Can VISA be use on CRIO for Ethernet Instruments

[Song_D · Accepted solution]

klessm1,

On second look, VISA actually does NOT install the Enet passport on 9004. We did add the Enet support in 4.4 for the current generation of cRIO targets. 9004, as a legacy target, was not included in that support.

I have listed some steps below to install the passport manually. Note, however, that this is NOT officially supported. Also, if you perform any upgrade or reinstall in the future, you probably need to muck with these files again. If this doesn't work, then you would have to use the native tcpip vi's or upgrade to a newer cRIO target.

1. Use FTP to move the file NiViEnet.dll from C:\Program Files\National Instruments\RT Images\NI-VISA\x.x\ on the host PC to /ni-rt/system/vxipnp/winnt/bin/ on the 9004.

2. Add the following lines to the visaconf.ini file which is located at /ni-rt/system/vxipnp/winnt/NIvisa/

[TCPIP-RSRCS]
SynchronizeAllSocket = 0
SynchronizeAllVxi11 = 1
NumOfResources = 0

3. Add the following lines to the nivisa.ini file which is located at ni-rt/system/vxipnp/winnt/NIvisa/Passport/

passportEnabled2 = 1
LibName2 = NiViEnet.dll
LibDescription2 = "NI-VISA Passport for TCPIP and VXI-11"

Also, increment the argument for NumberOfPassports = X.

[klessm1]

I'll try this out tomorrow.  Thanks for the info.

[klessm1]

I reloaded the latest software on the 9004 and made the updates above and it works!

We haven't done extensive testing to see if this have any negative effects, but so far so good.

Thanks!

[Asa77]

Hi,

Did you manage to discover your device under cRIO on NI MAX. I am trying to get Agilent 33220A function generator connected to cRIO-9057 over LAN. I managed to get NI driver on windows but it doesn't work on cRIO until I configure it on NI max. When I try to discover the device, I am getting following message.

Much appreciate if you can share some tips.

[phoenix525]

I got the same error message when I attempted to operate a Yokogawa WT5000 via VISA and similarly had lots of NI-VISA related software and passports installed on my cRIO-9049 running RT image '22.

The workaround didn't even involve NI-MAX and was simple - instead of using a VISA resource name control, I programmatically created a VISA resource name using the known IP of the device as a string into a sub-vi I found in the forums https://forums.ni.com/t5/LabVIEW/Programmatically-Add-Network-Device-VISA/m-p/4054182#M1163047

Deployed and ran with no errors; I was pleasantly shocked.