cpci driver for custom board

[GRF]

hi,

i am a beginer user DDK. 

i have to write a driver to communicate with a cPCI custom made board (basically a digital I/O) under XP.

I already have installed the NI-DAQmx Base toolkit, but it's not clear to me how to proceed.

Can someone give me few hints to start?

thanks for your help,

F. Granata

[Tom_W_[DE]]

Hi GRF-

The NI MHDDK and NI-DAQmx Base are only intended as programming tools to help access registers on NI devices.  They will not help you with a custom-made board.  You should speak with the designer of the board to determine its register set.  This tutorial may be helpful if you want to program the device in LabVIEW with NI VISA.

Hopefully this helps-

[GRF]

Hi Tom,

many thanks for your reply.

The tutorial you mentioned is interesting, but refers to VISA Driver Development Wizard; where can I found it ? 

thanks for your help,

F.Granata

[Dennis_Knutson]

It's exactly where it says it is in section 3 of the tutorial. That's assuming you have a license for NI-VISA and have installed it. The license comes with NI software such as LabVIEW or LabWindows/CVI. Are you using any NI software or hardware?

[GRF]

I would like to use Labview 8.6 with my own cPCI boards.

The tutorial says:

"...The VISA Driver Development Wizard is available from the Start menu under National Instruments>>VISA. "

In the National Instruments>>VISA menu I found "VISA Driver Wizard"; is it the same ?

Thanx

[Tom_W_[DE]]

Hi GRF-

Yes, you need to use the VISA Driver Wizard to create and install an .inf for your device.

[GRF]

Hi Tom,

I created and installed my .inf file generated with Driver Wizard but I still have problems.

MAX application doesn't list any device.

I  have a cPCI chassis instread of PXI .

Could it be a problem ?

How can I read/write my board's BAR registers using LV?

Thanks

Francesco

[Tom_W_[DE]]

Hi Francesco-

Does your device show up in Device Manager as a VISA PXI Device?  If not, you may need to use the right-click>>update driver and manually select the NI VISA inf you created.  After that, you should use NI-VISA inside LabVIEW to access the registers on the device.  The tutorial I linked in my first post in this thread should be helpful with getting started.  The fact that it is a cPCI chassis should not be a problem.  Can you share screenshots of your device manager window and any property pages for the device?

[GRF]

Hi Tom,

I've updated the driver manually and now in the device manager window I have a "NI-VISA PXI Devices" group with my CPCI board listed.

Property pages are:

General with device summary and status ("The device is working properly"):

Driver with the driver info and buttons

Detail with up to 24 entries in the combo box.

P.S.

Since my cPCI board is not yet ready, It still have some hw problems to be fixed, I've used a ADDI DATA cPCI board that I know for sure that it works to follow the above mentined procedure.

Additionally, I tried a sample application named "High level Register Access" from LV Examples.

The "VISA resource name" suggested by the application is "PXI0::MEMACC" (?) . When I try to read "PXI BAR0" I get the following error:

"Error -1073807282 occurred at VISA IN 16 in High level Register Access.vi

Possible reason(s)

VISA: (Hex 0xBFFF004E) Invalid address space specified."

Francesco

[Tom_W_[DE]]

You may need to change the filtering options on the VISA Resource Name control in order to show your device properly.  You should be able to find your cpci device in MAX listed as something like PXI<bus>::<dev>::INSTR.  Right-click on the control in LabVIEW and choose this option:

After that, you should see your device listed properly in the control.

Message Edited by Tom W [DE] on 04-03-2009 03:14 PM