Would Like some opinions-is on topic

If you can get it for iron prices go for it. If the control runs ok I would use it until it becomes unusable and then replace the control. The biggest problem on the Boss 5's are the stepper driver transistors. They are not that hard to change.

John

Just Me:

I have a Boss 6 Series 1 that I ran for about 4 years but the transistors mentioned by John kept burning up. They are not hard to change but a pain. Finally the powersupply went out and I retrofitted the machine. At first I loved the Boss 6 and hesitated to change it out. It suffered from small memory - 12K. Now that I have a PC controlled machine with cad/cam and unlimited program size plus many more features, I can't believe I put up with the Boss 6! I use Mach3 software and used a Campbell breakout board with Gecko drives to control the stepper motors. I put a new powersupply in. All the heavy electrical components in the large cabinet on the side are completely gone with the new boards attached to the door. Most of the heavy junk from the back box was removed as well. I had never done any electrical before, but with help from the internet discussion groups I was successful. Let me know if I can help.

thanks Keith Clark

Also, if you get the machine, you can use a computer to download programs to it through the rs232 port. This is a must in my opinion This is much preferred over manual entry from the keypad on the control. I would not have one without an rs232 port. You would need an old computer and Procomm-like software to communicate. Otherwise a BTR, bypass tape reader, will also work but is a bit more expensive. These are boards that fool the control into thinking it is receiving programs from the tape machine when you are actually sending them from a computer. Unfortunately, I never found out how to drip feed and was limited to 12k program size. This is very limiting if you want to do engraving or more complicated programs generated from a cad/cam software. I had to always break up the programs into smaller packages to get the jobs done.

Good luck Keith

Sometimes the old Boss 6's would drop a character during communications because their processor wouldn't keep up with the download. The baudrate used didn't seem to matter. Some of the machines had that problem, and some didn't. We bought some communication software from a company that is long gone to fix the problem. If I remember correctly, it added a pause between each character. Let me know if you have that problem, and I'll see if I can dig it up.

The Boss 6's were a bit of a pain to get in and out of cutter comp too. You need to make 2 perpendicular moves that are slightly larger than the compensation amount before entering the part, and when turning off the comp. Line segments smaller than the comp amount would often give you trouble, as well as feed rates over 20 ipm.

The problem was the uart chip timing. You had to have the older series pc. I spent a whole day trying to load a program from my laptop. I went to an old AT and it went right in.

John