oscilliscope

[Jenna1234]

I need some help.  I have an experiment where I am aquiring a signal using an oscilliscope, and I want to take the output of the oscilliscope and run it into labview.  I don't need labview to run the osciliscope or aquire the data, I just need the output of the oscilliscope to be able to run into a graph in labview so I can manipulate the date better.  How can I do this?  I am working with Labview 9.0.  Could anyone walk me through this?  Is there certain additional things I need to download?  Thanks for your help!

[RTSLVU]

In a nutshell Labview will have to control the oscilloscope and acquire the data to be able to analyze it.

Unless your scope has the option to save it's waveform data in Excel (spreadsheet) format.

What brand, make, and model of oscilloscope?

Does it have a data interface (GPIB, Serial, USB?) and do you have Labview drivers for it?

[Jenna1234]

It is a TDS220.  I think most of them have a serial port and I may find one that has a GPIB.  I don't think I have the labview driver for it.  Can I just download it?  I'm just not sure where to start with everything. 

[smercurio_fc]

You can download drivers for instruments from the Instrument Driver Network. The specific one for the TDS220 is this one: http://sine.ni.com/apps/utf8/niid_web_display.download_page?p_id_guid=047216EC20B66FABE0440003BA7CCD...

Unzip the file and place the contents in the instr.lib folder in your LabVIEW directory. The palette for it should appear in the Instrument I/O functions palette. There should be a "data read" or something like that that will fetch the data from the scope. You didn't indicate what you want to do with it, so can't tell you anything beyond that for now.

[Jenna1234]

Thanks for your reply that helps a lot.  I just want to have the output of my oscilliscope run into labview, and have the data that is in the oscilliscope screen on the labview screen instead.  Is this possible?

[LV_Pro]

It sounds like you are just wanting a different display monitor, unfortunately, to display the data in LabVIEW requires aquiring the data that the o-scope's displaying, formatting it and displaying it on the appropriate graphical display in LabVIEW. The data will consist of amplitude/time pairs. It will require "acquiring data" in LabVIEW, one way or the other, either directly by commanding the 'scope to make a sweep and to send the data, or, as a previous poster suggested, if the 'scope can "dump" the data to a file in an generic format (ideally something like a tab or comma seperated variable format) then LabVIEW could read the file and display it. LabVIEW doesn't have a way to display "streamed video" and I'm pretty sure the scope doesn't have a means to "stream" the video. So, as previously stated, downloading the appropriate driver for the interface (serial, GPIB) and look at various scope examples. If this is the route you follow, feel free to ask for help on this forum. If you do, please continue in this thread so that we can keep track of what has been suggested.

[Jenna1234]

Great thanks!  I'll post if I have any other questions. 

[Jenna1234]

Hello, so I will be able to use an instrument driver for my oscilliscope, but I just was wondering if I was on the right track from there.  I just need to aquire the data from my oscilliscope using labview, and have it show up on labview.  So do you first need to use the Initialize VI in order to first establish the communication?  Next, is there a sort of acquire function that could be used to just acquire the signal from the oscilliscope?  Thanks!

[RTSLVU]

In general terms acquiring a signal and displaying it follows the same steps you would take to do it by hand.

Initialize

Setup (Channel, V/div, probe attenuation, horizontal, sweep time, triggering, etc...) or load a preset

Arm trigger (if single sweep)

Acquire

Display

You will need to look at teh supplied VI's to determine the ones you will need to use.

Usually a good VI package will have a "Getting Started" or "Tree" VI that has all the VI's grouped together on it's block diagram in logical groups by function

[Dennis_Knutson]

You would of course need the initialize function to set the serial port. Just as obvious, you would not want to set the Reset input to True.

Turn on context help and read the description of each function you see on the palette. You probably just need the Fetch Waveform on the Data>Low Level palette.