NI GPIB-USB HS - Error during scan for instruments from NI MAX

[FraSor]

Hi all, im trying to comunicate with some instruments: Waveform Generetor HP 33120A and Oscilloscope TEKTRONIX TDS 694C through a National Instrument GPIB-USB HS. I have an evaluation labVIEW version and I'm waiting for the valid version. I have NI VISA 16.0 and NI 488.2 16.0 installed. My problem is that when I scan from instruments from NI MAX there appears an error:

" VISA: (Hex 0xBFFF0015) Timeout expired before operation completed".

Opening Visa test panel, in the section INPUT/OUTPUT there is no error writing a command and MAX recognize the GPIB primary address of the instruments. The problem should be while reading from instruments. It's like if it doesn't answer to the *IDN?\n command. I read about the file NiVisa tulip.dll and I enabled it. But there is always the same problem. Can you help me? Thank you and best regards.

Francesco Soriano.

[Ben]

You speak of two instruments but did not specify which one you were having trouble talking to.

make sure they are configured for unique addresses.

Check the manual for each and verify the recognize a "IDN?" command. Old gear did not always support that command.

Check the termination character they expect.

That is all I can say now,

Ben

[Albert.Geven]

next to Ben's remarks: Did you write *IDN?\n in a string that has the display style on \codes display?

[Minions]

While your HP/Agilent/Keysight 33120A will understand the SCPI syntax, your Tektronix TDS 694C Oscilloscope will not.  It operates on IEEE-488.2 (1987) as stated on page 3-137 of the Users Manual.  As such, it will not understand the '*IDN?\n' query; however, it should understand the previous communication standard using the 'id?\n' query.  The manual does not get into a great deal of depth as to what other commands this scope may understand remotely.

[FraSor]

Hi Ben, Albert and Minions and thank you for your answering.

I tryed a lot at work today too, now we have the professional version of labVIEW. I checked on the instruments's manuals for the *IDN? command and and i tryed the command with the end of string (EOS : *IDN?\n) and id?\n for the Oscilloscope. I tryed to comunicate also with "Agilent B1500A Semiconductor Device Analyzer" but there is always the same problem. I'm only trying to comunicate with one instrument at a time. They all don't answer to the ID command. I think it's strange that MAX recognize they are instruments and the addresses of comunication they have on GPIB board but i still cannot comunicate with them. 

Thank you all for your help, do you have other suggestions  on what i could do? I'd like to get out of this problem..

[Albert.Geven]

as a minimum you can set in the visibility options of the string control to display 

in the attached vi, you see three visibility profiles (display styles) of a string,

you can change the display style when right clicking on the string.

And you can try both CR and LF?

[Minions]

---

I think it's strange that MAX recognize they are instruments and the addresses of comunication they have on GPIB board but i still cannot comunicate with them. 

If you do a GPIB Scan for instruments within NI-MAX, what happens?  Can you query the instruments through NI-MAX?  If you are able to do that, then you should be able to perform a simple VISA write then a VISA Read if you are expecting a response from the instrument followed by a VISA Close when completed.

[FraSor]

Hi guys,

finally i got out of this trouble.. What a relief   🙂

We used another interfase: GPIB-USB B, the first was a GPIB_USB HS. I don't know if the first didn't work properly or it was a bad solution for the instruments i'm using.

I'm continuing with the remote control by labVIEW now.

I thank you very much for your support.

Best regards

Francesco Soriano.