I built an automated small-scale punch press in order to stamp out fiberglass parts for my electronic digital materials research.
This machine was a first project to get to know our new Wire-EDM machine. Everything except for the large steel uprights were cut on the Wire-EDM.
The machine uses a force amplifying linkage to translate the large displacement of the input handle into a small, but strong, displacement of the punch.
An additional stepper motor is positioned to automatically advance the strip of material between each punch operation.
For the touchscreen interface I used a Raspberry Pi (v2) with a little 2.8" capactive touchscreen. The interface is just javascript in the browser and the Pi runs a node server to talk between the browser and an attached A-star microcontroller which controls the stepper motors.
The touchscreen isn't quite as nice as a touchscreen you'd find on a smartphone (for one, it's not multi-touch) but it's remarkably capable given how inexpensive it is. The Pi is hooked up to the wifi so this setup also allows me to control the machine remotely from anywhere.
video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YzUhlqh1Msk&ab_channel=WillLangford