Under normal circumstances, you would be looking at using a small PLC for automation like this. Maybe a Raspberry PI, or a PIC controller.Your programming would be in what is called ladder logic in the case of the PLC.

However, there are a number of projects out there from which you can get a good start using your Perl skills and some relatively inexpensive hardware.

You may find some interesting inspiration here

I have used a perl program which monitors the USB or RS232 output of my Radio Shack DMM to store temperature, voltage, resistance values, etc, retrieved over a long period of time in a text file.

The following link points to a system for home automation written in perl which I suspect would work well for basic process monitoring and control. See it here

Hope that is helpful... Update::Addendum; I don't know how much automation experience you have, but just a note: You will want to use a PLC or similar control hardware if you need real-time process control! Anything safety related should not be controlled via a non-real-time device. For a home brew system, you should be ok with the stuff pointed out above unless you are controlling things like gas valves or the like. Sorry if you already know this, but I would feel pretty negligent not pointing this out if you were un-aware of the issues involved.

...the majority is always wrong, and always the last to know about it...
Insanity: Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

In reply to Re: Perl Code To Control Industrial Applications? by wjw
in thread Perl Code To Control Industrial Applications? by jdlev

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