Syllabus needed for learning HAL Component

Hi Guys,

I am retrofitting a FANUC lathe that has a hydraulic turret (12 position), and have decided that I need to learn how to create/implement HAL components in order to make the turret, hydraulically actuated gear changes, and around 60 button inputs/outputs work.
Here are my reasons:
Although I have the factory PC Ladder drawings, I think they will be too long and slow if recreated in ClassicLadder.
There are so many inputs just for the tool turret (a dedicated switch for each position, an unclamped sw., a preclamped sw. , a clamped sw. and a prox switch).
The tedious nature of using ClassicLadder for complicated systems.
All the other inputs that I hope to tie in from the front panel switches.


I have set up a PyVCP panel to manually step through the process of tool changes and gear changes, but I want to streamline everything.
I have found a lot of documentation about Component creation, but I need a syllabus to learn in a productive manner. If anyone could point me at specific links in the order that I should read/assimilate them, I'd really appreciate it.

For the record, I'm using a Mesa 5i25 with a 7i77 and a 7i84 board.

Mr. Technical

Hi Andy,

Thanks for the quick reply.

I don't speak C (yet).

I have a basic understanding of a state machine (after some quick wikipedia reading )

Thanks for the link. It's one of the ones that I had found, but it's nice to know that it is actually the best place to start.

Since I don't know C programming, (I have mostly programmed with BASIC and Pascal years ago), which would you tackle first? Rudimentary C programming, or the link that you provided? Any good primers on C?

Mr. Technical

This is exactly what I was looking for. Thanks Andy!

Mr. Technical