Control external relay with interface (virtual) button

Hi everyone,

I have retrofitted 5 or 6 machines now pretty successfully with LinuxCNC. Currently I am working on a plasma table that has an odd system. It controls the X and Y through stepper drivers (I have used the 5i25+7i76) and got everything including cutting working. However the Z-axis is controlled by a closed-loop THC. This system has three inputs in addition to all the other THC controls. Basically LinuxCNC does not need to control the Z-axis.

However the three inputs allow for rapid Z-up, Rapid Z-down, and slow Z-down. I would like to put some buttons in the gmoccapy to control these outputs through HAL. I am fairly sure this can be done, and fairly easy at that too. I just cannot find any examples to get me started. I was thinking to perhaps change the flood and mist coolant buttons in gmoccapy to do this and add another button. However these would need to be momentary buttons rather than the latching type which coolants currently are.

Cheers,
Omid

Have you taken a look on gmoccapy_plasma?
You can find a sample sim config if you start the linuxcnc config picker.

To add a tab with buttons, just make your own glade panel with glade editor andvattach that one to gmoccapy as explained in the gmoccapy manual.

If you have problems on that, i will try to lead you through the process.

Norbert

I ended up doing a GladeVCP panel to replace the spindle section of Gmoccapy. I have been meaning to post the sim file for that. I found that some of the manual's instruction do not work (at least not in the latest version) with trying to load the hal file in under the screen section of the ini file. I'll post it in the GladeVCP section.

Thanks for replying though. I am sure I will have more question soon as I am converting a big size VMC currently and almost have all the axis' and spindle working and next is to work with the 150+ I/O's!