Bertec force plates with .NET

[hoangnganvy1993]

Hello community,

I am trying to connect a Bertec force plate to labview using the .NET interface. 

This involves loading  "BertecDeviceNET.dll" into labview. This DLL comes from the Bertec website,  and downloading the most recent "Bertec Device SDK" from May 2014.

I know this is possible, as it has been done before. See these posts:

https://forums.ni.com/t5/LabVIEW/Is-there-a-simple-way-in-LabVIEW-to-collect-data-from-two/td-p/1736...

https://forums.ni.com/t5/Digital-I-O/Bertec-force-plates/td-p/2532076

I've tried following the solutions listed, and feel optimistic about things. Except I can't seem to be able to load the .NET DLL into labview. It keeps telling me "An error occurred trying to load the assembly" and then I can't proceed.

I am using the 32-bit version of the DLL, and the 32-bit version of Labview 2017. The DLL is in the same local folder as the labview VI. I've tried loading it into Labview 2015, and 2016, both 32 and 64 bit versions (the Bertec SDK has 64 bit versions as well). But no luck. 

I'm not sure what to do next. It might be that Bertec's DLL is just bad, but I'd be surprised Bertec didn't catch that yet, as the SDK was released in 2014.

Is anyone else able to load the DLL? If so, what am I doing wrong?

[BrinkHombre]

Hey hoangnganvy1993,

I tried downloading the "BertecDeviceNET.dll" from the Bertec website and ran into similar issues when trying to setup the Constructor Node.

However, I looked into NI's recommendations regarding Locations for Saving .NET Assemblies on Disk and noted that NI "Strongly recommends that you always put your VIs that use .NET objects in a project." Thus I tried again and did the following steps:

1. Created a new blank LabVIEW Project and added:
   • Auto-populating folder with the unzipped "Bertec_Device_SDK_May_2014" folder that contains the desired DLL
   • A new blank VI
2. Confirmed the folder that contains all of the files (LabVIEW project, VI and Bertec_Device_SDK folder) is on a local drive (i.e. on the desktop) and not a shared drive.
   • This was mentioned in the 2nd forum post you referenced
   • I've attached an image of what my Project Window looks like so you can compare

After doing those steps, I dropped a Constructor Node onto the block diagram and then browsed to the "BertecDeviceNET.dll" in the auto-populating folder. The "Select .NET Constructor" window populated with the DLL objects and I was able to properly link the DLL to the constructor node.

Please let us know if you are able to open the DLL in a constructor node following the steps above.