I need a driver for an Hp 8567A spectrum analyzer

[hspec]

I have an application I need to write, to produce a plot file from an hp 8567A Spectrum Analyzer which can be viewed/printed with typical PC software such as paint or Corel draw. So far I have not been able to find a driver for this device, and looking at a few typical drivers for spectrum analyzers, I can't see a function that would easily produce the screen image in a file format that could be used. 

1. Does anyone have a driver or know of an existing driver that will work with an 8567A analyzer?.

2. How do I produce the screen image? 

Thanks in advance,

Howard Spec

CMC Electronics

Canada

[unclebump]

Here is a link to a manual with programming info. The 8566B driver on the NI site may get you close enough with some modifications.

http://cp.literature.agilent.com/litweb/pdf/08567-90001.pdf

[ian_fung]

Search Instrument Driver Network

Available LabVIEW Drivers for HP/Agilent

[Keyser Soze]

"hspec" <x@no.email> wrote in message
news:1148676008926-371007@exchange.ni.com...
>I have an application I need to write, to produce a plot file from an
>hp 8567A Spectrum Analyzer which can be viewed/printed with typical PC
>software such as paint or Corel draw. So far I have not been able to
>find a driver for this device, and looking at a few typical drivers for
>spectrum analyzers, I can't see a function that would easily produce the
>screen image in a file format that could be.
>
> 1. Does anyone have a driver or know of an existing driver that will work
> with an 8567A analyzer?.
> 2. How do I produce the screen image?
>
> Thanks in advance,
>
> Howard Spec
> CMC Electronics
> Canada

Agilent still has this instrument manual available online:

http://www.home.agilent.com/cgi-bin/pub/agilent/reuse/cp_ReferenceRedirector.jsp?CONTENT_NAME=AGILENT_EDITORIAL&CONTENT_KEY=620772&LANGUAGE_CODE=eng&COUNTRY_CODE=US

Warning, This link may get mangled.

A quick look through the manual shows that the 8567A can send screen shots
to an HP pen plotter.

There are several sites on the internet that have software to make a modern
PC look like an HP plotter.

http://www.aphena.com/pltgeist/pltgeist.htm (expensive, GBP 250.00, US$465)

http://www.printcapture.com/index.html (reasonable, GBP 55, US$97.00)

To use any of these solutions you will need a GPIB interface card or USB to
GPIB adaptor.

The cards can be found on ebay. Get only Agilent(HP) or National Instruments
cards. Others are available but finding the correct drivers that will work
with the above software for your version of Windows can range from painful
to impossible.

I have no experience with the USB to GPIB interface adaptors. My friends
tell me that they work OK.

Both Agilent and National Instruments provide free high level language
programming support libraries to create applications than can remotely
control instruments. They also offer expensive development tool suites like
LabView.

[Keyser Soze]

"hspec" <x@no.email> wrote in message
news:1148676008926-371007@exchange.ni.com...
>I have an application I need to write, to produce a plot file from an
>hp 8567A Spectrum Analyzer which can be viewed/printed with typical PC
>software such as paint or Corel draw. So far I have not been able to
>find a driver for this device, and looking at a few typical drivers for
>spectrum analyzers, I can't see a function that would easily produce the
>screen image in a file format that could be.
>
> 1. Does anyone have a driver or know of an existing driver that will work
> with an 8567A analyzer?.
> 2. How do I produce the screen image?
>
> Thanks in advance,
>
> Howard Spec
> CMC Electronics
> Canada

Also take a look at the 8566B LabView driver:

http://sine.ni.com/apps/we/niid_web_display.download_page?p_id_guid=E3B19B3E94D5659CE034080020E74861

This is a close cousin of the 8567A and may be functional enough.

[MissyS]

Hi,

Using NI-VISA and the commands from the user manual, you should be able to read the data from the spectrum analyzer and plot it to a graph or chart indicator on the front panel. This link describes how to use an invoke node to save the front panel object (with data) to a printable picture file format. To return an image from the front panel of the instrument, it would have to already have a command that allows you to get this information. Based on the manual, it does not look like this instrument has this command built in.

In LabVIEW, you can still record the information from the instrument in a printable format. You should be able to retrieve the plotted data and then set properties of the chart or graph to have the cursers and scales that you need. You would then save this image to file. I hope this helps!

Regards,

[cedar]

Hi,

I am trying to download HP 8563E and HP 8593E drivers for labview 8.0 fron this link, but failed to do it. Can anybody send this driver to me?

thanks a lot!

[DarylE]

Hello,

The link to the HP 8563E driver is at the following link HP 8563E LabVIEW 8.0 Driver and the link to the HP 8593E is at the following link HP 8593E LabVIEW 8.0 Driver
Those two are the direct links to the driver.

Daryl E
National Instruments
Applications Engineer