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How do I create a pattern for a PXI-5406 funtion generator

Hello, I'm trying to create a arbitrary waveform for the PXI-5406 function generator. Is there a editor that is used, or is it done through the soft panel?

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Hi towleb1

 

The PXI-5406 is only a Standard Function Generator; you cannot download an arbitrary waveform onto the device's onboard memory. http://zone.ni.com/reference/en-XX/help/370524N-01/siggenhelp/features_by_device_smc/

 

You can however, download a 16,384 sample waveform that can only be generated periodically by selecting User Defined Waveform. The PXI-5402 and PXI 5406 are in the same class of device. This KB article discusses the limitations of the PXI-5402 (and by extension the PXI-5406) and how to configure your device to generate a periodic user defined waveform: http://digital.ni.com/public.nsf/allkb/CDA05D7EF7B92E43862573770083798B?OpenDocument

 

For more detail on how to configure your device in LabVIEW, I recommend checking out this programming flow chart: 

 

http://zone.ni.com/reference/en-XX/help/370524L-01/nisignal_generators_help/ni_fgen_programming_flow...

 

Regards,

 

Jason L.

Product Support Engineer
National Instruments
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If your main concern is how to generate the arbitrary 16,384 samples or if you have another device that is an arbitrary waveform generator, then I think you are looking for the Arbitrary Waveform Editor: http://sine.ni.com/nips/cds/view/p/lang/en/nid/13631 . A license is required to use the software, however I believe it ships (for free) with some of our arbitrary waveform devices. If you want to try it out, click on the Resources tab and there is a link for an evaluation copy.

 

Regards,

 

Jason L.

 

 

 

Product Support Engineer
National Instruments
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Jason,

 

So with the Arbitrary waveform editor I can create the waveforms and download them to the PXI-5406?

Also I've heard of people using different applications to do this, for example excel. Are you aware of this?

 

Can I use a Arb editor from agilent and download it to the PXI-5406, I'm not sure if the file format would be the same?

 

Your response from March 4th.

 

If your main concern is how to generate the arbitrary 16,384 samples or if you have another device that is an arbitrary waveform generator, then I think you are looking for the Arbitrary Waveform Editor: http://sine.ni.com/nips/cds/view/p/lang/en/nid/13631 . A license is required to use the software, however I believe it ships (for free) with some of our arbitrary waveform devices. If you want to try it out, click on the Resources tab and there is a link for an evaluation copy.

 

Regards,

 

Jason L.

 

Regards,

Bob

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So with the Arbitrary waveform editor I can create the waveforms and download them to the PXI-5406?

Also I've heard of people using different applications to do this, for example excel. Are you aware of this?

 

I'm going to assume you are planning to control the Arbitrary Waveform Generator programmatically through out NI-FGEN API here. Using NI-FGEN, you can download the waveform to the device as an array of doubles or an array of signed 16-bit integers. So if you can programmatically read the file into memory, you should easily download it to the device. I don't know what formats Agilent's editor exports to, but assuming they aren't too complicated, you should be able to accomplish what you need with a little bit of programming.

 

There is also a function to directly load a waveform from file, and it supports several file formats. Binary among them.

 

If you plan on controlling the device using the Soft Front Panel, it also supports reading several formats from file.

 

Hope this helps

Marcos

Marcos Kirsch
Chief Software Engineer
NI Driver Software
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Yes, I am using the NI-FGEN api.  I noticed using the soft front panel there are some example waveform files with the extensions bin and lvm. How do I create these files? I'm assumming these file formats would be created through the NI waveform editor or you could create them programmatically in the test code?

As for the Agilent arb files I found out after I sent this post yesterday that they are using xml files with the extension wvf.

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BIN is just binary, and LVM is text based. Either one would be trivial to create in LabVIEW. Parsing XML-based WVF files in LabVIEW or anothe programming language may be simple too, it depends on its details.

 

As long as you can get your waveform to an array of samples in memory, you'll be ok.

Marcos Kirsch
Chief Software Engineer
NI Driver Software
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