Powermatic 20-Inch Planer, Helical Cutterhead, 5 HP, 230/460V 3Ph (Model 209HH)

I ordered through a Amazon retail partner or whatever they call them. It arrived crushing the pallet it was on like others noted, but it otherwise appeared fine.This morning I noticed a crack opened up along the top edge of the base at the corner. They didn't tack weld the base together correctly so you can see all the way through. This is not the gold standard I expected. I will be making a warranty call come Monday. And will update as this progresses.The day after my post here: The retailer got back to me this morning, and is working the issue with their Powermatic rep. I got word of this after I was able to get through to Powermatic's 800 technical service number on my second attempt. I then immediately received a form asking for my details, the unit's serial and stock number, and was request to send the photos I've attached to this review. So far each appears responsive.

This thing is great. Our business is in high quality wooden boat restorations. We did a comparable job on this machine as the one we did on our old one and the time was 2 hours as opposed to 8 hours. The feed is fast and the cutting is accurate not to mention that is it much quiter that the old machine. We highly recommend it. You will not be disappointed.

After assembling and using this planer, I realized that Powermatic, Jet, and Grizzly are all exactly the same machine, just painted a different color. It's like the difference between a Geo Prism and a Toyota Corolla. Except for the paint and name plates, you can't tell the difference and all the internal parts are fully interchangeable. What that tells me is that there is only one factory in China making these things so the only diffence is which marketing department is going to get a slice of your money on it's way to China. Grizzly takes a significantly smaller slice...Politics of outsourcing and corporate profit margins aside, this is still a very well made piece of machinery that does a fantastic job of turning rough boards into smooth boards or thick boards into thin boards. One note of caution if you plan on planing a lot of boards: Don't skimp on your dust collector system! This machine with the Byrd Shelix head can fill a 55 gal barrel in 30 minutes with fluffy little curls of wood shavings. If you try using one of those little $300 1hp dust collectors you will spend more time empying the bucket than you will planing wood.Since this review is for the 3-phase version, I think it's fitting to make a comment on the electrical requirements for connection. The manual calls for a 30 amp 3-phase connection so I bought a 30 amp breaker and ran a new dedicated circuit with 10 gauge wire and a L14-30 outlet all according to proper NEC standards. Since a review of the 1-ph version of this machine mentioned that these don't come with a power cord at all, I was ready for that and bought a heavy duty 10-4 power cord and the appropriate plug for my new socket. Then I discovered the input wires into the planer are only 14 gauge! This prompted me to pull the cover and look under the hood to see why I just spent a small fortune on 10 gauge wire if it only needed 14. The motor name plate lists 230v amp draw at 14 amps, which is just below the 15 amp max capacity of 14 gauge wire. I don't think you really need a 30 amp circuit. 20 would be fine for the 3-phase motor. I backed this up with some engineering math too. Having said that, I should also mention that the engineering math DOES support needing a 30 amp circuit for the 1-phase version of this machine. Bottom line here: 30 amps is more than adequate capacity for 3-phase 230v and just right for 1-phase 230v.