ORTEC/Multiport MCA card control using LABVIEW

[easyrider]

Hi

 I am not sure if this is the right place. I want to control multi channel analyzer(MCA) card using  Labview.  I have ORTEC MCA as well as Multiport II MCA from Canberra (http://www.ortec-online.com/Solutions/multichannel-analyzers.aspx). Basically  these cards are ADC and convert the analog signal from the detectors to digital which are then histogrammed. I have tried reading their manual but it is not very helpful. They do not come with their DLL's . They dont have any drivers for these cards. I was wondering if someone has already done this kind of work then may be they can help me with the intial part.

thank you

Saurabh

[Jorge_Fernández]

Hello easyrider,

There are no existent LabVIEW drivers for this device currently. However, I would suggest you to check this document which explains how to use NI-VISA to control a USB instrument.

You can also refer to this other document and to this article for more information, both of them will provide you with details about developing instrument control drivers.

Regards,

[easyrider]

Thanks Jorge. I will give it a try and the usbport idea seems a good place to start.

saurabh

[jcb91]

Hi easyrider,

Did you get anywhere with the USB connection? I'm also trying to communicate with an ORTEC MCB (their 926 model) and am getting a bit frustrated with their lack of any kind of description of the communications protocols...

Josh

[easyrider]

Actually, No.

 Instead, i found this another card lying in the lab- from FastCom Tec. Its pretty neat. You can control it using TTL pulses.

I contacted the Ortec people but nobody helped much. There is another card which was pretty neat. Its called Multiport MCA II. The software for that allows you to create these batch files where you set for how long to count and how many such spectrums to save. So we Labviewed the Temperature controller and started the Batch file and the Labview program at the same time.

So, as you can see , I might have not got it to work as I lost interest. But if you find any solution, please post it here as lot of people use Ortec.

thanks

saurabh

[QLab]

Hi, I'm using Ortec digiBase with USB. is there a driver available or i can develop one? The USB vendor id and product ids are: idVendor: 0x0A2D idProduct: 0x000F any help would be appreciated.

[Dennis_Knutson]

If you can get all of the low level details about the USB protocol from the vendor, then you can follow the instructions at the link above to create your won driver. It will not be simple. I would suggest you pursue the option listed here.