The electrical in the shops is delicate and we are asking quite a bit of it.  Below are some things members and users can do to keep things running well.

• Make sure you are plugging the tool into the right outlet or power-reels. Doing things like plugging the table saw into the red power reel will cause these and other issues.
• Do not push the planer past the thermal limit. On at least 3 occasions in the last month planer user have been trying to take off too much wood per pass and tripping the thermal safety on the planer multiple times in one user session. Users then think it is a tool issue or an outlet issue and move the tool to different outlets or continue to try to use the planer the same way expecting a different result… each time it gets hotter and switches off faster.
• Only turn on one big tool per 3 or 4 min. When tools are turned on the power draw is many times the running power. Cooperate with each other not to overload it.
• Only run 2 big tools in any room at any one time. Yes. Sharing is hard. If you need a space that doesn’t require this kind of awareness and cooperation we recommend any of the commercial shops or Port Workspace. Important: Please make sure there are no other tools on the same circuit as the planner or jointer and that you look up how no to push them past their thermal limit. It will blow the breakers.
• Report everything. Folks are not reporting when breakers get tripped on tools (via slash+asset) or even with comments in slack. What this means is that all the staff and volunteers who work very hard to keep us all humming, are hamstrung and don’t have good information or warnings when there are issues on the horizon.