NI GPIB card for HP 5890 GC

[asdfwww]

We have an old HP 5890 GC and we want to use the NI PCI-GPIB card for communicating with the GC using the Agilent's ChemStation software.
I know from this instruction http://digital.ni.com/public.nsf/allkb/122F2F9080BD8424862571BC005508D4 that it is possible and involving the use of Agilent I/O Libraries I/O Config software:

The Agilent I/O Libraries I/O Config will need to be used to configure the NI GPIB Device. To configure the Device correctly, do the following:

1. In I/O Config, choose your board from the list of available resources.
2. Select Configure.
3. Set the SICL Interface Name to hp82341, the Bus Address to 30 and make sure to check the System Controller box.
4. Select OK. Now the configured board should be listed under Configured Interfaces

Note: Your board must have the SICL Interface name set to "hp82341" even though you are using a National Instruments board.

However, I could not follow that instruction, because the Agilent I/O Libraries I/O Config did not recognize the NI GPIB card so I could not choose my board right at the step 1,
Could someone explain it in more details please.

[Chris G in AE]

Hi asdfwww,

It seems you have an issue recognizing your NI-GPIB card.  To begin, make sure your board has the SICL Interface name set to "hp82341".  Also, do the instructions in the ChemStation installation guide say to use the NI-GPIB driver or an Agilent specific driver?  If you need to use the NI driver, you can find it here.  I hope this helps!

Sincerely,

Chris G.
National Instruments

[asdfwww]

Hi Chris Garyet

Thank you very much for your answer.

We did not have any problem installing the NI-GPIB card with the latest driver from NI (version 2.5). We even succeeded in communicating to the GC through the card using the NI Measurement & Automation application.

The problem is that the Agilent I/O Libraries I/O Config could not recognize the NI card. I uploaded the screenshot here.

 

As you see, there's no NI card available on the list. So I'm stuck right at the step 1, cannot proceed to the next step of changing the SICL Interface Name etc.

So how can I set the SICL Interface name to "hp82341" ?

About the Agilent ChemStation installation guide, they always suggest their own hardware hence their driver and there's no mention of using third party card.

[Chris G in AE]

Hey asdfwww,

It sounds like you were able to get your NI-GPIB to work with Measurement and Automation Explorer, which is a great first step to verify functionality. My best advice at this time is to contact Agilent about how to get the GPIB card to register with the Agilent I/O Libraries I/O Config. They should be able to walk you through the process fairly painlessly. 

Please don't hesitate to contact National Instruments support in the future with any further questions by post or phone. Thanks again, and good luck resolving this issue!

Sincerely,

Chris G.
Applications Engineering
National Instruments

[bramtech]

Hello,

Can you let me know if you have resolve this problem.  I would like to do exactly the same thing. 

Thanks

[casuic]

In order to solve your problem you will need to find the Agilent IO Libraries software directory and locate the INTFCFG folder.  In this folder is a txt file titled intfcfg.  Resave this file as an .ini file (you may have to change folder view properties to show file extensions). Open the file and search for the line of code beginning with [cfgni488] delete the semi colon from the 2 lines directly under this line.  This will allow you to use the Agilent IOCONFIG utility to configure a NI GPIB card located at the GPIIB0 address.  Alternatively a file named intfcfg.ini can be created with the following lines:

[cfgni488]

AutoDetectCards=false

GPIB0=yes

GPIBx=yes (where x is the gpib address number of your card)

With your instrument attached to your GPIB card launch the National Instruments MAX software.  Click on Devices and Interfaces to bring up the list of available interface cards.  Right click the GPIB card and select scan for instruments.  Under the configuration window for the card a list of connected instruments will appear.  Make not of the instruments PAD (primary address).  This number will be used in the ChemStaion configuration.  Under the device configuration set the GPIB Interface ID to GPIB0 if no other gpib cards or devices are installed on the system. Otherwise select GPIB0.  This will be used as the VISA interface ID for the Agilent configuration utility.

Now run the Agilent IOCONFIG utility.  Select the GPIB using NI488.2.  Set the SCIL name to hp82341.  Set the Bus address to 30 and the logical to 7.  Check the system controler check box.  Set the VISA Interface ID to correspond to the GPIB address of your card that you selected in the MAX configuration.  Your instrument should now be ready to run using ChemStation.

Now open the chemstaion configuration utility and select add instrument.  Next under the configure tab select configure instrument. Select your instrument  and set the HPIB address to correspond with the PAD number from the MAX software for the instruments location. 

These steps should solve your problem.  Using this method I'm able to run Chemstation V A.06.04 on a Windows XP machine.