Programming Pneumatics

[Ziaholic]

Building on vikesrock's stellar advice, there are 2 common ways to control both sides of an extending/retracting piston.

1) Use 2 Solenoid Channels (see first attached pic).
2) Use a single Spike relay on the DIO sidecar (see 2nd pic)

Both of these assume you are using a 2-channel solenoid.

With option 1, you simply hook up 2 Sol-channel-outputs from the solenoid cRIO module to either side of the solenoid. [edit: to control it with your joystick button, wire it up to where the T/F constant is shown]

With option 2, you individually wire the 2 Red wires from the solenoid's 2 sides to the 2 outputs of the spike, then tie their blacks to each other and to the black from the PDB. On the input-side of the spike, run a fused-red from your PDB to both of them. To extend/retract you need to use the Forward/Reverse commands to the relay, and remember to set them to "Both Directions" when you open them in your Begin.VI [edit: to control it with your joystick button, put the Forward/Reverse constants into a T/F case structure and wire the joystick button to it.]

IMO, #1 is easier and more convenient, but sometimes #2 comes in handy when you are running low on Sol-Outputs.