[moto21]

Hey All. I’m currently retrofitting a boss 4 R-Ram. I’m stripping all the components off and got a question. If I remove the rear power cabinet do I need anything to keep the spindle working besides the transformer on the outside of the cabinet? I plan on wiring the transformer into a 3 phase on/off switch for main power then a 3 way switch for a forward/off/reverse of the motor. I’m making the cnc controller stand-alone so no power is required for this. I’m no electrical engineer here but I do understand most stuff. If I’m missing something here I would appreciate a little help.
Thanks Brad

[Hood]

Not sure why you would need a transformer, I would assume that your motor is the same voltage as your mains so can you not just put the power straight into the motor via the switch?
I chose to keep the contactors as I could use them to control the air brake (mine is a BOSS 6.1) and lube pump by use of the on/off Fwd/Rev switch on the front panel.
Hood

[moto21]

well I have air beake and spindle control and power one shot lube. So is there anything that I need for that stuff and if so were is it and what does it look like.
~Brad

[Hood]

Mine will probably differ from yours as I am in the UK and our single phase is 240V. What I did was use the 240 to 110 transformer from the box and used that for the control switch. I also used the 110 to 18V transformer and rectifier for powering the solenoid on the air brake. Heres a pic of what I used, ignore the capacitors as that was a moment of madness and they are now removed. All you should need is the contactors (below fuses in my pic) and the 110 to 18v transformer.
I could post my wiring drawing but afraid it wouldnt make any sense to anyone as I am not an electrical engineer and the symbols and drawing layout are only understood by me LOL
Hood

[gus]

I would consider leaving much of the wiring as is, the spindle brake spindle fw/rew etc all have relays and cutouts and emo strings and it is all pretty good, just the control is trash. your new control can then just output the 24v to the various relays.

[moto21]

Alright so should I keep the rear cabinet on the machine and just remove unneeded components or should I remove the cabinet all together. A pic with what to keep would help.
~Brad

[gus]

Do you have a wiring diagram for the original?

would be useful

[moto21]

I have all the wiring diagrams but they dont really say that this is a relay for this or transformer for that. That and theres alot of wire in there.

[gus]

Well, you may have to do a little detective work. Read the diagrams and follow important things back. One confusing thing about many wiring diagrams is that relays are not shown as a unit, the contacts will be on one page and the coil on another. The power and emo strings of the system are not that complex, so should not be a big portion of the diagram. On my newer machines it is a different page

[Ray Casler]

Hello;

I'm new to the forum and wondered if there is a set procedure for checking out an r2e3 (Boss 8) . I understand there are two Li ion batteries that can cause error messages/ operating problems if they have discharged. I can power the mill up and jog x,y and z which I'm hoping is an indicator of good health. I'm going to buy the maintenance, operators and programming manuals to get familiar with the machine. I thought I could enter simple programs through the front panel but was not able. Hopefully the manuals will help with that. I will probably use a static phase converter and thought it was recommend to shift transformer inputs off the generated phase. I get the impression ezlink is the most cost effective way around the 1200 lines program size restriction. Is ezlink and minimum modifications to the machine satisfactory or are there other restrictions/problems that want to make uses upgrade the controller? Any assistance you can provide would be greatly appreciated.

Regards,
Ray

[tenmetalman]

I think you may have problems if you try to use a static converter as I was advised to use a rotary converter and be carefull of which leg that being used to power the solid state boards. You need three full legs and a static converter doesent have them. Do not use the wild, i.e. gererated leg to power the boards as it will destroy the board components. I have a r2e3 that I play with off and on. It still gives me problems trying to transfer information to and from the BS controller. BTW, if you do a search on the net you will find copies of all the manuals for not too much cost. Also, phase converters are easy to build using a three phese motor the same size or larger as the one you want to power.
Paul

[machintek]

The batteries are on the mother board to back up the programs and tool table. You can snip it out and wire in another. The last versiopn of the mother board had a battery holder.
The other battery is on the FMDC and holds the FIST event log memory. Again snip it out and wire in another.
EZLINK is for downloading and uploading and DNC. Editing needs procomm or some other terminal emulation piece of software.
Static phase converter is a definite NO! Even a rotary is not stable enough. Rewire the inside of the machine so the wild leg only goes to the spindle motor.

George