Instrument Control (GPIB, Serial, VISA, IVI)

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Controlling an NCD R85PRO Board via Serial and VISA?

Hello:

 

I am trying to control a National Control Devices R85PRO (8-relay) board using LabVIEW 8.2.1 and eventually LabVIEW 2011. Being new to serial communication protocols/programming as well as being unfamiliar with this particular relay system, I am having great difficulty even establishing basic communications with the board. There seems to be little documentation or support for LabVIEW control from the NCD website and forums. All I could find is the following URL for two VI's that are supposed to establish/test and then control both communications with the board and the states of the relays:

 

http://www.controlanything.com/Relay/Relay/LVIEW

 

Unfortunately, even when using these VI's, I had no success in communicating with or controlling the relay board. I have eliminated the simple errors, such as using the wrong Com port (and have checked the functionality of the port with a loopback test using the Basic Serial Write and Read.vi), and am certain that there is nothing wrong with my LabVIEW or port setup. Therefore, I conclude that I am not using the correct communications protocols/commands to activate the device.

 

In short, I am lost and not sure even where to begin to try to figure out how to control this board. If anyone has any suggestions or experience dealing with this or a similiar board, I'd really appreciate hearing from them.

 

Thanks for any advice you can give,

 

Michael

Brown University

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Message 1 of 8
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Try using a program like Hyperterminal to communicate with the instrument first.

 

This presumes you know how to configure a serial port and what commands the instrument responds to.

 

 

 

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The VI's on that web site do not work correctly.  Try this web site these VI's worked for me.

http://iorelay.ning.com/forum/topics/labview-driver-sub-vi-for 

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Hi,

 

   Have you figured out how to control the NCD relays with Labview?  If you did, please let me know how. I am struggling with it. Thanks.

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I have DIGI ethernet to rs232 module set it up as a com port using the DIGI software on my PC.  Once setup the PC will see it as a standard RS232 com port.

try this to read will need to modify for your app.

 read.png

 

try this for write

write.png

 

good luck

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Thank you so much. I will try to use the way you did.

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I am still struggling with my Labview programing, few questions here wanna ask your help.

1.  Do we have to write command with Checksum ?

2. Can I run without RS232 and only use USB to control the relay board? I got error at Property Node with USB input.

3.  If RS232 is must, how do you coneect it to USB or you only use RS232 w/o USB?

4. If I only use non-API, the input can be 254 108(for relay#) 1(Bank#) ? I mean without 170 and 3

5. My email is yuntan.yang@integralife.com, can you send me your source code?

 

I appreciate your help. I know I might ask too much.

 

 

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Hello HermanYang,

 

I cannot answer your questions about what your device is expecting (whether or not it needs a checksum, if you can leave the API blank, etc). I would consult the manual for that, or possibly get in touch with NCD about it. As far as using USB with NI VISA goes, as long as your device is being recognized as a VISA resource by our software and you are choosing the proper format for your messages you should be able to send serial VISA commands over USB.

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