbor Freight, the price drops down from $29 to $19. They go on sale often. If your band saw lives in the middle of the floor, then you can hang it from the ceiling. They throw off A LOT of light and so far mine have held up almost a year already. I'm in my shop at least 5 or 6 days a week for around 5 to 6 hours a day.
My shop is my Fortress of Solitude.

 

I know this is not what you are asking, but I will throw it in anyway.......... If you bandsaw is near a wall, you can wall mount a 4' Led. When on sale at Harbor Freight, the price drops down from $29 to $19. They go on sale often. If your band saw lives in the middle of the floor, then you can hang it from the ceiling. They throw off A LOT of light and so far mine have held up almost a year already. I'm in my shop at least 5 or 6 days a week for around 5 to 6 hours a day.
My shop is my Fortress of Solitude.

this is what i'd do, on the ceiling for sure.
having a light on the wall would drive me up that same wall.
more light in the shop never hurt

 

It's not 110V but it puts light exactly where I need it cheaply and easily.

Harbor Freight Tools – Quality Tools at Discount Prices Since 1977

Harbor Freight buys their top quality tools from the same factories that supply our competitors. We cut out the middleman and pass the savings to you!

www.harborfreight.com

 

I've got these on several machines in the shop, you can hard wire them in if you are inclined.

Amazon.com: HengBo Sewing Machine Light, 6000K Daylight Led Gooseneck Work Light with Magnetic Mounting Base for Sewing Workbench Lathe Drill Presses 3D Printer

Shop HengBo LED at the Amazon Arts, Crafts & Sewing store. Free Shipping on eligible items. Save on everyday low prices.

www.amazon.com

 

I have the same saw on order in 110v, I’m guessing the reason the light is rated either way is simply so they can produce one accessory for both saws. Sorry, don’t have my saw in yet so can’t say I have an alternative lined up yet to offer as advice.

 

In order to make 240 volts you would use both hot leads, no neutral. To get 120 volts, use one hot lead and a neutral. It would want to be wired in ahead of the bandsaw's switch so you can see what you are doing before hand. Obviously, you'll have to shut it off when finished. I also have about 5 of those LED sewing machine lights and I love them! They have a magnetic base so they'll "attach" to any ferrous or steel surface. At my wood kitchen table I use a piece of 1/4" round plate that's small 2", but heavy enough to keep it from tipping over.

edited to reflect changes to neutral wire!

 

If there is no neutral, how can the saw run on both 220 and 110 volts?

 

Buy yourself a 110 volt light that you like. Then, as woodenthings suggests, cut off the male plug and wire the lamp directly into the box where your 220 v receptacle is. Connect one lamp wire to either the red or black wire (one or the other of the two flat blades) and the other to the ground (the round prong). If you want the lamp to be removable, direct wire a new 110 receptacle next to the 220 receptacle and use that for the lamp.

 

It is not as difficult as you think. If you have a factory installed magnetic power switch, you more than likely have 120 Volts inside the switch box. If not you have to do a bit of detective work. Does your power plug have 4 wires? If yes you are home free. If only three wires you should get a free standing light that is either 120 V or battery powered.

In North America the ac power from the power company uses four colors:
Green is AC safety ground and should never be used as part of the power circuit.
Black is one half or phase A of the 240 V power.
Red is one half or phase B of the 240 V power.
Phase is really a misnomer as what we're talking about the top half of the AC Sine wave vs. the bottom half.
White is the neutral wire.

Between red and black is 240 Volts.
Between either red or black and white is 120 V.
The white should never be switched but connected all the time.

Manufacturers that offer 240 V single phase or 208 V three phase variations of a machine tend to use the same off / on switch in either model. In single phase, the third set of contacts just isn't used with 240 V single phase. As a long ago neighbor would say, "It doesn't make no never mind."

With all of that said, unplug the saw. Go into the switch box and connect your 120 volt lamp to white and either black or red. If the lamp has a switch, connect to either black or red before the switch. If the lamp does not have a switch connect the wire to the other side of the switch.

The manual that came with the band saw should have very explicit wiring diagrams. Use them to get a good idea of the wiring within the saw.

 

If you have a factory installed magnetic power switch, you more than likely have 120 Volts inside the switch box.

