What else is needed for pneumatic chuck and tail?

Assuming that one has the cards for motion control, what else is needed for controlling a pneumatic chuck and tail stock?
I'm thinking that there's going ot have to be some relays involved and possibly even some kind of switch ( prox sensor? ) for each side of operation. ( open/close and forward/rearward)

Would there need be other cards as well? Or could this be controlled right from the parallel port somehow?

Depends entirely on the setup, could be largely relays and proximity switches.

My lathe with pneumatic chuck and parts catcher had air rams working off solenoids which defaulted to the chuck closed and parts catcher retracted position.
You had to operate a relay to open the chuck and move the parts catcher in.

It was originally a Fanuc control, but I ran it for a while on Linuxcnc from user M codes, when you got to the parting off operation, the parts catcher moved across.
Once the tool retracted the parts catcher was retracted too.
The chuck then opened and the bar feed moved forward by whatever length was set and the chuck closed and off you went again.

There was a whole separate box of solenoids, relays etc just for those items, but the interface was just a few signal wires, with some others for logic feedback.

regards

ArcEye wrote:

Depends entirely on the setup, could be largely relays and proximity switches.

My lathe with pneumatic chuck and parts catcher had air rams working off solenoids which defaulted to the chuck closed and parts catcher retracted position.
You had to operate a relay to open the chuck and move the parts catcher in.

It was originally a Fanuc control, but I ran it for a while on Linuxcnc from user M codes, when you got to the parting off operation, the parts catcher moved across.
Once the tool retracted the parts catcher was retracted too.
The chuck then opened and the bar feed moved forward by whatever length was set and the chuck closed and off you went again.

There was a whole separate box of solenoids, relays etc just for those items, but the interface was just a few signal wires, with some others for logic feedback.

regards

Thank you for the response. Yes, this sounds exactly like what I will be dealing with.
I've settled on Mesa cards, but have not ordered them yet. Likely will do so in the next week.
It's an Emco 220P, and has the same as you describe. Pneumatic chuck, tail stock ram, and parts catcher.
I like your method of retracting the parts catcher once the cut off tool retracts.

So does the signal for operating these come from the parallel port, or from somewhere on the Mesa cards?
I will double check, but believe that the solenoids for their operation are 24VDC at the moment, so that keeps things tidy...

Thanks.

Wonderful idea, there. Hadn't occurred to me to replace the original solenoids with that style. ... And it SHOULD have, because I'm familiar with them from my WEDM... Thank you. I will ask Peter about specific card recommendations as soon as I'm ready to pull the trigger.