Interfacing with INSTRON 8800

[MikeMcKenzie]

Hi,

I am trying to perform control of an INSTRON 8800 series device using LabVIEW. I have noticed several old posts (http://forums.ni.com/t5/forums/v3_1/forumtopicpage/board-id/140/thread-id/46152/page/1) concerning INSTRON device drivers and I was wondering if any one had any more recent experience dealing with control of this, or a similar, system.

I have searched the NI instrument driver network for drivers to no avail, but I do have a copy of the INSTRON IEEE-488 programming guide so I could develop some if required. The solution to the forum post mentioned above was a using the Bluehill ActiveX API, does anyone have any experience following that route?

Thanks,
Mike

[PezDeSpencer]

Hello Mike,

Unfortunately I do not have any experience with the Bluehill ActiveX API. Hopefully someone with experience with that API will see this thread. 

I can comment that if you have the commands from the IEEE-488 programming guide for the INSTRON that would be the route I suggest. 

This is a useful guide for programming with NI-488.2

Also you can suggest new drivers at this page if you would like to possibly see them in the future. 

Spencer R | NI

[Albert.Geven]

Hi

This is a good article for programming in basic with old functions and manual access. Does NI also have sich an article how to do this in LabVIEW?

[PezDeSpencer]

I may be a bit confused by your question. If you have the serial commands you can just use LabVIEW Serial API to call them manually. Which actually ends up using the same API as VISA. 

Please correct me if I am misinterpretting the question. For someone just getting started this link may be useful for instrument control. 

Spencer R | NI

[Albert.Geven]

much better, thanks

[MikeMcKenzie]

Thanks for the reply Spencer,

I was just hoping some one might have some experience with higher level drivers that could save me some time. The IEEE-488 guide is fairly detailed so it shouldn't be too bad to write our own driver program.

Cheers,

Mike

[PezDeSpencer]

Hello Mike, 

I completely understand, if someone has already done some of the leg work for creating an INSTRON driver hopefully they see this post and can post their work. 

Unfortunately from searching the National Instruments resources I have available to me, it does not appear one already exists that NI has re-posted or developed. Best of luck!

Spencer | NI

[M_AL123]

Hey,

I am facing the same exact problem. We are using WaveMatrix currently but it is limited to the time of connection and applied control modes and so I want to develop my own code to be able to control the machine. I requested for instrument/driver to be added however not sure how long that will take. Was wondering if you came up with a solution or perhaps be willing to share or propose how you came to it. Unfortunately, I also do not have access to INSTRON IEEE-488 Programming Guide.

Thanks,

Maithah