New PCs with GPIB Card Slot

[AnalogEE]

Hello all,

Let me just go ahead and make this brief with bulletpoints. 

• I work in a small company and we need to update an automated measurement setup as cheaply as possible
• Current setup: measurement equipment is pretty outdated (HP) and uses GPIB for I/O to Visual Basic and Excel on a Dell Optiplex GX620 PC
• I'm trying to convince leadership to purchase LabView and buy a new PC (the PC is for unrelated but legitimate reasons), but for this to work, I need to make sure the new PC can still connect with the old equipment through GPIB. Any additional cost with upgrading the equipment itself will spell doom for this project as I am new here.
• Equipment make and model:
  • DMM: HP33401A
  • DC Load: HP6060B
  • Power supplies: HP6012A
  • 'Scope: HP54602B (not a critical connection to GPIB)
  • GPIB controllers: KIKUSUI DPO2212A

What has been tried:

• I laid out a prototype LabView interface with the one license we have available (2013 version) to prove that this would work. It does connect with and control the DMMs so far on a HP PC with Windows 7 (don't have the model available at the moment)
• The connection works only through VISA GPIB and not GPIB. Looking at the 'Measurement Instruments Explorer' also demonstrated that only with the VISA I was able to *IDN? the devices and go forward from there

So given all of these details, the question is what can I do to make sure that the new PC will still connect with the old equipment? I'm looking at hardware specs and see PCIe, as expected. I just want to make sure we don't buy it and find out that it does not have a GPIB card spot available. The port is no big deal since I can borrow it from another computer, but the slot still has to be on the motherboard.

Block Diagram of Measurement Setup (Bare minimum)

[Curt_C]

Hi,

You could always use a GPIB to USB setup. I work in the IR industry and have used these without any issues or conflicts with frame grabber cards or other hardware.

https://www.ni.com/en-us/support/model.gpib-usb-hs-.html

If you need to use a PCIe setup, I recommend using an Industrial PC.

Give the guys at BSI a call and they'll set you up with any type of interface you need installed.

https://www.bsicomputer.com/products/rackmount-computer-1

Good luck with your project

Curt

[cstorey]

You don't mention how the instruments collect data or at what rate.  This can be an issue with USB.  I maintain lab with a dozen setups with 10-20 instruments of that vintage attached via mainly GPIB.  I've run into problems with Win7 and Win10 power settings and USB-GPIB-HS (https://www.ni.com/en-ca/support/model.gpib-usb-hs.html). You should be fine for compatiblilty and upgrading.

For most setups that run either unattened for long periods, or have high data throughput in short bursts, (measure for 2-10mins then dump 1MB of data, repeat N times) I use the PCIe-GPIB (https://www.ni.com/en-ca/shop/select/gpib-instrument-control-device?modelId=122828) card which is the same price as USB and I find much more reliable.  There's also the newer PCIe-GPIB+ cards which I haven't used.

Hope that helps.
Craig

[Curt_C]

Hi,

Craig makes a good point on any long running tests. I have run into to issues using a GPIB to USB interface and Windows power/security settings. For short functional tests, 5 to 10 minutes long, I haven't had any issues with the GPIB to USB.

Curt

[AnalogEE]

Hi,

The data rates shouldn't be a problem. The application is an automated thermal resistance calculator which involves collecting junction temperature (FLIR cam), case temp (DMM1), Isense (DMM2), and voltage drop (DMM3). The vintage custom program I've seen here takes data b/w 1-2 times a second. Overall I don't see a problem with data rates unless there is something under the hood to worry about. 

In terms of duration, we don't really run these more than 5-10 minutes and a person is always there to monitor the situation since we deal with high voltages and high temperatures. It's by no means a production station and is more of an engineering station for evaluating designs. 

[AnalogEE]

Under what conditions does it become necessary to use GPIB to USB adapters? I ask this because with the current Windows 7 setup on the DELL OPTIPLEX GX820 there is no USB connection. The GPIB connects directly to the PC but it is only detectable through VISA. My ideal situation is that we buy the new PC and it has a PCI slot for GPIB or already has a GPIB port so I can replicate the same scenario. 

[AnalogEE]

Regarding the compatibility and upgrade: what is the difference between USB-GPIB-HS and HS+? I'd think that HS+ is the newer version but for some reason HS is a bit more expensive ($1k vs $700). Would like to understand more about their differences before making the final purchase. The product page doesn't tell you a whole lot about this particular question on differences. 

EDIT: I found this manual which looks pretty helpful (https://www.ni.com/pdf/manuals/370426t.pdf) 

[Curt_C]

Hi,

In most cases I use GPIB to USB for portability or to use with a laptop setup.

You should use a PCIe interface for reliability.

Curt

[paw510]

FYI: I use GPIB controllers connected via USB and did not detect any reliability problems so far. I'm using basically two models: USB-GPIB-HS+ (NI) and USB3488A (ADLink). The latter was almost twice cheaper but I don't have any experience with Labview (I'm using my own code written in VB.NET or C#) so I can't tell you how well it works with Labview. I'm often running intensive acquisition (connection to 5+ devices scanned every second, reading a 50kB scope trace every 10 seconds or so), sometimes it was running unattended for weeks or more and I never had problems. With my experience I can't tell why the PCI version of the board should be better in terms of reliability.

What do you mean by "The connection works only through VISA GPIB and not GPIB. " ?
Visa is only a higher level interface, Visa functions call low-level GPIB driver functions anyway. I'm using Visa too and don't see much differences between interfacing to Visa and to GPIB libraries.

[AnalogEE]

> With my experience I can't tell why the PCI version of the board should be better in terms of reliability.

The PCI issue is not about reliability. It is about ensuring that a GPIB port can be installed on the new PC. Since the old PC has PCI, the likelihood of mismatch is minimized if the new PC has PCI

> What do you mean by "The connection works only through VISA GPIB and not GPIB. " ?

It literally means that when I use GPIB protocols, it does not communicate with the devices, but when I use VISA, it does. The way I checked that is by going to 'Measurement Instruments Explorer' and trying it out with GPIB and VISA. The other method was by just placing the block diagrams of VISA vs. GPIB resources and seeing that only VISA can communicate properly.

Thanks