GPIB disconnection problem

[waterghost4]

Dear all,

I am experiencing sudden and random GPIB disconnection of the Agilent oscilloscope DSO5014 and multimeter 34401A in my system.

My PC controls a total of 7 standard equipment through GPIB interface, nut only these 2 instruments hasve frequent disconnection.

I have tried changing the GPIB cables and the connection method, but it does not help.

Does anyone encountered a similar situation before or has any suggestions?

Thanks & Regards

[JÞB]

Waterghost,

You are going to have to clarify.

1) what do you mean by disconnect? is an error reported? if so what error?

2) What hardware are you using as a GPIB controller?

3) List all of the equipment on the bus by model. (there are a lot of non-compliant devices) a screen-shot from MAX would do the trick!

4)What software are you using to talk to the GPIB instruments? (LabVIEW, VB, other?)

5)are you using 488.2, VISA, IVI or other drivers?

And have you tried disconnecting the other instruments?

Jeff

[waterghost4]

Hi Jeff,

Thanks for your reply.

1) It means that the GPIB card suddenly could not detect the equipment. I have 7 standard equipments connected by GPIB, and this is used in my production line.

I am using "Agilent Connection Expert" to check if all the instruments are on the bus. At the start, it can detect the Agilent oscilloscope and multimeter. After some time, my VB program will hang and when I check using the "Agilent Connection Expert", I found that the GPIB card cannot detect the oscilloscope and multimeter.

2)  I am using a GPIB card from ADlink, LPCI-3488A. I have asked ADlink if there could be an incompatibility issue, but he said that there should not be an issue because the equipment that I am using are fairly common.

3) The 7 equipments I am using are

a) Agilent Multimeter 34401A

b) Agilent Oscilloscope DSO5014

c) Power Hi-tester HIOKI 3332

d) NF AC Power Supply EPO2000S

e) Electronic Load KIKUSUI PLZ164W (2 units)

f) Electronic Load KIKUSUI PLZ334W

4)  The software I am using is VB6.

5) I am using VISA.

Sometimes, only the Agilent oscilloscope disconnect, while at other times, the Agilent multimeter disconnect.

When I change the oscilloscope to Tektronix TDS3014C, it is ok and there is no problem.

I consulted the Agilent application engineer but he is of not much help.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated, as this problem has a great impact on my production output quantity.

[Steven_T]

Hello,

I'm afraid that we do not know very much about GPIB boards from other manufacturers.  If there is a disconnection problem the problem could be with the controller software, the controller itself (Adlink), or the instrument (Agilent).

I would recommend talking with the vendors of your equipment.  I'm afraid that I don't see how NI could be to blame unless you are using  NI-VISA.

Thanks,

Steven T.

[JÞB]

Ghost

see pg 87 of the manual for the "c) Power Hi-tester HIOKI 3332" 

This one's your problem child- not compliant w/ parallel poling-  not 488.2 compliant- not fully 488.0 compliant (there is no 488.1).  So when you start looking at service requests- the bus goes to undefined states.  swaping the TDS scope for the agilient masks your real trouble. Most likely the drivers use differing synchronization methods.

You might want to check in the manuals for equipment d)-f) too.  I stopped at c) after finding this issue.  You may need to hang a 488.0 and a 488.2 bus and put the offending equipment off by itself so it doesn't make trouble for the "good" equipment.

Good Luck!