Fail to communicate with ISCO Series D pump controller

[sramakrishan2]

Hey everyone,

I have an Isco Series D Pump Controller (which is connected to an Isco Model 100DX Syringe Pump) that I would like to control using RS232 on Labview. I do not have their LabView Toolkit which Teledyne has mentioned in their Technical Bulletin (TB06). Also, I would like to automate my test,so using the Labview Toolkit wont be of too much help either.

The problem I am facing is not being able to communicate with the controller either via hyperterminal or LabVIEW.

I have ran their built in serial test (mentioned in TB06) and it communicates as expected. I have also tried running their Remote Pump program (mentioned in Teledyne's Technical Bulletin 19 - TB19) which seems to do what is expected as well.

I tried talking to it using LabVIEW first using the vi I have attached, and I saw nothing on the read buffer. So I moved to hyperterminal.

But when I try to send the 'remote' command listed in TB19, it does not seem to do anything. There is no response on the hyperterminal.

There is mention of some DASNET protocol, and I found the .dll file which I also moved to my Windows System 32 folder. It didn't work even after that too.

I have attached TB06 and TB19. Let me know if you have any other ideas how to test it.

Please let me know if you need further information.

Thanks,

Sandeep

[Dennis_Knutson]

Why don't you want to use the LabVIEW driver? Just copying the dll to your pc would not do anything. You would need to call it with the Call Library Function Node not just pass its arguments to a VISA Write.

[sramakrishan2]

Hey Dennis,

The Labview kti that they provide is not a driver, but an executable from which I can control the pump. However, since controlling the pump is going to be part of the automation of a test with other devices, I am going to have to be able to program it via RS232 to send my own commands as needed.

I have learned more about programming it using hyperterminal, and will be trying that today. I will also update on how the Call Library Function Node works for me.

Thanks for your help.

[Dennis_Knutson]

Are you sure that the toolkit does not include the source code? The pdf file implies that since it talks about needing LabVIEW to make changes. They would not mention LabVIEW if all they provided was an exe.

[sramakrishan2 · Accepted solution]

Hey everyone,

After going through their manual better, I found out the way to properly send a frame. The manual at, www.isco.com/pcfiles/PartPDF/SL000004/UP00194U.pdf , section 7 specifically, covers it.

For the purposes of anyone who stumbles upon this thread, here is an example.

If you have your ,

destination ID (pump controller) = 1

message source (computer) = 00

and you are trying to send the message REMOTE which would switch the controller to 'REMOTE' mode.

Then you would send '1R006REMOTE1B' ,where 1 is the destination ID
R is just to acknowledge previous message received

00 is the ID of the computer

6 length of command

'REMOTE' the command itself, has to be in CAPS

1B checksum (which changes with command of course)

And you can do the same thing in LabVIEW, you can input '1R006REMOTE1B' at the Write VISA while keeping everything else the same as the snapshot of the vi I sent previously.

Dennis, I actually don't have the CD itself, but I assumed it wouldn't have nothing more than an executable since I downloaded their LabVIEW pump driver demo (http://www.isco.com/products/appnotes.asp?PL=105 under software utilities). I am currently trying to locate the CD here at the lab, and I will update this thread if I find anything useful.

I guess my problem has been solved.

Thank you Dennis for your input in this.

Regards,

Sandeep

[sramakrishan2]

Minor edit to my previous reply.
*message source is just one digit - 0
while command length takes up two digits in Hex - in my case 06

Thanks,

Sandeep

[LVBrendan]

For future reference, I purchased their Labview toolkit, it came with many different VI's and was very useful for automating data recording and integrating into my larger control code.

[FritjofB]

Where exactly can I download/buy this toolkit with the VI ? 

Thank you

[Shezaan]

Hello, 

It seems that the toolkit is something that is sold by Teledyne. There is a GPIB driver that is available on the National Instruments Instrument Driver Network which I will link below. It should have some VI's associated with it. However, I am not sure if there is a driver to communicate through serial. 

Link: Isco, Isco Inc.100D

http://sine.ni.com/apps/utf8/niid_web_display.model_page?p_model_id=1128

Regards, 

Shezaan Noorani

Applications Engineer

[FritjofB]

You can buy the driver for LabVIEW for 234.32$. The technical service as well as the website of Teledyne refers to "an external website".  Link below.

http://www.teledyneisco.com/pumps/misc