Clock interupt or something?

[thedoctor]

Hi, all! I need to interrupt the program with a hard-contact input that does not require a keystroke to continue. I am using QuikStep4 on a INX Pentium2, Win 98. I have looked at a few other programs and none of the ones I have looked at have provisions for this, which I found a little weird. I just need to allow the torch height unit to go through its setup at the start of each cut and don't want to stand there hitting the "continue" button. Maybe a 12 volt solenoid on the mouse button? (yeah, right) Thanks!

[Odin M Yggdrasi]

Might be able to connect a relay across the mouse button to basically the same effect, once the mouse is positioned you then use a pulse generator to close the relay every half second or so to make the program continue.

What is this program waiting for other than user input? Trying to hard wire a contact like what you describe into a computer would be very involved, since not only would you have to make the actual physical device but would also have to modify portions of your operating system

[thedoctor]

The stand-alone torch-height control I use has outputs for arc-established and pierce-delay. It needs to do its thing before the programmed cut begins. Both of my Burny units have this built-in but I am building this one from scratch.