PC controlled PXIe system with PXIe-8840 installed

[PeggyC]

Hi all, I am just starting with a project that will need to setup a PXIe chassis with internal chassis controller and also with remote PC control, and I am bit lost on the concept on how I am able to set it up.

The current system contains one PXIe Chassis (PXIe-1085) with one PXIe-8840 Chassis Controller and several other PXIe instruments installed (1553, Function Generator, Switches, and FlexRIO).  The PXIe-8840 will run the normal Windows 7 with LabView to provide some special functions using the 1553 card.  And, a separate external PC will do remote control to the Function Generator, Switches, and FlexRIO.

I tried to look up PXIe-8840 manual, but it is not clear to me that if I can have a separate external PC connected to PXIe-8840 and remote control the PXIe instrument (how do I connect)?  or, I would need a separate MXI card?  And, if there is a separate MXI card, the PXIe controller slot is being taking by the PXIe-8840, can the MXI card installed on slot 2 or other location?

Any suggestions?

Thanks.

Peggy

[ducdungle]

Hi PeggyC,

I am also a new user of PXIe recent days, and I still investigating PXI. So I just answer the question as I know.

I use PXEe-1087 chassis, PXIe-8840 controller and remote PC control. The remote PC control connect to PXIe-8840 through Ethernet wire as you can see there are 2 slots of Ethernet on PXIe-8840.

Thanks & Regards

[Adam_S · Accepted solution]

Hi PeggyC,

The PXIe-1085 chassis can only be "controlled" by one or the other as both an embedded controller like the PXIe-8840 or a MXI (remote controller) require Slot 1 in the chassis.  As mentioned above, you can still pass values/commands to the program running on your controller in the chassis through Ethernet and have a separate UI on your host PC.

Here are a couple links that might help you get a few ideas of how to do this using LabVIEW:

http://www.ni.com/white-paper/2710/en/

http://zone.ni.com/reference/en-XX/help/371361N-01/lvconcepts/using_labview_with_tcp_ip_and_udp/

You can also find several examples within LabVIEW by going to Help>>Find Examples.  Once the Example Browser opens you can browse to Networking>>TCP & UDP>>Simple TCP.lvproj

TCP will allow a "two-way" communication, in that, it will send data to the receiver (client) and the receiver sends packets back to the host to confirm receipt of the data.

With UDP, it is more like a broadcast in one direction without any error-checking.  The upshot is that there is less data that needs to pass through the Ethernet channel.

You will likely develop a main application on your controller (PXIe-8840) and have a user panel on your host PC that sends commands to the controller in the chassis to update changes, and then the controller might send the results back to the user panel on your PC.  Essentially you will have two VI's communicating through TCP or UDP (depending on if you want error checking or not).