I have serious questions about some stuff I didn't find an answer for

A: I would really apreciate it  if someone could explain me how the ethercat / cia402 gets recognized by linuxcnx ... because of what is inside of the linuxcnc-ethercat?
B: I finally got the green light to retrofit 3 of our trade-in plasma machines (everyone with budget is switching to laser!) and one off the machines runs on mach3 ... inside the mach3 there was some extra M15 & M16 created to make the torch go up and down with the D6(?) postprocessor 
X axis was normal nema34stepper, Y axis was normal nema34 stepper driver BUT the Z axis was a pneumatic cilinder on/off function , hence the M15 and M16 needed for the Z axis to drop to start cutting... how do I i create this M15 and M16 in linuxcnc-ethercat ?
btw... the more I get into Linuxcnc... the more disappointed I feel that I didn't get a change 5-10 years ago.
THX to everyone for the time you put into this forum... it has been a lifesaver 

The Ethercat master we use is a product  from  iGH etherlab.org/en_GB
the linuxcnc-ethercat driver connects Linuxcnc to the iGH master
cia402 is a protocol for motor control over ethercat
cia402.comp is a Linuxcnc component to present a unified Ethercat driven interface for cia402 devices.
QTplasmac is a commercial quality plasma controller available as standard with linuxcnc.

Re your hydraulic torch lifter, its shares some qualities with the 24 volt geared motor lifters (crappy). I am currently helping someone to retrofit a table with Linuxcnc that has one of the motor driven lifters. Our approach is to replace it with a stepper driven torch lifter. I suggest you do the same,


 

this is exactly what i told to my boss about this shite pneumatic cilinder doing the up / down torch BS... thx Rodw for pointing this out . when you can have the chance to upgrade a machine, then you should upgrade the machine all the way

I am just overloaded with other jobs at work right now, didn't even get the one I am retrofitting from mach3 (dead Bob... again!) to linuxcnc to move yet... already working overtime just trying to get the normal repairs done in a normal schedule..