HELP... please?

[piombinoj]

Hello. I have a project I am working on that requires Labview, a few solenoid valves, and an Arduino Uno board.

Basically, I want to control the valves in a specific manner (there at least 4 so far, potentially more in the future). I've used this particular example to help control the valves: http://www.instructables.com/id/Controlling-solenoids-with-arduino/?ALLSTEPS.

Additionally, I am using this API to help interface the Arduino hardware with Labview: https://www.labviewhacker.com/doku.php?id=learn:libraries:linx:getting_started. I've been using the Blink example to help control each PIN on the Arduino board.

More specifically, I want to be able to control the duration each valve is on for, the duration of wait time until next valve is activated, and the order/priority of events. When running, it should proceed like this (where each valve is controlled by an individual PIN on the Arduino):

1. Valve 1 ON and Valve 2 ON for 2 s 
2. WAIT (all OFF) for 5 s
3. Valve 1 ON and Valve 2 ON for 2 s
4. WAIT (all OFF) for 5 s
5. Valve 1 ON and Valve 2 ON for 2 s
6. WAIT (all OFF) for 5 s
7. Valve 1 ON for 5 s

In my struggle, I have found the Timed Sequence Loop; this appears to be exactly what I need, but I have no Labview experience and feel hopeless. I feel like this would be something simple to do if I had Labview experience. Can anyone help me? Thanks ahead of time!

[Nathan_B.]

If you have specific questions about LINX, post on the LINX forums.  If you have questions about LabVIEW, you will have better support in the LabVIEW forums (i.e. more NI engineers will see your question over there).

To get started you started in your endeavor, I will tell you this:  I do not recommend using any of the timed loops on the Timed Structures palette.  What you need instead is a state machine.  You can read about the state machine architecture in this NI document.

If you have further questions, post a new topic over on the LabVIEW forums.

Good Luck.