No, this is not a valid assumption to make, unless the tool has 120V accessories or some other reason for having 120V present. Motor contactors come in all voltage configurations, and a manufacturer isn't going to use a 120 volt coil only to have to install a transformer. And even with that, if they do add a transformer (such as older model Delta tablesaws), then it will use low-voltage 24V coil and wiring.

 

I have a Laguna 18" BX bandsaw, bought it 2 years ago. This is the light I bought to go with it. For the ease of use, and the price, I think this is your answer. Laguna - Dual Arm Light, 220 V

 

Seriously, whats with the outright hazardous electrical advice being thrown around lately? Know what would happen if you tried tying into the ground line of a saw to use it as a neutral line for a light? You would have a functioning light

Oh, and the entire metal frame of the saw would now be energized with 120v, so you would likely die

Ground lines are not interchangeable with neutral.

 

For clarity, the light Rick mentioned in post #19 is dual voltage:

“CNC Machine Lamp Working Light Magnetic Base Work Lathe LED 5W 110V-220V US”

There are several listed on Amazon too.

 

The outlet on my bandsaw is 220v. On these dual voltage lights do I just change the male plug on the light and plug it in? I just don't understand about dual voltage lights. It's all new to me.

 

...On these dual voltage lights do I just change the male plug on the light and plug it in?...

Yes, that's exactly what you do.

 

Laguna makes accessory lamps designed to mount to their bandsaws. The lamps are expensive. The official Laguna lamps have features not commonly found in a typical on/off bandsaw lamp, like the one that's attached to my old Delta bandsaw. (The lamp on my bandsaw has its own separate power cord and plug, by the way.)

(NOTE: It was my understanding that Laguna makes more than one model of bandsaw accessory lamp, and it is important to get the correct lamp to match the particular model of Laguna bandsaw that you own. I am not sure it is true, but it would be important to know.)

@hawkeye10 wants a third party lamp that he can attach to his Laguna 14|bx bandsaw, the 220v 2.5 horsepower version.

I have been following this thread with interest, but I seem to have missed some key pieces of information that I would want to know if I were searching for a third-party accessory lamp:

• What does the mounting point for the Laguna lamp look like?
• What physical power connector is at that mounting point? How does the Laguna lamp get its power? Does the connector have a standard look (e.g., a typical 110v type two or three prong outlet? Something else?
• What is the actual power at the power connector? Is it 110v AC? 220v AC? Something else? Does the measured power match the outlet type?

P.S. I looked at the user manual, and it looks like a 110 style outlet that could deliver either 110v or 220v depending on the bandsaw model. Is that true? If it is a 110 style outlet delivering 220v, that's a poor decision on Laguna's part, in my opinion.

 

Steve is correct, and the other posters suggesting you can use the ground as a current carrying conductor are wrong.

You are correct and I apologize for my error. I believe that my description as to where to make the connections was correct, but I referred to the neutral wire (white) as ground which is wrong. In addition, if the lamp has a green ground wire, it is the one that would be connected to ground within the receptacle box.

 

TimPA,
I know and I cringe when people call it a phase. A friend who is a retired electrician explained it to me. If you have never studied AC power from an electronics or sine wave perspective, phase makes sense to those people. To people like you and I, terms Line A and Line B are so much clearer.

 

It cannot! The 120 volt suggestion was for a normal household voltage lamp, NOT for the saw's motor, since the original question was regarding adding a light to the saw.

 

So you are saying there is a neutral going to the saw in the 220 configuration??

 

Yes, that's how all my 240 3 wire plugs are:

 

Yes exactly, my 1970's model, 220 volt, table saw has been wired with the NEUTRAL configuration for 50 years and now they have IMPROVED the saws, say it’s just a GROUND.
The OP's saw is just wired with the three wire, 220 configuration, so I guess the third wire just a ground and not a neutral. That leads me to question, if I purchased and 220 volt saw, like the OP's, would it run on my 220 volt neutral configuration? The plugs are exactly the same.

