Controlling HL5500PC Hall Measurement System

[imperial07]

Hello,

I am trying to control a HL5500PC Hall Measurement system. It is currently controlled by its (very old) software and uses GPIB and RS232. I want to be able to see what GPIB commands the software is sending so I can emulate it. I have never used LabVIEW or GPIB before. 

I have connected a GPIB-USB-HS cable to the machine. In the screenshot you can see that the instrument shows up as 14 separate instruments. Is this supposed to happen? Also when I send the *IDN? query it gives an error. I am doing this with the machine turned on and both with and without its software running:

I have also attached the manual. Relevant GPIB information is located on page 63. It says the machine has a "listener" and "talker" mode. The 14 instruments listed in NI MAX have secondary addresses corresponding to the 14 different commands in "listener" mode. What is "listener" and "talker" mode? How can I switch between them?

In general, how can I communicate with this machine? The manual says you call functions by using the primary and secondary addresses. How would I do this in LabVIEW? 

Finally, how does the RS232 connection play into all of this? Do I use LabVIEW to see/send RS232 commands as well?

Thanks!

[Dennis_Knutson]

The instrument is to old to support the idn query. You just can't make up commands to send. They have to be listed in the manual.

I don't ever remember seeing an instrument that used secondary addresses that way. If you use VISA, the resource name includes the primary and secondary address as you see them listed. You don't usually have to worry about the low level details of talker/listener. It should be in listen mode when you do a write to it and when you do a read, it will switch to a talker. Listen means that it is receiving commands from the GPIB controller/pc and talked means it is sending data back to the controller/pc.

Serial communication in LabVIEW is done with the same VISA api that is used for top level GPIB communication.

[imperial07]

Ok, thanks. For now I just want to be able to see what GPIB commands the software is sending. To do this I attached a GPIB-USB connector to the instrument and ran NI I/O Trace while sending commands to the intrument. I followed the instructions located here. Nothing was recorded. Do you know why this is?

[Dennis_Knutson]

Did the instrument actually respond when you ran the software? If it didn't, that would mean that the software does not use NI GPIB functions and a trace will not work. If you have the current + model of the NI USB-GPIB, you could use the monitor capability.