Hello there,
I'm new here and have never used an Arduino, so some of my questions may be stupid, I know, but I'm here so you can tell me if I'm in the right direction or no. I have the following project - a pneumatic press machine for plastic. The mechanical part is 80% ready, but i can't control it because i need some something to do that. So i have a pneumatic cylinder, a heater and thermocouple. Now i'm using thermocontroller which allows me to control the temperature, but it's not enough. What i need is a function that can control the temperature of the heater, the time and the pneumatic. My idea is like this:
1.I set the temperature i need for the exact material
2.I set the time of holding when the my cylinder is already heated to the temperature i need.
3.When the holding time is up the pneaumatic cylinder is turning one way on - press
4.Last step is holding one more time(also need to be programmed) so the material get cold and after that the pneumatic cylinder goes other way.
I'm giving an example here: I have a material with the following specifications - melting point 230 gradus celsius and it's recommended to be hold 15 minutes after reaching that temperature. The material needs to be hold 5 minutes under pressure, so it's getting cold. I'm setting that values in my machine.
I'm attaching picture of my project
This is the only video that i've found on internet for something like my purpose
SO i need to control temperature, time and two valves for the pneumatic entry( up and down)
P.S: if possible to program for example 5 programs to use different material?
I'm waiting you for your advise and sorry for my bad english 