 

This article may clear things up:

Neutral Vs Ground Wire: What That White Wire Is Actually For

I have always had the most difficult time understanding why I need both a neutral and ground wire when they ultimately both connect to the same bar in a breaker box. And I’m not alone. A lot of people struggle with this distinction. I’m hopeful that this guide, courtesy of research, will help to...

homeefficiencyguide.com

Quoting:
This is why the US National Electric Code Article 250 requires the ground wire to also be tied to the neutral wire at the service panel (). To follow the current path—the current flows through the appliance ground wire to the breaker box where it joins the neutral path.

 

This article may clear things up:

Neutral Vs Ground Wire: What That White Wire Is Actually For

I have always had the most difficult time understanding why I need both a neutral and ground wire when they ultimately both connect to the same bar in a breaker box. And I’m not alone. A lot of people struggle with this distinction. I’m hopeful that this guide, courtesy of research, will help to...

homeefficiencyguide.com

I only skimmed it, but immediately knew the guy wasn't knowledgeable enough to be writing on the topic. It's a classic misunderstanding by novices and even electricians, is that electricity always returns to its source. The reality is that electricity will flow from one voltage to a lower voltage, regardless how those two are associated.

 

I am not the only one who is confused by the difference between the neutral and the ground wire. This article blames the NEC code for it! LOL:

https://www.eetimes.com/the-myth-of-the-neutral-wire/

I understand that the ground is connected to the metal parts of the cabinet and the neutral is a current carrying wire, BUT they are connected to each other at the panel, at least in my home and shop wiring.

 

I am not the only one who is confused by the difference between the neutral and the ground wire. This article blames the NEC code for it! LOL:

https://www.eetimes.com/the-myth-of-the-neutral-wire/

I'll read the article later (and maybe comment on it), but in the mean time, here is a simple way of thinking about the difference.

Neutral is for current flow. Ground is for voltage equalization.

The latter is the reason why the Ground wire shouldn't have any current flowing, because that would cause a voltage difference to be present. Additionally, because there is only a single connection point between the ground and neutral, is the reason why no "normal" current will flow through the ground wire.

 

The problem with the word "Neutral" is that it is purely a made-up word, electrically speaking. A more descriptive word would be something like "Anchor", because that is what it is accomplishing. There is no difference between "hot" and "neutral", except that neutral is "anchored" to the earth-ground potential voltage.

To understand this, you need to think about how electricity gets to our house. To keep the discussion really simple, consider just a transformer hanging from the power pole down the street. The primary side of this transformer is very high voltage, typically, this can be 7200 volts, for example.

On the secondary side, even though the voltage between L1 and L2 is 240 volts, the entire system can float to an indeterminate (unknown) voltage anywhere between the lower and upper primary wires. In the worst case, L1 could be at 7200 volts, and L2 would be 240 volts below this, or 6960 volts. Even the center-tap that we later call "neutral" would be sitting at 7080 volts. Or these voltages could be anywhere in between; they are literally floating with respect to the dirt we are standing on.

And just like holding the string of a helium balloon to keep it from floating away, tying the center-tap of the transformer to an earth-ground holds the whole system anchored to this local voltage under our feet. This is why the transformer center-tap gets tied to ground, and at that point, we give it a new name called "Neutral". It's voltage is now neutral with respect to the nearby earth.

 

Electricity is weird.

 

Thanks Rick C.

 

I admit that this is a really crappy analogy, but maybe the visual of it can help you understand that ground and neutral are not the same thing.

Interstate 90 will take you from Seattle to Boston.
Interstate 80 will take you from San Fransisco to Newark.
However, the two are connected in Chicago.

Just because these two interstates touch each other in the Chicago area, does that make Seattle the same as San Francisco, or Boston the same as Newark? Well, they are all arguably shitholes, but they are nevertheless not the same cities. (No offense intended to anyone living there.)

Now here's another piece for you. Between Billings Montana and somewhere in no-name Wisconsin, you could take either 94 or 90 and get to the same place. Well this is a ground loop, and this is a major no-no in electrical systems, because there are TWO places where the two freeways are connected together.

 

The only thing I noticed in the Woodnthings post was the three wire ungrounded configuration. If it’s a three wire ungrounded configuration, why is my three wire neutral configuration, grounded. It’s because the neutral bar is connect to the same box the ground bar is.
But than, tonight I learned I should have two, 5/8” copper rods grounding my breaker box. My breaker box is just grounded to my copper pipe.