Welcome to LinuxCNC.org

That's why I came up with only Digital Machinist links then... thanks that would be cool. I wonder why we don't have some How To articles somewhere?

John

My, what a bonanza of information, but I'm getting the sneaking suspicion that LinuxCNC might be a little overpowered for my needs, but I do plan on getting into proper CNC in the distant future so learning to work with it might be beneficial.

For now my application for my numerical control is really simple, I might add on some stuff later like monitoring and writing logs to files (if that's possible), but the fundamentals are here, also, the format N:NN refers to timing in minutes and seconds, which I hope is possible.

0:00 NC Valve Group 0 release (might bodge a way to control liquid flow with steppers, we’ll see)
0:20 NC Valve Group 0 engage
0:21 NC Air Compressor engages
1:30 Stepper Z rotates, moving a linearly actuated rail to position B from A
1:31 Stepper Y rotates, spinning a shaft
2:00 Stepper Y stops spinning
2:01 Stepper Z rotates, moving a linearly actuated rail to position A from B
2:05 NC Air Compressor disengages

2:06 Stepper Group 1 rotates, moving a linearly actuated rail to position B from A
2:15 Stepper Group 2 rotates, moving a linearly actuated rail to position B from A
2:16 Stepper Group 2 rotates, moving a linearly actuated rail to position A from B
2:20 Stepper Group 1 rotates, moving a linearly actuated rail to position A from B, and powers down (hopefully)

2:21 NC Valve Group 1 release
3:00 NC Valve Group 1 engage
3:01 NC Valve Group 2 release
4:00 NC Valve Group 2 engage

30:45 Whole program chills out until this time, at which point it starts all over again!

There will be other stuff going on too, but that’s the nub of it.

Thanks again chaps!

If you can get by with relative time delays then that would be fairly simple in G code.

Otherwise you might create a comp which is a fairly simple usually.

John

Ooh, what luck! That does look reasonably simple to do, and relative timings are fine and dandy. Just out of interest, What is a comp?

The HAL component generator.

linuxcnc.org/docview/html/hal/comp.html

John

Thanks John, I feel confident that I can achieve my needs with LinuxCNC and a blob of G-Code, you've been a great help. I have additional questions, related but not exactly along the same lines, so I shall start new threads elsewhere and give you a break!