# My dimmer dimwit story



## Chris G (May 17, 2006)

Today I cut a couple of 6 foot stringers with my circular saw running a half speed. The thing was, it had a brand new blade and it was cutting as fast as my old blade was yesterday, so I didn't really notice. But the motor sounded like it was grinding or something. 

I was really bummed that the new blade was barely as good as the old used up one.

Then I went to use my Mitre saw, and it took a full second before the blade started moving. "Okay, something's wrong here!"

The outlet was on a dimmer switch. I guess it was on full yesterday, and today it was on half, at best. 

I can't wait to try out my new blade at full speed on another job.


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## Kent Whitten (Mar 24, 2006)




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## RobertCDF (Aug 18, 2005)

A dimmer on an outlet?? What the crap were they thinking?


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## Bill (Mar 30, 2006)

Come on guys! They done that to plug the toaster into


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## Chris G (May 17, 2006)

Double post. Damn, can't get anything right today!


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## Chris G (May 17, 2006)

> A dimmer on an outlet?? What the crap were they thinking?


It's an exterior receptacle tied into a yard light. It was fully on yesterday, but I guess they dimmed it overnight. They weren't even aware that there was a receptacle out there. I thought I was clever finding it though.

I'm just amazed at how well that new blade worked a half speed.


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## Celtic (May 23, 2007)

Chris G said:


> The outlet was on a dimmer switch. I guess it was on full yesterday, and today it was on half, at best.


Isn't that why dimmers aren't allowed to control receptacles?


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## AustinDB (Sep 11, 2006)

reminds me of a job where we used a couple of cords to work on a pole barn-after burning out a drill and a saw, we figured out the juice was bad b/c of the distance from the outlet. wonder if running through a dimmer did a comparable thing, where the voltage could damage the motor?


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## pkp (Oct 10, 2007)

72chevy4x4 said:


> reminds me of a job where we used a couple of cords to work on a pole barn-after burning out a drill and a saw, we figured out the juice was bad b/c of the distance from the outlet. wonder if running through a dimmer did a comparable thing, where the voltage could damage the motor?


yes it can.

But I knew a guy that did what I think is probably worse. If he had to run more than 200' of cord he would use 220. He always used Skill wormdrives and I guess he figured they could take it. the company refitted all their cords with 220 twist locks so the cords would not fall out. So it was already convenient to just plug it into the 220 on the spiderbox. I would be afraid of electrocuting myself or something.


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