Hello Tom,
The difference between connecting the NI cFP-1808 network interface
module to a PC and connecting it to the NI TPC-2006 lies in the
difference between the development and execution environment.
When programming with LabVIEW on a PC running Windows XP (or some
variation thereof), the development and execution environment are one
in the same. You write your code on the block diagram, press the
run button, and LabVIEW compiles and executes that code, all within the
same environment. For the TPC-2006, the development environment
and execution environment are separate. You develop your
application using the LabVIEW PDA module on your PC, but when you run
the program, it is actually compiling the code into an executable to
run on the Windows CE OS of the TPC-2006, and deploying that executable
to the device.
When communicating through the cFP-1808, this difference is important
because the cFP-1808 does not have any programmable
functionality. When your application is running on a PC, it uses
the FieldPoint Read/Write VIs within LabVIEW to make driver calls that
go out and get data from the cFP modules, using the cFP-1808 simply as
a networked tunnel to that data. In the case of the TPC-2006,
these FieldPoint Read/Write VIs cannot be compiled by LabVIEW PDA to
run on its Windows CE OS. Also, there is no way to install the
FieldPoint drivers on the TPC-2006 because they were developed to run
on traditional Windows operating systems and Real-Time PACs like the
cFP-20xx.
Instead of using the FieldPoint drivers to get data back and forth from
the TPC-2006 and cFP modules, this is done with TCP/IP Communication
VIs that can be compiled to run on the Windows CE OS. These VIs
are the only way to access the Ethernet interface of the
TPC-2006. There are some existing utilities and example VIs that
I am in the process of refining for developing such Ethernet
applications for the TPC-2006. I will be sure to update this post
with links to these upon completion.
These are good questions and I hope I am explaining them clearly enough. Let me know if I can elaborate any further.
Regards,
Travis Gorkin
Applications Engineering
National Instruments
www.ni.com/support