Agilent 82347B GPIB-USB connection problem

[Edoh]

Hey

I'm trying to connect to a DS345 function generator with Agilent 82347B GPIB-USB.

Let me first start by saying, I've read most posts i found on this board and others regarding this topic and could not find a solution to my problem.

After following the installation steps (here) and settings (here) when trying to run an auto scan in connection export (ver 18.0 i've also tried older version down to 15)  the GPIB interface is recognized, but the devise connected to it is not recognized (I've tried to use SRS DS345 and SRS SR865). If I go to NI MAX (ver 17) I can see the interface but again no instrument (of course i verified the GPIB address in my device), if I manually add the devise in connection expert only then can i see the instrument both in connection expert and ni max. But I cant even sent *IND? command both in NI max (Hex 0xBFFF0015) and connection expert (0xBFFF0015). Also if i try to use NI Max VISA interactive control I get an error message ( 0xBFFF003A) see attached files for all the errors I get.

In the past I had no problem connecting to this device with the same setup (older versions of NI MAX and connection expert), since, I've installed an optical design program called OSLO by Lambda Research and in order to install it's security usb dongle I had to follow these instructions to activate it. The first thing I tried to fix this possible conflict was to remove the logos.ini  file i've created but no luck there.

I'm not sure if the last part have any connection to the problem, but i'm really lost here.

Appreciate any help!  

[Edoh]

In one of my attempts to solve this problem in this link i've noticed that NI 488.2 component is not installed in NI MAX, I've tried to install it but connection expert an NI MAX crashes after the installation, in the last time i changed the NI MAX version (like I said i tried versions 15-17) to the latest I didn't installed this component.

Should it be installed on my machine?

[ZKami]

Hello,

The 488.2 17.0 needs to be installed for GPIB communication. If it is installed now, you can try a force reinstall, however, from the way you phrased the question, I'm not sure the force reinstall would be what you need.

What was the configuration of the system that this worked on in the past? What were the driver versions and which version of NI MAX did you use?

[Edoh]

Thanks for the answer ZofiaK,

OK so I've installed NI 488.2 ver 17.0 and nothing changed. I still get a timeout error (0xBFFF0015) when trying to send *IDN? from NI MAX or connection expert.

In the past when the GPIB worked I was running win7 NI MAX 15.0 and IO Libraries Suite 17.2.2

Today i'm running the same operation system with NI MAX 17.0 and IO Libraries Suite 18.0

note that a few days ago i still had the old versions of NI and IO installed since i didn't used the GPIB connection for a while, only when i encountered the connection problems i started to update NI and IO in hope it will solve my connection issues.

Like i said the only thing that changed in NI MAX in the period of time i didn't actually use it, was this procedure in order to solve a port conflict with a different program called OSLO by Lambda research, because i reinstalled NI MAX the file logos.ini was deleted from my machine and i have no problems with OSLO right now.

I'm not sure if all of this logos.ini file had any connection to my problem but it seems like the only thing that changed in the time between GPIB was working and now.

[Edoh]

Update: I've tried to connect the DS345 to a different computer running win10, NI Visa + 488.2 17.0 and IO libraries 18.0. I still get the same timeout error.

[andmboa7]

Hey Edoh

Timeout errors are really common, and they are related to a miscommunication with the instrument.

Let's take out all NI software for a minute, and ask: Does it work with the devices software?

If all NI software is correctly install, their might be some other things to take into account, the cable, the device itself, do a loopback test to the cable to see if it works.

A good thing to try also is to associate the driver to the device from the windows device manager.

-Andrea G

National Instruments

[Edoh]

Hey Andrea,

As I explained before I've tried a few things to eliminate different parts of this problem.

1. I've connected my USB/GPIB cable to two different devices and got the same errors.

2. I've connected my device with the same USB\GPIB cable to a different computer using the same versions of keysight IO libraries and NI max and got the same error.

3. I tried to uninstall IO libraries and NI max, then installed only one of them at a time and still got the same error in both cases. 

I'm trying to get a different cable to see if that is the problem, but right now i'm simply hopeless.

[andmboa7]

Edoh,

Thanks for making the statement, but does this device works with its own software? Meaning the software that the owner made for it?