</font><font color="blue" class="small">( You guys scare the crap out of me! Half of my work is cleaning up after do it yourselfers.
You can run a larger cable, like a #4 and tap off of it up to ten foot(need to check my book) then you need to set a disconnect at every plug which will get costly fast.
Best to run dedicated circuits on there own breakers, I will not do it any other way! )</font>
Sparky,
I think you are misunderstanding.. We are not talking about running a larger wire and "tapping from it". We are talking about running a single circuit with mulitple devices.
feeding a circuit of multiple devices, is perfectly legal and safe so lon as teh branch wiring is protected by an overcurrent protection device. Be it a breaker or fuse.
Your saying that a disconnect is required for every device, is extreme over kill. And around here you would price yourself out of work very quickly.
And as far as voltage drop... You would have to have a pretty LARGE shop, before you start worrying about voltage drop. The typical "worry free" run can be 80-100' for 120 volt circuits. Or even longer for 240 volt circuits. However, I can see how wiring a circuit to multiple devices can add up to some long footages pretty quickly though.
I do not recall from your earlier posts if you are planning on running the wire through conduit, or using a NM cable. You may find that it will be cheaper to make you a long extension cord from so 8/3 SO cable and have it to use anywhere, rather than wiring multiple receptacles in your shop..
Daniel