Having trouble with USB-6501 with Labview 8.6 Pro for Mac OS

[Keong Kam]

Hi,

I have a USB-6501 unit that I am trying to use with Labview 8.6 Pro for intel-based Mac.

I have the NI-DAQmx base 3.2 for Mac installed and when I first ran 'Isdaq', it detected the unit and also warned that the firmware needs to be updated. So, i ran the 'FWUpdate' to update the firmware. I check the Isdaq again and it is detecting the device as "NI USB-6501: "Dev1"    (USB0::0x3923::0x718A::014386B0::RAW)"

Now, when I run Labview 8.6 and  DAQmx Base Create Channel VI and wire the 'Physical Channel' port to control, nothing shows up in the available device.

Also, when I run mxbaseconfig program, non of the existing base tasks detect the device.

Could someone please help me to get this working? I basically need to read and write some slow digital data through USB-6501. But, the Labview doesn't seem to detect the device.

Thanks,

[ColeTrain]

Hello Keong Kam,

Behind the scenes, DAQmx Base uses VISA calls, so you will not actually ever see the drop down menu populate.  Instead, you should refer to the appropriate channels by typing the name out.  The alisas is shown using lsdaq (Dev1 in your post).  So you can just reference Dev1 and the the corresponding port or lines you need.  

As far as the mxbaseconfig, it uses the same calls as lsdaq does in the background so you should see your device.  You will just want to make sure you have the appropriate task selected (like DIO) to see your device show up.  

[Keong Kam]

Hi Cole,

Thanks for your help. However, I'm still not getting this to work. As you said, I typed in Dev1 / Port0 to create channel, but it still gives error as shown in this picture.

My VI looks like this.

Could you help me again what I'm doing wrong?

Thanks in advance,

Keong Kam 

[ColeTrain]

Hello Keong,

You will want to first move your Create Channel VI outside of your while loop (you do not want to create a channel every loop iteration).  Also, make sure you are referencing port0 not Port0. And I'm not sure how Macs handle slashes, but you may try a backslash '\' instead of a front slash.  Finally, you are just outputting a single value, but you are referencing a port.  Make sure you reference a specific line.

[Keong Kam]

Thanks for your quick reply Cole,

I've changed the line name to Dev1/port0 as you suggested.

For the output value, I've wired 8bit integer, so I was thinking that it would take a whole port 0 (which is 8bit) to write it, am I wrong?

Anyhow, I am still getting the same error, saying that Value passed to the Task/Channels In control is invalid.

I've tried Dev\port0 and same thing.

Here's my VI:

Please help me again,

Thanks,

Keong 

[ColeTrain · Accepted solution]

Keong,

I am not sure what causes this, but place a create task VI before your code and wire the task output to the task input on the create channel and try running that.  Please let me know if this works for you.

[Keong Kam]

Hi Cole,

This worked. I guess you have to make a task first before you make a channel.

Keong 

[ColeTrain]

Keong,

I looked into this more and since DAQmx Base is all VISA based communication, DAQmx Base does not dynamically create tasks like DAQmx will.  Any task will always need to specifically be created before trying to create a channel.