Control PXI Card through LAN

[kkwong]

Hello,

I have 1 PC with WIN XP (XP-PC) installed and PXIe chassis with remote controller PXIe-8135 (WIN7).  There is a PXI-5124 card inserted in the chassis.   What I want to do is that the XP-PC asks the remote controller PXIe-8135 to capture  a waveform with PXI-5124 and send the waveform data back to the XP-PC.  The XP-PC and controller PXIe-8135 are on  the same LAN.  I need to develop a C++ program on XP-PC to accomplish the task.

What I am thinking is that the XP-PC can communicate with the remote PXI card through IVI/Visa. To the XP-PC, the PXIe-8135+PXI-5124 is a standalone instrument, just like a remote scope.  Is this approach workable?  What do I need to do on the XP-PC and PXIe-8135, in terms of driver setup and programming? 

Please advise.

Thanks!

Andy

[crossrulz]

What you have to do is create an application for the PXI controller that reads commands from the Ethernet port, does whatever with the 5124, and then send the data back.  You can make your own protocol instead of trying to reverse engineer an IVI driver.

[yytseng]

https://knowledge.ni.com/KnowledgeArticleDetails?id=kA00Z0000019LfHSAU

[kkwong]

Hi yytseng,

I  Installed MAX, NI-VISA, and IVI Compliance Package on the XP computer and followed the instruction. 

Now I can see the PXI-5124 card on the remote PXIe chassis in MAX.  However, how do I move on?  I want to develop C++ program with IVI driver.  Where can I get the NI-IVI driver for the PXI-5124? How do I write the program?

Please advise.

Thanks!

Andy

[yytseng]

If you can access this remote PXI-5124 by the NI-MAX on local side, you may find the "resource name" of this PXI-5124.

For NI-IVI driver, you should install the NI-Scope on local side and using the example code go with NI-Scope library by replacing the "resource name" to access this remote PXI-5124.

YY

[kkwong]

Hi YY,

Thanks for your reply. Can you help me in clarifying the followings?

1. Now I have not installed the NI-SCOPE yet. I found that there is a folder
C:\Program Files\IVI Foundation\IVI, which contains only IVI headers, dll and
lib, ie. IVIscope.

Can I Write code to directly control the PXI-5124 with the IVI driver? If so,
what should be the resource name of remote PXI-5124? Do I just use the VISA name
"visa://ipaddress/PXI5::14::INSTR" for example, to access the equipment?

2. If NI-SCOPE is installed, does this mean I am using the NI-SCOPE driver
instead of the IVI? I think the NI-SCOPE is using the IVI driver.

The reason I am asking these questions is eventually, I want to release the test
program on a PC with minimum driver setup. Ideal case is we just copy the
IVI/VISA drivers.

Please advise. Thanks again.

Andy

[kkwong]

Hi YY,

I have installed the NI-SCOPE and created the logical name for the IVI driver. I created a very simple program by just calling the

checkErr(IviScope_init (addrBuf,IDQuery,reset, &instrumentHandle));

It return error. The error should be related to the logical name that I have setup.

So I tried similar thing on the remote controller PXIe-8135 (with WIN7). I created the IVI logical name which controled a local PXIe-5124 and tested with the sample program. It also return error related to the logical name.

After searching the forum, I found the following article

https://knowledge.ni.com/KnowledgeArticleDetails?id=kA00Z0000019LcmSAE

It trun out be the Resource Descriptor of in the Hardware Page. I fixed it and I can access the lcoal PXIe-5124 through IVI.

Now back to remote access problem, I could not do similar thing for remote deivce. What I can have in remote system is the VISA address. This thread describe similar problem.

https://forums.ni.com/t5/NI-TestStand/Does-Session-Manager-support-alias-for-VISA-devices-on-remote/...

So, I think my problem is

What is the "Resource Descriptor" for IVI->logical Name->Driver Session->Hardware Assets, if a the device is located in a remote system?

PS. I confirmed that I can access the device through VISA by writting a simple program.

Thanks
Andy

[kkwong]

HI Crosssulz,

I did more search and now I finally have to accept that I could not make use of the IVI driver to control my remote PXI-5124 card.  Nevertheless, I am able to connect to the PXI-5124 via VISA.  Now, I don't know what command I can send to the PXI-5124.  I found that there are only something like viSetAttribute(),  viGetAttribute().  Can I use viWrite() with some command in it to control the PXI-5124?  There is no example of how to control a NI equipment to acquire data. Do you have any resource for that?

I understand that creating an application for the PXI controller that reads commands from the Ethernet port could be the only solution.  But before I that, I want to explore more options. Please advise.

Thanks!

Andy