screen blanking

I've recently made a proper user panel on my lathe. But since I'm no
longer using the keyboard or the mouse the screensaver keeps blanking
the screen, so I have to press a key on the keyboard or move the mouse
to get the screen to wake up. I could of course completely disable the
screensaver, but I would prefer not to.

The buttons I use come from the usb through hal_input. The handwheels
are connected to the motor drives.

I cannot imagine I'm the first to encounter this issue, so has anyone
already solved this?