how can I control a Festo (MH..4) Valve with Labview?

[nicm]

Hey,

i'm very new to this Labview stuff and have a minimal background in electronics so I'm struggling with trying to sort this one out.

I have a high-frequency valve (~400Hz) that we would like to control via the 9 pin RS232 port using labview. is this possible?

i imagine we will need an interface between the computer and the the valve (which requires a 24Volt digital signal) but I am not sure what to use. Buying a stock pc control board from LabVIEW is not an option because I will be running this from a laptop.


cheers


Nic

[Henrik_Volkers]

Nic,

you can easely control 2(3) of the 9 Pins of the RS232 Port with the VISA Propeties (Visa Open, VISA Propety (Modem line settings: DTR and RTS state (and Break (TDx)) , VISA Close)

However, since the serial driver it is not made for this type of timed digital IO, I'm not shure about the resolution you might get. If you have a scope, then do some loop testing and move some windows or do some other system load 🙂

Have a nice weekend

[TongY]

You can use either a PCMCIA-232 interface card or a USB-232 interface card to connect the serial instrument with your laptop. You can also use a external power supply to power the instrument.

http://www.ni.com/pdf/products/us/4ser712-721.pdf