AIT MIL-STD-1553 PXI not communicating with LabVIEW

[DanRen_IQA]

I have an AIT MIL-STD-1553 PXI card, and I am trying to control it using LabVIEW. The card shows up in MAX, and a Test Panel is able to communicate with it, as shown in the attached images. Further, if I open a VISA session with the instrument, it seems to be okay. (I have only tried doing a VISA Open and VISA Close, resulting in no error. Since I don't know any other VISA commands to this instrument, and since it does not seem to speak SCPI, I have been limited to simply opening and closing the VISA session.) However, when I try to do a simple Initialize using the AIT LabVIEW vis, I get an error code -1, stating that there is "No Hardware Found". This simple vi is shown in the other attachment. (I did not attach a snippet, because without the AIT DLL it would be useless anyway.) I have also tried different "network path in", and "board index in" values, without success. Any time I change the network path in to anything but "local", I get an error code -5, stating that "Remote network connection not supported by this hardware".

I have verified that the latest AIT firmware is loaded on the card. I'm running the AIT LabVIEW vilib components, and LabVIEW 2015.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

Dan

[DanRen_IQA]

Just in case anyone is interested, I was able to establish communication between LabVIEW and the 1553 interface, after some help from the folks at AIT. The "No Hardware Found" error was caused by the drivers and DLLs. When the interface card was originally installed, the LabVIEW drivers were not on the system, and the new hardware wizard enabled the non-VISA drivers. AIT sent me a detailed document on the procedure for changing the drivers. This resulted in a change of the position of the AIT hardware in the Device Manager. Originally, the 1553 interface showed up under the AIT group in Device manager. With the correct drivers installed, it moved down to the NI-VISA PXI Devices group. Then it was a matter of changing the DLLs being referenced in the code. Again, the non-VISA DLLs were originally being used. Once I ran another utility from AIT to change the DLLs, I was able to initialize the board without error, and run the example programs that shipped with the instrument drivers.

Kudos to the folks at AIT for their rapid response and spot-on analysis.

[ShishirSK]

Could you pls share the link for the procedure for changing the drivers. I am facing the same problem. 

[DanRen_IQA]

I have attached the document sent to me by AIT regarding how to change the drivers. It shows how to switch your board between the AIT Windows Driver and the NI-VISA driver. It is for the AIT 429, but the same concepts apply to the 1553.

After completing the steps in the document, you may still have a dlls mismatch because both software packages may have been installed. The way the LabVIEW VIs work is the dlls are installed to the SysWow64 directory and that is where they are referenced by the VIs. So depending on which package you installed last, it will overwrite the dlls in that directory. What you can do is just install the LabVIEW Instrument Driver from the link below over the top of your current installs. The correct binaries built with the NI-VISA driver will be placed in the directories and then it should work.

MIL-STD-1553 LabView Instrument Driver (32-bit) v2.47.1 (exe)

Good luck.

Dan

[praveenkumarnagarajan]

Hello Dan,

I did just as the prodedure says. I installed the latest version of the SDK from the aviftech webpage and the instrument driver from the link you shared. The MIL 1553 interface hardware is enlisted below the NI VISA PXI devices and the NI MAX also identifies them under one of their PXI slots.

But the soft front panel doesnt recognize any boards and while I executed one of the labview example codes it shows the following error.

Call Library Function Node in Owl1553.lvlib:Owl1553_IBoardFactory_getSerialNumbers.vi:2620002->AIT 1553.lvlib:AIT 1553 Initialize (Index).vi:1830001->BM Standard.vi

Error code: 1097

Could you pls suggest any solutions?

[DanRen_IQA]

The error seems to be pointing to a problem with the owl1553.dll. The LabVIEW example code from AIT uses the owl1553 DLLs located in C:\Windows\SysWow64 or C:\Windows\System32 on 32-bit Windows (these are the VISA DLLs). Check that the owl1553.dll is in the proper location, depending on your PC.

What app are you talking about when you mention the "soft front panel"?

[ShishirSK]

Soft front panel is an app that comes with the SDK installation. It is used to self test, send BC->RT, RT->BC commands and check if the mil interface cards works.

I installed an previous version of the labview instrument driver(version 2.39) along with the latest version (2.47) SDK from AIT and now the VIs seem to be working fine and NI max detects the cards under the PXI slots.  But when I check in the device manager I cant find any AIT devices. Although I find PMC-1553-GC-VISA and PXI-PMC-1 under NI VISA PXI devices.

Do you think this is a problem?

Additionally when I tried installing similiarly in another embedded controller it didnt work. The labview VIs got  a never ending error prompt. When I checked the firmware, I realized that it was not updated to the current version of the SDK. I presume this would be the reason behind the problem.

Apart from that what do you think are the rigorous steps to install a mil 1553 PXI interface card in a NI PXI-8105 windows xp embedded controller?

[DanRen_IQA]

I have not been able to get the Soft Front Panel to work when the VISA drivers are installed. If I use the procedure in the document from AIT, attached in an earlier post, to roll back to the Windows drivers, Soft Front Panel seems to work. So I believe it's that you can have either Soft Front Panel working, or LabVIEW. As far as installing on an embedded controller goes, be sure to follow the AIT guidelines which state that you should install the LabVIEW drivers on the controller before you install the hardware. That way, when the Found New Hardware Wizard runs, it can install the card & reference the LabVIEW drivers. Because the AIT 1553 hardware was installed in the PXI chassis that I'm using long before I got my hands on it, the driver changing procedure was necessary.

[shadow008]

Hello folks,

I have good experience in labview but new to 1553 systems 

I'm working with AIT 1553 USB module and I want to know about the xml files which are used for some configurations , and I'm clearly not understanding the same .can anyone help me out with that 

Thanks