can I use my DAQ on two different computers?

[sb_oxinst]

Hi there.

Sorry if this might seem like a stupid question but I'm trying to save money lol. I have two test stations, each station has it's own computer and power supply. The power supply powers a certain device and the computer communicates with it via an USB to RS422 serial converter. I am using the 2 analog outputs on my NI-USB 6008/6009 DAQ to control the 2 power supplies. AO 0 to control the power supply on station #1 and A0 1 to control the power supply on station #2.  I can control these 2 power supplies just fine with one computer connected to my DAQ. But i need each computer to be running tests independently. I only have 1 DAQ but 2 computers, is there way to use this DAQ on both computers???

thanks for any help!

[RavensFan]

No.  Because there is no way you can take one USB-DAQ and plug it into two computers at the same time.

You would probably be better off having one PC that communicates with the USB-DAQ and have your application on one computer talk to the other computer to pass commands and get back data from the USB-DAQ, probably by way of TCP/IP.

I would actually make an application that only handled the USB-DAQ operation.  Then have the program that runs on each computer be the same and talk to the USB-DAQ application which would act like a TCP/IP server.  The program that is on one PC would call the IP address of the other PC.  The program that is on the same PC as your USB-DAQ server would just call the local host to establish communication.

[sb_oxinst · Accepted solution]

I figured out the easiest way for me to do this is to run two VI's on one computer. Since I have 3 usb ports on my labtop, I can use 2 of them to communicate via serial with both of my devices and the 3rd one for the DAQ. 

Thanks Knight of NI for making it clear about using 2 computers.