Wiki
Dirty Room Service Panel
The Dirty Room service panel is located in the very back of the room next to the White Laser.
The Service is a 3-phase Wye service. this means that there are 3 legs of 120v power and a neutral wire. This is a common configuration for commercial and mixed use buildings as well as apartment blocks and allows for 208v single and 3 phase power as well as 120v single phase off the same panel. Reading any one leg to neutral or ground will read 120v and reading across any two phases will read 208v (212v in our particular system which is the upper end of the expected readings for 208v Wye).
The 208v outlets we have in the metal and wood shop are 3 wire outlets. We have L6-30 style plugs for our 30 amp single phase outlets and 6-20 style plugs for our 20 amp outlets. there do exist 4-wire single phase outlets where you would run 2 hot legs, a ground and a neutral to the plug but we do not have any installed in the area.
We do not currently have any 3 phase plugs installed in the area.
Why is it 208v and not 220v or 240?
Good Question!
The reason you read 208v across any 2 120v legs is because with a Wye configuration the phases are 120 degrees apart. this means the phases are not perfectly balanced so you don’t get the full voltage when tapping more than one leg.
220v can refer to either the European standard for residential wiring or in North America is a bit of holdover language from years ago when standard voltage for residential was 110v, for all intents and purposes in the United States 120v and 240v are the only relevant voltages. Anything that reads as 110v/220v can be safely understood to mean the same thing as 120v/240v.
240v could refer to a couple of different things. It could be 120/240 split phase power where you have 2 120v lines coming into the service along with a neutral allowing you to have 120v single phase for your normal everyday power needs as well as the ability to tap both legs to get 240v single phase power. However, this configuration would not allow for any 3 phase power.
It could also be 3 phase Delta which would be 3 legs of 120 (similar to our Wye configuration) but usually no neutral. This would allow for “true” 240v 3 phase power but would not give us the ability to tap one or two legs for 120v or 240v single phase power and would be a 3 phase only service. there does exist such systems that are Delta 3-phase with a neutral but these are called “High Leg” Deltas because one of the 3 legs (usually the B phase leg) will read 208v to ground/neutral that would allow you to run 120v single phase off either the A or C phase and neutral, 240v single phase off any two legs and a neutral (the wild leg still behaves as 120v when phase to phase) or 240v 3 phase from all 3 legs.
There is a lot more to it than the brief explanation given here but for the sake of understanding what is and isn’t possible in our building this should be sufficient.
Can I run my machine off our power? 
Another Good Question!
Generally speaking most machines we would ever want to purchase *should* run off of our power. most machinery that is large or powerful enough to warrant either 3 phase or high voltage single phase power are perfectly happy to run off of anything from 208v-240v. That being said THERE ARE EXCEPTIONS and if you plan on proposing the purchase of any new equipment, or to upgrade the motor/power of existing equipment then you should absolutely double check the specs of the machine/motor/power supply/etc will accept 208v Wye single or 3 phase. Double check that the machine explicitly states this or contact the manufacturer and ask them to verify.