Re : doccumentation

[ejbraman]

I have a hp 4280A 1mHz C meter/C-V plotter.  I have the drivers downloaded and their icons appear in LabVIEW.  Is there some kind of doccumentation to know help me find which one I should use for a specific task or what each sub VI (as they are called I guess) might do and what each of its terminals do?

I have been looking through labview manuals and manuals for the device but I think the device was created before labview and therefore its manuals aren't helping. Most sites say it is obsolete and it was hard to even find the drivers?  Any info out there or experts willing to help would be much appreciated.

[Dennis_Knutson]

With most drivers, the only documentation is what is included with each VI. You should have context help turned on and if the driver is written correctly, you should see a description of the VI when your mouse is over the VI's icon and when you open a subVI, you will get a description of each control/indicator when your mouse is over one of those.

I don't know where you got the driver. It's not on NI's web site so I can't say how much documentation was done for it. If there is an example, then use that to get a rough idea of how the various functions can be used. Study the programming manual to see what commands are necessary to perform a specific action. Search the subVIs for the matching commands.

[ejbraman]

I do not feel that what you have posted helps, unless you are trying to say there is no information like what I am seeking out there.  What I want is to be contacted by someone who has used these two things LabVIEW and either a Keithly 2400 source meter or a HP (which is now agilent) 4280A C meter/C-V plotter. 

-Perhaps I was unclear with my question, I didn't know what I didn't know then (if that makes any sense).

I have been reading the labView manuals and the manuals for these devices, the drivers are basically blank as far as telling me how to use them.  That is what I need, 2 pieces of information.

1- how do these devices communicate with labview through the drivers

2-what do the VI's on the drivers do

(and perhaps also, am I missing something, maybe I need another driver, is there a simple way to...for lack of a better phrase, ping these machines with labview without writing out pages and pages?)

-Liz 

Message Edited by ejbraman on 09-05-2008 11:29 AM

[Ray.R]

What Dennis wrote may not be helpful, but it is usually the reality..  Especially with HP / Agilent's older products.  Not to say that other manufacturers are any better..

R

[Ray.R]

What Dennis wrote may not be helpful, but it is usually the reality..  Especially with HP / Agilent's older products.  Not to say that other manufacturers are any better..

You should know that this is a public forum, so you'll get help from people that contribute their time to assist others.  I've used the Keithley 2400 source meter and communicated to it using LabVIEW.  I used their programming guide to determine what the commands looked like and wrote my own code.  What you refer as drivers are a collection of vi's that are created as useful "ready to use" code.  It essentially sends the same command as you would manually build by reading the manuals.  They are written in such a way to be more flexible...  sometimes at a cost..  but rarely have thorough documentation because you can look up the instruction in the guide.

A trick you can do is to place a probe just in front of the VISA WRITE and to look at the string.  That will be the instruction.  You can then look into the manual to find out what that instruction actually does.  You can modify it as per your need based on the instructions from the guide and create your own string; thus your own custom command.

The "drivers" communicate to the instrument over a VISA session; usually over GPIB or Serial communication, depending on how your PC is connected to the instrument.

What do they do?  Well, have you turned ON Context Help and browse the cursor over the "driver"?  It should give you some description.

(and perhaps also, am I missing something, maybe I need another driver, is there a simple way to...for lack of a better phrase, ping these machines with labview without writing out pages and pages?)

You can use NI-Spy...   But I'm not sure what you are trying to do...  PING to find out if they are communicating?  or PING to find out what they are saying to one another????

R

[Dennis_Knutson]

The 2400 does have an NI driver and since you are now asking about that, I would suggest you post a new question asking for specific help about that. You can also search the forum. I know there have been threads related to that instrument.

As far as the Agilent, you still have not answered my question about where you got the driver. I can't comment on the documentation of it if I can't look at it.

What I gave you is general information on how to an NI Certified Instrument Driver and what kind of help is provided with one. Lets take an example driver that ships with LabVIEW - the 34401 meter from Agilent. There are high level examples that you can look at (Help>Find Examples>Hardware Input and Output>Instrument Drivers>LabVIEW Plug and Play). When you select a function from the palette and place it on the diagram, you should have Context Help turned on. Do this with the 34401 Configure Measurement. The context help window says 'Configures the measurement type, resolution, etc.' Open this VI and move the mouse over one of the controls (i.e. Function). The help for this says' Sets the measurement function for the instrument, etc.' You can look at the block diagram and see the GPIB commands that this functions sends. You can cross-reference that to the manual.

You also need to be intimately familiar with the actual instrument before you try to program it. Set up a test manually and then try to do it programatically.

[ejbraman]

Thanks guys.  I think I found the drivers and with a couple more weeks of experience, and maybe a bit more time in general, I should be able to peice this all together.  If I get something reasonably good and working (and the University/professor don't have some kind of issue with propriety) I would gladly post it here to make life easier for future struggling college students. 

[Abdou_1]

Hello ejbraman, I like to ask you if you had founded the driver of the HP 4280A C METER/C-V PLOTTER working with Labview?

If you found it, please send it to me as soon as possible or purshase it on this forum.

THANK YOU.